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Playlist #12: Future Boom

#12: Future Boom

O1. Mincha - Lovin' (SevnthWonder Remix)

O2. Ariana Grande - Into You (Sevnth Remix)

O3. Dua Lipa - New Love (Jarreau Vandal Remix)

O4. Ryan Weaver - Octahate (Tatsuro Remix)

O5. Madeon - You're On (Tatsuro Remix)

O6. Inas X - Love Is (SevnthWonder Remix)  

O7. Dirty Chocolate - Underwater Level

O8. Abby Diamond - Love To Watch You Leave

O9. Gravez - Seek

1O. Haan808 - Timeshift

11. StarRo - Milk

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It's been a while since I've made a playlist and I've been listening to a lot of good music, so naturally, I had to share a new one.
I was unsure how I wanted to put together this playlist because to be honest, I really don't know how to label all these sub-genres of music these days. I'd like to think of this particular mix as "Future-R&B" although the community has labeled a lot of these electronic artist's and their take on R&B with an electric remix as "Future Bass", but even then the label gets thrown around to different sounds. Like, what exactly makes a song "future bass"? But I digress, regardless of what we want to label this new genre of music, the vibe I was going for was like, if we were in a futuristic setting and maybe lived in outer space or something, what kind of R&B would I listen to on a night drive home? (I guess technically, it would always be night...but w/e. You get the point.)

I have some tried and true fav artists, namely Sevnth. Like he's probably legit my favorite artist when it comes to futuristically remixing R&B music from the past. I've recently really liked a lot of Tatsuro's stuff too. It's a little more fast-paced compared to Sevnth, who generally dabbles with R&B with some Trap sounds, but if you like any music like this, those are two artists I would definitely check out. I honestly think they deserve more recognition. I would say this genre of music sorta sounds like Disclosure (Deep House) mashed up with Porter Robinson (EDM) with some Aaliyah vocals. Does that even make sense? Probably not.

Anyway, I don't even know what I'm rambling on about. I just hope you guys will enjoy the mix.

Until next time-

I Went To Hogwarts! (Sorta...)

Continuing on with my London adventures, one of the first things I did after purchasing my flight tickets a year in advanced, was buying these tickets for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London where they had the making of the Harry Potter movies! All the real props and replicas from the movies were showcased here, how could I not go?

It actually started raining the day I went, which to be honest, made the atmosphere that much better but it was freezing cold. Coming from California, I took like a hoodie and small jacket. Big mistakes were made. It didn't matter though. All that mattered was that I was about to see the world of Harry Potter up close and personal. I was so damn excited. In fact, I was SO excited that I actually had no idea where the location of this place would be. Turns out, it's not exactly IN London. I mean....it is, but it's like wayyyyyy North east of London and I was in Westminster which is Central London. It was about an hour drive up there. Whoops. I literally told my friend about it the day I got there and he was like, "Great planning. Do you even know where it is?" And then, like legit the night before, I had to figure out how to get there. Yeah, when it comes to events and such, I kinda tend to just wing it. I'm an adult. Don't judge me.

THE GREAT HALL
First stop was The Great Hall! There weren't any floating candles sadly, but I did get to see the costumes that the cast members wore at Hogwarts.



THE YULE BALL

THE BOYS DORM
Harry slept here! No, you can't lay in the bed, sadly.

TRAVELOGRAPHY: London Night

True story ya'll, I did it. I conquered my fear of going on airplanes alone and it was for a grueling 11 hours, but it was so worth it. I would do it all over again if I could. 

I decided to spread these posts out because trying to showcase my trip to London all in one post just doesn't seem like it would do it justice. And it's also just straight up impossible. I have way too many pictures. Anyway, just to reiterate, this was my first International trip. It was a bit of a culture shock, even though everyone there speaks English. London has always been a dream city of mine. I'm not sure how to explain it, I just love British culture and I don't mean because of Doctor Who (which I've never seen) or hot British men or hell, the cast of Game of Thrones. This fascination goes way back to my first year in college. I had a huge poster of Big Ben above my bed because I thought the architecture was just so cool. And that's the thing, the architecture is a big reason as to why I love London so much. The contrast between historical old buildings and the modern new buildings is what draws me to this city. After all, I am all about CONTRAST.

