You know how much I love Apple and apples. I love the tech and I love eating all sorts of delicious fruit. What I don’t like, is when apples start flying. Now that, my friends, is terrifying.

Las night I was heading back home at around 11pm. Then while walking back home on the empty roads of Rhodes, minding my own business, I hear a whizzing sound of something falling, I thought it was a bird flying by, or maybe a broken tree branch, but I was greatly mistaken. A Granny Smith apple had fallen onto the bonnet of a parked car.

As any normal person, I look up to see, wether I was walking past an apple tree. Which I was not, and where it came from I could not spot. Leaving it be and proceeding home, I was bewildered by the apple that’d flown. A few seconds later, and to my surprise, another apple had fallen from the skies. This time much closer to me, so I couldn’t just … let it be. Pretty damn shocked I ran for my flat, away from all these apples that fly and go splat! Reaching my room and telling Alex the story, he laughed for a bit, but then he got worried. Crazy people are crazy indeed, lets be a bit carful. Agreed!

Hope you liked my little tale. I tried to rhyme the best I could, cause I thought I might be a poet, but didn’t even know it!

So far I have only been to one musical, that was “Mamma Mia” on Broadway NY in 2009. But yesterday I went to see Avenue Q at the Enmore Theatre. It was a great show, and I can say, I laughed so hard my cheeks were hurting. Before going in to watch the musical, I had no idea what it was about or anything, aside from a friends’s brief explanation that it has something to do with Sesame Street.

After watching I can give a brief plot summary. The story takes place in New York on, you guessed it, Avenue Q. We are shown the life of all the residents and a new collage graduate struggling to make ends meat. Even though they might seem like a regular bunch of people (and monsters), but they all have something that makes them special. Like Tod, who is gay (even though he doesn’t want to admit it) living together with Nicky, unemployed college graduate; Brian, the jewish ex-baker with an oriental wife - Christmas Eve; Trekkie, the monster, who … utilises the internet to its fullest potential; and others. What else makes them all special, is that they are all just a little bit racist, for now and of course, it sucks to be them, if they were gay.

And now I finally know where the some of the viral songs and memes come from. Overall great show, very happy Amy invited me to go. Her is a link for the playlist of songs, but I would highly recommend that you go watch it yourself if you can.

Ever since coming back from Japan, I have been upgrading my life. I got a new apartment, a whole lot of great furniture, new job (upgraded version of old job), new clothes, a 5k iMac, and now some more shiny new things. For years now I have been longing for batter typing experience - a mechanical keyboard. But since I was going to Japan and then in Japan, I could never really get one, cause they are heavy and bulky. Fast track to the beginning of the month. My WoW Cataclysm gaming mouse, which served me well for 5 years, has started to show signs of death, it may not be dead yet, but definitely breathing its last breaths, so I started searching for a worthy replacement.

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The main criteria for a new mouse was that it must be wireless, and I mean wireless and dongleless. I wanted a Bluetooth mouse, that would not use any USB ports on my iMac, which only has 4 and they are all taken for my HDDs (and now new keyboard). It was hard to find a good quality mouse with more than the standard number of features which is also bluetooth. And during this search I started thinking. Maybe I could get a wired mouse and just plug it into a keyboard that has extra USB ports, that could solve my issues. So I looked into keyboards, and what do you know - DasKeyboard just released the Mac version of its new DasKeyboard 4. You can see what it looks like on the header image, and boy it looks pretty! That was an instant purchase. But hey, wait a minute, what about the mouse? And so the search continued…

Until I somehow found this little beauty: Logitech MX Master. It is Bluetooth, it feels just like my old WoW mouse, it has Mac supported gestures, and it even has a sideways track wheel (thats gonna be useful for photo editing - I thought). So I got it as a present for Lexi (he owed me a birthday present). Now my setup is complete.

DasKeyboard 4 for Mac Review:

The main feature of any mechanical keyboard is of course the clicky keys. I selected the cherry blue keys and I say for a fact, they are loud. But thats exactly what I wanted! They keys are smooth and the keyboard itself feels very sleek. Whats great are the dedicated OS X keys like brightness control, playback controls, sleep button, fn key and of course a great looking volume knob. The keyboard also has 2 USB 3 ports at the top, so thats great as all the other USB ports in my iMac are taken up by hard drives. DasKeyboards are rather pricy (+Australia Tax), but I do believe the it is worth it. I can see myself using this keyboard for a long time for writing assignments, writing code and of course gaming. The only negative aspect of it, is that the cable looks and feels cheap and doesn’t look as elegant with an iMac, but thats just aesthetics.

