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melissa cho 🚂 卓以欣

@itschochotrain

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i head video @sfgate. but you can call me sfgate girl. 🎤ᕕ(˘⌣˘)ᕗ ♪♬🌁

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4 months ago

SFGATE’s Melissa Cho and Timothy Karoff spent their Saturday digging a completely pointless hole at Ocean Beach with hundreds of strangers.

Naturally, it was the 13th Hole Party.

Founded by Anna Magruder after what she describes as a quasi-religious hole-digging experience, the event’s rules are simple: there is no purpose and the shapeless hole gets filled back in at the end.

For reasons that remain unclear, people keep showing up.

Read more at the link in bio.

🕳️ @holepartysf
🪏🕵🏻🕵🏻‍♂️ @itschochotrain and Timothy Karoff / SFGATE by @itschochotrain

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7 months ago

590 tons of Christmas trees were recycled in San Francisco last year. For decades, the city’s waste management company, Recology, has helped residents sustainably dispose of their trees after the holidays, hauling mountains of pine to a composting facility in Vacaville. There, the trees are turned into compost for local farms, whose produce eventually makes its way back to San Francisco farmers markets.

Follow SFGATE’s Melissa Cho as she spends a morning recycling Christmas trees with one of Recology’s veteran collection drivers. It’s the only time of year a Recology truck smells good — some might even call it a Christmas miracle.

The tree recycling program ends Jan. 16. Residents who miss the deadline can email customerservice@recologysf.com so Recology can open an individual service ticket and schedule a late pickup.

🗑️ @recology
🎤 @itschochotrain/SFGATE by @itschochotrain

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9 months ago

Arms sweeping and body bopping with the beat, ASL interpreter Julian Ortiz interpreted sets by Dog Blood (Skrillex and Boys Noize), Kettama and Chloé Caillet at Portola Music Festival on Saturday.

With few or no lyrics to work from, EDM is a tricky genre for sign language interpreters. Ortiz, who is deaf and has worked @portolafestival for more than three years, studies setlists in advance alongside his colleagues before interpreting an average of three sets a day.

Skrillex was the artist who first inspired him to pursue interpreting full time; since then, his work has taken him all the way to the Super Bowl, where he signed during Bad Bunny’s halftime show.

“We don’t have to worry about showing up and be like, ‘Oh my God, where is it? We have to ask for it.’ It’s just automatically provided,” she said.

Find similar coverage @sfgate.

🎥: Melissa Cho @itschochotrain, Social Video Editor by @itschochotrain

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20 days ago

Robert Soper has tuned pianos for San Francisco Botanical Garden’s Flower Piano festival since it began in 2015, bringing more than 50 years of piano tuning experience to a tricky job.

12 pianos scattered throughout the Botanical Garden are an unusual sight — and pianos and San Francisco’s damp conditions don’t exactly mix. Still, tens of thousands of music lovers flock to Flower Piano each year to take part in one of the city’s most beloved traditions.

SFGATE’s Melissa Cho visited the garden the day before opening night to learn how Soper and his tuning partner, John McArdle, prepare and maintain each piano to withstand San Francisco’s famously foggy conditions.

Find more local stories like this at @sfgate.

Video by Melissa Cho/Social Video Editor. Additional camera assistance by Brendan Lange. by @itschochotrain

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a month ago

year 3 of covering @outsidelands. currently my tank is empty but i’m so proud of all of these stories i was able to report on this year. shoutout to the mightiest @sfgate team for another hardworking year. overtime hours loading…. by @itschochotrain

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2 months ago

With 100 food vendors serving thousands of festivalgoers, Outside Lands produces plenty of surplus food. For the past 13 years, the festival has partnered with ExtraFood to keep that food out of landfills and redirect it to people in need.

SFGATE's Melissa Cho followed the process from start to finish, documenting how untouched leftover food is collected at the festival and distributed across the city.

Follow @sfgate for similar coverage.

🎥: Melissa Cho, Senior Video Producer @itschochotrain by @itschochotrain

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2 months ago

Backstage at Outside Lands, there's a nondescript white trailer referred to simply as MCR. Short for "master control room," it's the beating heart of the festival's elaborate livestream operation.

Inside, walls of screens carry separate feeds from four stages — each with its own satellite command center where a director calls out angles from up to eight cameras.

Learn more at the link in bio.

✍️: Dan Gentile, Senior Culture Editor @danjeremiah
🎥: Melissa Cho, Social Video Editor @itschochotrain by @itschochotrain

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2 months ago

(wears a skirt once) cosmo night with the girlz 🐬🩵🌐 by @itschochotrain

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3 months ago

San Francisco native Val Lupiz has worked as a cable car gripman for 27 years — and, in a way, he has been preparing for the job his whole life.

“When I was a little kid, this is all I really wanted to do,” Lupiz said. “They’re paying me to play with my favorite toy.”

On a recent Friday morning, SFGATE’s Melissa Cho joined Lupiz on Hyde Ride, a seasonal route running Friday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Oct. 4.

The short loop skips the infamous tourist crowds at Powell and Market streets, traveling instead between Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown by way of Hyde, the steepest cable car hill in the world.

For the price of a single $9 fare, riders get a round trip — plus some of the best views San Francisco has to offer.

Find more local coverage at @sfgate.

Photos by Camille Cohen @chamomilecohen. Additional videography support by Tia LaMore @tlamore. by @itschochotrain

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3 months ago

been a filthy month 🎂

the past year i:
-became the youngest editor in the newsroom
-covered three major tennis tournaments
-had an epic france journey with my family
-set deeper roots in the bay with quality friends
-uncovered more wonder and continued to serve my community as a video journo

thank you to my friends, @bessiecarterco and @beitrima for making yesterday super primo.

love,
melissa by @itschochotrain

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3 months ago

2 years of being SFGATE Girl.

Thank you, Bay Area, for the privilege of serving you through journalism and visual storytelling — two passions that I’m somewhat decent at and am grateful to have found a job that allows me to do both.

Here are some of my favorite video stills and story moments from another remarkable year. I also threw in some fun hate + positive comments that deserve some airtime.

Thank you for supporting @sfgate and for your curiosity in learning about the world around you. I’ll see you in the next video online.

Blessings 🕊️,
SFGATE Girl 💖 by @itschochotrain

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4 months ago