It also helped that I knew someone from London. He helped me learn a lot about British culture and phrases like "SWEAR DOWN FAM?" and "JOG ON MATE" and "BRUV" which is like the equivalent of "bruh". Yeah...okay, so maybe it doesn't help that he's from East London and only knows street slang but it still sorta helped. 

I'm not gonna lie, the minute I got off the plane I thought, "Wow I don't know what people are talking about with jet lag, I don't feel that shit at a--" and then bam. I literally died for the next three days. I came crawling out into the streets only at the dead of night. It was hauntingly beautiful actually, but it was sorta stupid at the same time. Therefore, I took a lot of photographs at night, and because it was late I didn't really feel like hauling my camera around. I know, what is wrong with me? I did, however, take around my handy dandy Fuji x70. Low light performance on this thing isn't its strong suit but it was pretty decent. However, I did try and capture the beauty of the night while walking around like a lost tourist at 1am and such. Actually, I probably looked more like a drunk local instead. 

Speaking of "hauntingly beautiful", Buckingham Palace is something else at 3am. I also kinda accidentally stumbled upon it because I really had no idea where I was going. Isn't yolo adventuring just the best? 

You can eat ramen until midnight on a week night!

London at night was lit fam. Can't wait to come back and try everything during daylight hours.

|| Listening To: Dornik - "Drive" ||

Stay tuned:
- Warner Bros. Studio Tour - Making of Harry Potter
- Shopping In London
- London Guide For First Timers: By an actual first timer

How I Saved Enough Money To Travel

(photo cred)

Are you one of those people who checks Facebook or Instagram and you see photos of your friends and wonder 'how the hell are you traveling AGAIN?' because that's literally my life. My friends and acquaintances and coworkers are always going somewhere and I've wondered how people can be that loaded. Here I am, 28 years old, and have never traveled anywhere outside of the continental U.S. To be honest, my excuse has always been that I was too poor to travel, but looking back on all the stupid crap I've bought over the years, I know damn well that money isn't the real factor. It's how you use your money. Anyone and I really mean ANYONE can travel the world, but it does take money and it takes some patience.

So, for the first time in my life, I will be traveling and going to London at the end of the month. I'm extremely excited to be sharing this post with you all, because I feel like a lot of people have been in my shoes and have always wanted to travel but felt like they were too broke to do it. I'm going to be extremely honest with you guys, this was--EASY to do. It just took a year to do it! So read on if you want to find out how I managed to save enough money for this trip.

THIS. RIGHT. HERE. This app is literally one of the sole reasons I was able to save up for this trip. I saved $1,300 which basically pays for every expense I need and more for my one week trip. So what is digit? Digit is an app that you link to your checking account and it saves money for you every month. Now, I know that sounds scary, and believe me I'm the most skeptical person ever and I didn't trust this thing at first, but it's actually had great reviews from very legit websites and it made sense. What the app does is it monitors the spending in your checking account and saves money every day accordingly. So if you have $100 in your checking balance, digit will squirrel away $0.50 or something small like that. If you have $1000 sitting in your checking balance, it will save a little more.

The idea is that you aren't really missing the amount of money being taken away, because you won't really notice it gone. That's what makes this app so genius. We all tend to have spending habits that are less than perfect, and sometimes it can be hard to really track all of your spending in a month, especially if you have a lot of unforeseen activities happening. So digit checks out and sees the money that is NOT being spent that month, and saves some chump change away each day without you noticing! This app is perfect for someone like me, who isn't very good with managing money and have a hard time being consistent with saving small amounts each month. There are even a lot of times where I tell myself "I have no money to save!" but believe me, you'd be surprised how much more you're spending when you absolutely do not need to. 

