Currently, I don’t have much sense or lamentation about the passage of time during the New Year or on my birthday, because most plans and feelings around time are continuous.
Moving to SF was undoubtedly a milestone, a completely different life before and after. Since then, time has become less important. 2025 was the first full year I lived in San Francisco. Every month, there are various events in the city, marking points in the year like solar terms, too many to count. Although I’ve participated in most of them before, the sense of involvement is different as a resident. Moreover, I have fully experienced San Francisco’s climate cycle: warm winter, mild spring, cold summer, and hot autumn.
Annual Summary
| Month | Activities |
|---|---|
| January | New Year's Eve in NY, SF's new mayor inauguration, North Bay cloud sea, SFMOMA, Chinatown Market |
| February | Bernal Heights, De Young Museum, Magnolia Festival at Botanical Garden, SF Chinese New Year Parade |
| March | Tennis lessons, Tulips, Cycling on Golden Gate Bridge |
| April | Crosstown Trail #1, #2, "Little Switzerland of the Bay Area", SFFILM Festival, SFMOMA (Ruth Asawa), SF Art Fair, SF Cherry Blossom Festival, Dogfest |
| May | Crosstown Trail #2, Ocean Beach, Wedding in Hawaii |
| June | Road trip to LA (Beyonce concert), San Diego, Irvine, Joshua Tree, First Thursday Street Party, Fireworks, Nintendo SF opening, Watching dolphins |
| July | Pride Month/Pride Parade, Angel Island, Camping in North Bay, SF Book Fair, Hiking/Camping in Yosemite, Crosstown Trail #3 |
| August | Outside Lands, Portland/Seattle/Mt. Rainier |
| September | Whale watching in Pacifica, Transit Weekend |
| October | De Young, SF Tea Fair |
| November | Team Offsite @ Oracle Park, NY, West Coast Craft, Company Party @ California Academy of Sciences |
| December | Crosstown Trail #4, LA (David Tao concert), Legion of Honor |
Resident of the Bay Area
This year, my mindset shifted from an Outsider to a Resident (though from a U.S. perspective, I’m still an Alien). Previously, I felt like a migrant worker in the Bay Area, staying briefly; now, I feel this is my home, like an adopted stray dog.
Unexpectedly, living here, I began to take an interest in many things I hadn’t touched before. For example, I suddenly started to like sourdough bread. I bought some at the supermarket recently, not for any particular reason, just on a whim. I used to dislike this kind of hard “white person food” bread, but I became obsessed after eating it. If stored properly, sourdough can be reheated to a very soft state, and the sour taste suits my palate. I started exploring SF’s sourdough options and found them everywhere, including several famous ones. It turns out that modern sourdough originated in SF; people in the Gold Rush era took it into the mountains for sustenance. There’s even a special fermentation starter called “San Francisco Sourdough.”
Then I became interested in dark chocolate, only to find that everyone speaks of San Francisco’s unique dark chocolate culture, focusing on the origin of cocoa beans. Living here, I can easily access world-renowned chocolate. For someone like me with fleeting interests, this is a great feeling: suddenly liking something and realizing I live in its home base—like a mouse born in a rice bin. Perhaps because I’m immersed in it, I often see this content subconsciously, so I naturally want to understand it. Thus, from psychology to physiology (gut flora), this was the year I merged with the city.
Living in SF has given me a different view of the “Bay Area” concept. When I lived in the South Bay, I felt trapped and didn’t want to go anywhere; in SF, I’m more willing to explore the Bay Area. I often commute to the South Bay for work, driving down the Peninsula to Silicon Valley, feeling everything is quiet and varied. Stopping anywhere, I can find good food, like a road trip. This year, I also visited Berkeley and Oakland more. Berkeley, many times, was for movies at BAMPFA or groceries at Berkeley Bowl, but I was also attracted by the beautiful neighborhoods. Oakland is highly underrated; there’s plenty of Chinese food, prices are cheaper than SF and South Bay, and it has a Ktown that SF lacks. Lake Merritt is indeed beautiful. If not for safety concerns, Oakland would be very similar to Brooklyn or Manhattan. North Bay is also within an hour’s drive. In 2026, I hope to explore the entire Bay Area more.
