My  Experience  Living  in  LA  8  Months  On

Happy Wednesday! Today I’m sharing my experience living in LA 8 months on! I can’t believe that it’s been 8 months almost 9 now since I packed up my stuff and moved from Manila to Los Angeles. Since it’s been quite some time then I thought I would write my feelings, tips and just what I’ve been up to since then big move. If you want to read why I moved in the first place then I wrote all about that here and I answer questions about my move here. I was going to post a six month update but that was in the middle of Christmas and I didn’t really want to put that in the middle of my holiday content. Now I feel like it’s the right time and I collected enough to share my experience. It’s been a wild ride and I thought my blog would be a great place to document it like my own little diary. I guess I’m just going to share my feelings, fave places I’ve went so far and a few tips I’ve learnt. So here is my experience living in LA 8 months on!

I can still say that 8 months later it is still surreal that I’m here. It’s not as daunting but once in a while it will hit me. I remember just a few weeks ago it stopped me in my tracks. It was a regular evening and as I was walking to the bathroom I just realized that this was a normal thing and by that I mean I’ve walked back and forth to the bathroom to my bedroom so many times that it was normal to me that this was my life. I can’t describe it but I just felt like this was my life now  in LA. I can still remember doing that back in my old house and now this was my new normal. There’s a huge window on my way to the bathroom and every time I pass it I can see the Hollywood Hills and it brings me joy that I’m so lucky to be living here. So the novelty hasn’t worn off but I don’t reflect on it as much as I first got here and just stared and be in awe of everything.

So much has changed in the last 8 months. I can still remember the little problems I had. For example, I had no idea how I’ll get all of my shoes and handbags to LA with me. I did manage to in the end which I share my packing post here. I didn’t know what I’ll be doing on my own and how to live by myself after living with someone all my life. Now 8 months later it sort of sorted itself out. Everything changed for me and I was so terrified at first but so excited for the next chapter. Now I’m much better and I get to have my own place.

Things I Miss

I think I’m going to start with the things I miss since moving. I miss my family of course but I talk to them so often that I don’t realize that I’m away from them. I think I miss the physical aspect of having them beside me more then I miss them. I actually just talked to almost my whole household last night for hours catching them up with my life so I’m conflicted that I miss them but then again I don’t if that makes sense. I really miss watching my baby nephew and hanging out with my cousins at their house. I sometimes reminisce of staying at their house for a week and singing karaoke after dinner parties with them.

I actually miss my nephew coming over to me and bugging me when I’m busy. He’s 5 and I just talked to his mom on the phone and she told me that he watches my Youtube videos and screams that’s it’s his ninang (godmother) on the screen which I find so cute. I’m glad he still remembers me since he is quite young. Unfortunately my baby nephew won’t have memories of me but I have a lot I can tell him.

I actually celebrated a lot of holidays alone with no one for the first time in my life. I still remember on Thanksgiving how lonely I was sitting in my room with no one to be with and felt so sad. I had no family in the US and all my roommates left to be with their family but I couldn’t as mine were so far away. In the end here was a silver lining and I ended up being okay. I spent Christmas alone for the first time. I thought I would be just as sad but it was actually not bad and I had a fun Christmas with my roommate. I do miss spending holidays with my family.

I really miss the little things and I agree that you really miss something when they are gone.

Favorite Notable Places

Since moving here I have been to quite a few places and have blogged about those places . I thought I would share a few of my favorite throwback pictures of some of those places so far. I’ve been to a lot of the popular LA tourist spots and living really close to a lot of them then I get to see them a lot more. I loved seeing the Santa Monica Pier which I wrote about here. Of course the Hollywood sign here. I went to The Grove here, Beverly Hills Hotel here and LACMA here to name a few. It’s been quite a journey and I am so happy I have visited so many places. I mean there are so many more on my list to cross off but there’s still a lot of this year left and many more years to explore and get more accustomed to my where I live.

Weather and Seasons

A thing I was excited about and to share my experience living in LA 8 months on was getting to live through different weather conditions and seasons. I always thought LA was sunny and warm all year round. It might be but since moving here I have experienced all seasons and different kinds of weather. Back in Manila there was sunny and warm, summer and then sometimes rainy and gloomy but still humid. I knew how to dress for it but now I learned how to dress for different seasons and for the variety in temperatures. I kind of cheated as it is just starting to be spring I think as I’m writing this so I don’t really have proper spring outfits quite yet. I moved here at the beginning of summer and then there was a few weeks of kind of fall weather and then recently it’s been really cold and not normal for LA so I got to kind of dress for an LA winter.

I’ve been having so much fun actually getting to dress for the 4 different seasons. I actually have categories for dressing for each so if you want outfit ideas for spring, summer, fall and winter then you can see how I styled outfits for whatever time of year. Since there wasn’t any seasons in Manila and I tried so hard to dress to fit what time of year, I would just change as it was so hot. Now that I live in LA, I get so affected by the weather as it’s been changing so much. I talked about it more in my recent post but who knew the weather would affect me so much. As I’m writing this there is a huge thunderstorm and it’s raining really hard. I can hear the raindrops on the roof and it is reminding me of the storms I experienced in Manila a lot so it’s familiar to me. A lot of things are familiar and I love comparing the two places which is another thing I have done which I should of included in this post but maybe more of that in my year update.

That was my experience living in LA 8 months on! So far it’s been so fun and I’ve been enjoying every minute of it. I hope you enjoyed some of the old pictures and got to reminisce with me of where I’ve been. I am definitely doing a year update post as well in just a few months. I also will be adding a few tips and advice in that too if you plan to move to LA. So look forward to that but for now I hope you enjoyed my experience living in LA 8 months on and all the stuff I’ve done and see so far. Let me know if you have moved away from home and your thoughts and experience as I’d love to know your point of view.