still mid august: recovering, lost and found in a walk in chinatown, obon, thai summer night market

sunday morning. started off by listening to a sunny reggae vinyl I had picked up with a slight 80s sound from new orleans a few months ago. it’s funny, even though I have listened to my vinyl collection so many times and I think I know what a certain lp will sound like, it always sounds like I’m listening to it for the first or second time again when I put it on. that’s the charm of analog I suppose!

made myself a green smoothie (one of the little weekend pleasures I look forward to these days now that I spend the weekdays working again) and did some housework. 

it’s been a pretty jam packed week with ups and downs. I heard news that a classmate passed away and it made me feel dissasociated, so the attendings let me off pretty early from work and I took a calming walk through chinatown. I took a route that I don’t usually take, and popped into a few mesmerizing stores which had tacky gifts, but also a surprisingly dense selection of spiritually adjacent objects. 

after purchasing matcha pocky, a jade bangle, and red maneki neko, I proceeded to walk to la state historic park, where I stumbled upon the la river farmer’s market. it definitely seemed improved from when I was last there a few months ago, so I purchased some magnolia green tea perfect for summer, heirloom tomatoes, golden raspberries, and figs. a delicious selection! afterwards, I found a patch of grass at the edge of the park, laid out my picnic blanket, and though I intitially brought my laptop with the expectation I would do work, I ended up just crying and calling one of my best friends eliana to catch up on the phone. the wind rustled through the trees above me, and my eyes caught the silhouette of a kite stuck in the branches above me. I felt like that kite. thankfully after speaking with eliana I felt more neutral and was able to walk home at sunset, watching the beautiful dusky skyline. on my way home, I popped into a dim sum joint near my house out of curiousity and it looked like they had sticky rice dim sum and are open until 2 am everyday. I look forward to trying it someday!

other summer memories: seeing khruangbin at the hollywood bowl, watching didi at alhambra, going to the thai summer night market with lil j and ryan (and trying delicious scallop khao soi for the first time)! 

I was also very happy that I ended on a strong note for my first sub i, and happily surprised to hear I have monday off. I slept in on saturday until noon, so I really needed the extra day to recover!

this weekend, we did some shopping at the hightide stationery store at the row dtla (I got a cute fish shaped pouch), checked out the in sheeps clothing record store, got coffee at go get em tiger, admired the beautiful architecture, ate japanese fried chicken for lunch, and watched indiana jones at night. sunday we had lunch at azay (I had a delicious crab curry!), watched a few taiko drumming performances and bonsai exhibition for obon festival in little tokyo, picked up a cooking magazine from kinokuniya, then came home to find respite from the summer heat. 

a lovely weekend overall! until next time xx