SF Crosstown Group Hiking
SF is a city, but between mountains and sea. At the same time, it’s very small, a 7x7 mile square, with two diagonal trails: the Crosstown Trail and the Double Crosstown Trail. I’ve wanted to walk these trails for a long time, but walking them in one go would probably take all day, so I split them into segments and invited friends to join. In 2025, I organized four events: one from Glen Park to Forest Hill, entering a canyon then climbing a hill, making it hard to believe such geographic variation exists in the center of SF. The second segment was from Stern Grove to Fort Funston, from a forest park to the Pacific. The third followed the main road in the northwest corner towards Lands End, with views of the Golden Gate Bridge throughout. The last one passed through downtown neighborhoods, weaving between several parks, from City Hall to Chinatown, Russian Hill, Little Italy, and finally encountering a group of SF’s famous cherry-headed conures. Walking the Crosstown Trail gave me the chance to explore many unknown corners of the city, connecting points into a whole; the terrain varies diversely within 7 miles, every few steps bringing a new world. In 2026, I will undoubtedly continue to finish these two trails.
Travel
Due to status issues, I couldn’t leave the U.S. this year, but I still visited several major cities and national parks like Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Mt. Rainier. LA, Seattle, New York—old places where the theme was just eating, drinking, and having fun, but I tried to see a more diverse side. Previously in Seattle, I went more to Bellevue/Kirkland, now I explore downtown Seattle more; in LA, I went to Downtown and Silver Lake more; in New York, it was eastern Brooklyn, and I cycled across two bridges in NY for New Year’s Eve. In short, finding “more chaotic” places that are often more vibrant. This kind of travel allows me to understand these cities more even without living there, a kind of long-term urban investigation. Visiting familiar cities repeatedly, they gradually become my enclaves. In 2026, I will explore more U.S. cities, as it’s foreseeable I still can’t leave the country.
I also did some train travel; I’ve always loved train travel and finally experienced the famous Coast Starlight this year. One segment was from Portland to Seattle, with guides in the observation car explaining the Gold Rush history along the railway—the line itself is part of a National Park. Another segment was from LA to SF; unfortunately, I encountered a storm, and fallen trees blocked the way for two hours, taking nearly fifteen hours in total. If you want the best Coast Starlight experience, just take the Santa Barbara segment. In 2026, I want to experience the California Zephyr, but I’m not sure if I’ll take the whole route.
Every holiday, seeing everyone go to Asia or Europe, I feel I’m missing out on vacation opportunities by not being able to leave the U.S. But on second thought, you can have a vacation without leaving the U.S., even staying at home for a week off to relax. Travel does not equal rest; don’t force rest upon travel.
Books, Movies, and Music
A major change is that my reviews for books, movies, and music have moved to paper. I haven’t posted reviews on Douban for a long time, but I still want an electronic archive. I tried Notion, but I don’t like putting things in someone else’s database, and Notion is a very slow website. With the help of AI, I easily added a review section to my blog, using NeoDB as a source to fetch covers and basic info, then converting handwritten reviews into text. Handwritten reviews often stimulate more thought about a work. This process still needs refinement, but the data is mine, and the process is more flexible.
In SF, there are still opportunities to meet many filmmakers. I met Lucy Liu at the “Rosemead” screening, SFFILM gave Park Chan-wook an award and invited him to screen “Decision to Leave” at SFMOMA. At Roxie, I also met Bi Gan and saw his “Resurrection” (狂野时代)—looking back, maybe it was better not to have met.
This year’s reading theme started unintentionally with Invaded Paradise (被入侵的天堂), and then I became interested in Latin American history, finding more related books. After getting into it, I feel Latin America can be a theme for exploration throughout 2026, including music (lately I mainly listen to Samba, Tango, Bossa Nova), movies, and hopefully a chance to travel to Central and South America.
Manga’s Influence
In 2025, I read more manga. Previously, I couldn’t get into manga, always feeling the stories were too formulaic. But now I think manga has many benefits. First, manga is very niche, and the approach is basically to break down professional field knowledge and feed it to you in a story, making it easy to enter a field; maybe there will be manga about the entire AI industry soon. Second, manga is suitable for reading before bed, being entertaining without bringing strong visual stimulation.