On top of using digit, I try my best (and by "best" I mean, when I remember to...) utilize the many budgeting apps out there. The one I use is called Spendee, and tbh, the only reason I chose this particular one over the hundreds of apps out there, is because the interface is graphically minimal and beautiful. I'm just being real here. Anyway, Spendee basically is a budgeting app (like Mint, which is another very popular one) that tracks your expenses every month. I'm going to be quite frank here and admit that I do not use this app every single day, as I SHOULD. I blame my extreme A.D.D..... but still, I do try to use it a few times a month, to get an overview of what I'm spending. A spending app is highly encouraged when you're planning on traveling, because you can create your own tabs for particular things, and each month you can include it in your spending report. For example, I had factored in $50 each month for traveling purposes as extra money. I wasn't always able to save up this $50 mind you because let's be real, sometimes I needed that $50 to make it through the month! But when I could, it was a nice way for me to save up some more money for the trip. You can also create specific tabs for specific credit cards. I had 3 credit card tabs on my Spendee report: One for my monthly grocery and gas spending, another for my misc payments + car insurance, and a third one for my travel credit card. 

Here's another reason why I'm able to travel this year. I planned this a year ago! 

Do some research on your destination and find out when flights are least expensive. Try to plan your vacation/trip around non-peak times. Although, in my case, London is always 'peak' times, but I chose October / November, because it's not AS busy as Winter, Summer or Spring time. Buying your ticket in advance also allows you to get pretty cheap tickets. You should also buy your hotel tickets ahead of time also. I was able to snag a prime location hotel that's smack dab in the middle of Westminster (where Big Ben and the London Eye is) for about $800 less than if I had waited just a couple of months more! Hostels are another option since they are much cheaper, or if you're lucky, know people who live there and bum off their couch. Ain't no shame! Offer to buy them food at least. 

So sometime last year, I was talking to some friends who lived in London and I told them how I've always wanted to travel there. Seriously, London has been on my Top 5 MUST-TRAVEL-TO-BEFORE-I-DIE-Destinations list since I was in high school. What attracts me most to London is the weather there. Coming from sunny Cali, everyone here is all about the sunshine 350 days a year. Me? I HATE IT. I've always been a cold/gloomy/overcast/rainy weather type of person and London seemed like a perfect place for someone like me. I could've chosen to travel somewhere else, like Japan or Korea, but I think for my first international travel, England seemed like a really perfect pick. For one, I knew people who lived there and two, everyone there speaks English. And because I am going on this trip alone, I felt a little nervous about traveling for the first time to a foreign country, so going to a place where there won't be a language barrier does help relieve some anxiety. I'm also terrified of long plane rides so....at least U.K. is only a 10 hour plane ride, as opposed to like 14+ for Asia. 

And finally, keep on thinking about your trip during the year. Seriously, for the entire year I've been planning, looking up places I want to go to and things I want to do, and thinking about what kind of photos I want to take, what cameras to take, and what foods to eat for this trip. I'm not even exaggerating, every single day I think about my trip because it's something I could look forward to. That's the beauty of planning a trip so far ahead also, you have something to look forward to CONSTANTLY. This year went by so fast for me and there were rarely days where I was sad/moody/angry for long. How could I be sad when I'd be traveling for the first time soon? Having something to look forward to not only sets your mood for the year, it makes you legit happier. I remember when I was thinking, 'man only 6 more months and I'm flying to London!' and now it's literally like 20-something odd days away. CRAZY YA'LL. ABSOLUTELY CRAZY.

Also, constantly thinking about your trip actually does help you not to spend money. I love spending money on stupid stuff....honestly...it's like if I don't get some retail therapy once in a while, I start to lose it. But throughout this year, I've actually been quite good with not splurging too much (I say this, as I just recently bought THIS THING...SMH.) and we're all human. It's not like I've been perfect with my money either, but it does HELP. There are times where I bought something and thought, 'wait...I could use this money to shop at Skinny Dip London! F*ck this' and I end up returning it (true story). So like I said, think about your trip and find out if there's any stores you'd love to visit while you're there. 

The reason I wanted to write this post so badly, was because I feel like I am always held back by lack of money. I've always felt this inferiority with other people who were able to take vacations twice a year and travel and that's something I've always wanted to do but felt it would never happen. One of the other BIG reasons I want to travel besides just to see the world, is to take photographs. Ya'll know I love my photography stuff and traveling the world will let me photograph so many new and beautiful things. I know it sounds silly, but one of the most exciting things about going on this trip, to me, is knowing I'll have so much to photograph. Follow your passion people. It'll take you anywhere you want to go.