2019 was one of the most impactful years of my life

Out of all the years in my life, 2019 has to be one of the most interesting, tumultuous and impactful years of my life.

At the beginning of 2019, I had just come back to Toronto after having sold my San Francisco apartment and taking a break to travel in Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong. I had been out of a job for 4 months at that point.
Jan 2019 – I was interviewing with various companies in the Seattle area as I focused on making USD with less taxes in the way compared to California before.
Feb 2019 – I got an interview with a Korean company called Coupang, and my parents drove me to the border to get me to Buffalo, NY airport. I was stopped along the way by border security who proceeded to grill me and my parents for 2 hours as he was suspicious of me trying to look for a job in the US. I ended getting a temporary visitor visa for 1 month. I flew to Seattle and stayed in an Airbnb for 2 weeks as I was interviewing with various Seattle companies, with no luck. At that time, I found out that the cryptocurrency exchange I had used (QuadrigaCX) to transfer my life savings over to Canada ($500k CAD) had collapsed and I had lost all my money. At this time I had only $10k in savings left, no job, and nowhere to stay. I still had most of my belongings in California, so I took a flight to California where I stayed with a good SF friend for a week and blogged about what happened to me (this video ended up getting featured in a Netflix documentary later).
I rented a U-haul truck and drove my belongings back to Seattle – this was a tough drive as it was 15 hours, I stopped by a motel in Redding, CA temporarily for sleep and had to drive across snowy mountainous terrain in Oregon and Washington. I dropped off my stuff in a public storage in Seattle and called up my friends Cooper McKay and Nick McKay to see if I could crash at their place for a week as I had nowhere to stay (thanks guys!).
With my visa limit running out, I decided Seattle was not for me and decided to head to Vancouver, which I liked better anyways as there was more nature and more Asians there.
Mar 2019 – I booked a hostel in downtown Vancouver (Cambie Hostel) and interviewed for various companies in Vancouver with not much luck. At the last minute, a US company called Kong interviewed me and even offered me remote work. I gladly accepted the offer, and quickly had to find a place to rent in Vancouver – I managed to find a 1 bedroom apartment in the Shaughnessy area of Vancouver for only $1k a month – but the bedroom was small, infested with spiders and the landlord was paranoid (and later I found out he installed hidden cameras in the kitchen to track the tenants). I was desperate so I still took this offer and this became my temporary residence in 2019.
Apr 2019 – I again rented a U-haul and drove the rest of my stuff up from Seattle to Vancouver, and not knowing many people in Vancouver, attended Korean language exchange meetups to try and make friends.
May 2019 – Went back to San Francisco to meet my new coworkers
Jul 2019 – I went back to Korea for 2 months and was able to meet most of my Korean friends (some for the last time) and there I also met my future wife (although I didn’t know it at the time) this was one of my favorite trips to Korea (even though I stayed in a small 100 sq ft goshiwon without any AC or windows in the summer).
Oct 2019 – went back to Vancouver from Korea
Nov 2019 – I again went back to San Francisco Bay Area to visit some of my good SF friends.
Dec 2019 – went on a trip with my family taking a cruise to the Bahamas and New York. This is still to this day the last family trip that all 4 members of my family had together.
And after that I would move to Burnaby later on in Feb 2020 right before the pandemic hit.

Just wanted to share the story of one of the most eventful years of my life 🙂 started off pretty terrible with no job, no apartment and finding out I got scammed and lost 98% of my life savings. Ended with a nice family trip.