Baseball
I watched Oblivion Battery (失忆投捕) and became interested in baseball (entry into baseball still relied on the Japanese), of course, the Japanese drama Gekokujo Kyuji (下克上棒球少年) also played a part. Interest quickly moved offline because I found I was within walking distance of the SF Giants’ home stadium. I jumped from Japanese high school baseball to the American professional baseball that even Japanese pro athletes dream of. Tickets are cheap during the season; nosebleed seats are only twenty-some dollars, and you can feel the charm of live baseball. I didn’t watch American sports (baseball, football) before and didn’t understand why so many fans in jerseys appeared in the city during games, but the Giants and baseball brought me closer to the city. During trips to LA and SD, I also visited local stadiums. In 2026, I want to visit more MLB stadiums. Baseball’s charm is hard to explain; I’ve seen Shohei Ohtani’s Splash Hit at Oracle Park and witnessed the Giants’ walk-off home run with bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.
I realized baseball is really suitable for a distracted person like me; having it on in the background actually helps me focus on other things. Sometimes I even just turn on the radio to hear the commentary. Baseball rules are complex for beginners, but once you understand them, it’s easy to imagine the situation on the field. As background music, it makes me more serious about the task at hand.
A dad joke: Do you know why baseball is the best sport? Because no other sport has a baseball bat.
Jazz
Another big influence was Blue Giant; again, I learned a lot of professional Jazz knowledge from the manga. Then this knowledge turned into real-world interest. The U.S. is naturally a Jazz powerhouse. When I went to NY, I had no plans and asked a friend for a jazz bar recommendation. I walked into the famous Village Vanguard and found it mentioned in the manga a couple of days later. So then I visited several famous Jazz bars in the West Village: Smalls Jazz Club/Mezzrow Jazz Club, and had an excellent omurice at Tomi Jazz. The atmosphere of live Jazz cannot be compared to recordings; that sense of improvisation is unforgettable.
Journaling
In the age of AI, I enjoy the moments without AI even more. Keeping a journal is a pre-AI thing, even a pre-digital thing. But AI actually makes journaling freer. Humans and the real world are multimodal; listening, speaking, reading, and writing are not limited to text or a certain language. Since the information age began, our interaction with tools has been limited to text and programming languages; the medium was restricted. Now AI can understand handwriting, voice, images, and video—this is a more advanced abstraction compared to programming languages. Restrictions are broken, providing the best chance for humans to return to the real world. I used to worry about the archiving, organizing, and indexing of physical records, but I could never stick to digital recording software. The best use of AI is that we no longer need to rely on a single digital tool; now I can express myself freely without worrying about the medium.
Recently, I’ve bought many notebooks and planners, as if I want to make up for all the writing I haven’t done in the last ten years. Perhaps journaling is my version of “returning to the countryside.”
In terms of choices, I bought 3 Plotters in 2025. I gradually realized the benefits of loose-leaf binders—freedom. I got three Plotters for life and work records, while my original Traveler’s Notebook is purely for travel records. In 2026, I will use journals more to record life and explore the entire process from reality to virtual—after all, isn’t this the golden age of Y2K?
Work
Changes are so fast; one needs to adapt to AI in every step of work. There are so many things to try; simple programming skills are no longer important, but rather whether one truly understands the problem being solved. More important are rules, processes, and skills; many things should be automated.
Regarding AI anxiety, I’m reminded of a podcast talking about summer and winter homework during student days. Back then, we treated it as a big deal, even if we had to copy it all on the last day. But the truth is, teachers didn’t care either, and no one would look. Summer homework is more like a useless effort under a tacit agreement between teachers and students. Now many worries feel similar; looking back, they are all quite meaningless.
What will come will come, just as 2026 will inevitably replace 2025.
【2024】City, Better Life
【2021】I Want to Be Happy
【2020】Nothing Happened
【2019】Keep Walking
【2018】The Boat Has Passed Ten Thousand Mountains
【2017】The Eight-Year War Has Begun
【2016】A Good Farewell
【2015】Existence is Rational
【2014】How I Exist
【2013】How Should I Exist