Logitech MX Master Review:

I am very happy with this mouse. It embeds everything I desired in a mouse for my iMac station - bluetooth, back and forward buttons and smooth scrolling. In the end though, I got so much more. The mouse has Mac gesture support which is activated by pressing the button under your thumb and drawing the mouse in one of the four directions. It has a very very nice scroll wheel, with 2 modes, slow and tactile, or fast and smooth. I switch between the 2 regularly depending on the task that I am preforming. The mouse also has the capabilities to work with up to 3 different computers, so I have already paired it with my iMac and MacBook Air. Charge wise, it has been a good week and I have yet to charge it once, so I am very pleased with that. One down side is that the bottom pads get scratched super easily. After a week of use, they look like I have used them non stop for 4 years. But since you don’t look at the bottom that often, I am not too worried about it.

Overall I am extremely pleased with my upgrades and looking forward to the new OS X software, new iOS software and perhaps even a new iPhone in September.

Ah the crystal clear azure sea, the white sand of the beach and the green trees, so beautiful, so tranquil - these are the Maldives.

Honestly after spending 7 days on the island all I can say is: its bliss. If you are in need a rest and have enough funds to back it up, I say go for it! It will be the time of your life. All you do is lie on the beach, eat delicious fruit and go snorkelling to see all the colourful fish down bellow. So bring your sunnies, snorkelling gear and a good camera (normal and underwater) cause you will see so many beautiful things that you will definitely want to keep these shots forever.

Now its time to get back to my normal life: work and uni here I come.

Photos are right here:

Welcome to another exciting episode of: ‘Vadim goes traveling around the world’. This time he is visiting the land of sand and oil - United Arab Emirates. What did our young traveler find in this distant Arabian land? Find out after the break.

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Hope you liked that intro, anyway let me tell you about Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the desert. After arriving in Dubai, taking the metro to the city and checking into the Warwick hotel near the financial district, I had some time to stroll around the city while waiting for my parents arrival on a later flight. The city is big, like seriously huge, there is a 14 lane freeway in the middle of it for gods sake. It boggles my mind to event think that all of this was built in the last 20 years on top of sand and water. Dubai as a city is very rich and expensive, you can see luxurious cars and clothes everywhere. Honestly though, the price of some items is exactly the same as in Sydney (looking at tech prices).

When my parents arrived we went to the heart of the city - Dubai Mall. This place is like the campus of USyd filled with shops, stalls, boutiques, parlours, restaurants, and an aquarium. The mall is huge and has 1200 different shops. In the evening they have a beautiful fountain show. It goes from 6pm till 10pm every 30 minutes. I would highly recommend watching one or two of them as they are all different and very pretty.

We spent all of next day having fun and enjoying ourselves in the Aquaventure Waterpark at the Palm. Not only did we get to go on a bunch of rides and slides, but we also took part in the underwater fish viewing experience. They put on these white helmets onto us and gave us water tanks. There were a bunch of fish swimming all around us, so cool! My dad had a waterproof camera, so I had the opportunity to take a bunch of photos down there, and I even took a #underwaterSelfie.

Next day was spent 120km to the west of Dubai, in the capital of UAE - Abu Dhabi. There they have two main attractions: Ferrari World - a giant Ferrari themed park and the largest mosque in the country. In Ferrari world we had the opportunity to look at the history of the cars and racing, eat some good Italian food, and even ride on Ferrari powered go carts. Then we went to the grand mosque, which can hold up to 40,000 followers at a time. Its spacious and gorgeous. They have the worlds largest carpet and chandeliers by Swarovski.

And last but not least, we went on a safari in the sands. Ridin in Jeeps in the sand was pretty awesome. It was a bumpy ride, but at the end of it, we got to see the sunset, ride some camels, and drink some Arabian coffee.

T’was a great holiday, now the hard work begins. For then next 8 days My family and I will staying in a resort in the middle of the Indian Ocean on one of the islands of the Maldives.

But for now, here are my photos on

Today Apple released updates for both their desktop and mobile operating systems. Please welcome OSX 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3. These new updates bring a lot of bug fixes, new emoji and most importantly the new Photos app for OS X and iCloud Photo Library. Now all my photos will be in sync, but I will still keep Lightroom for all the DSLR pics that I snap.

To celebrate, here is a photo of the sunset over Rhodes from a day ago. I’m of to bed, as tomorrow the iWatch is up for display at the Apple stores around Sydney and I must take a look at this new piece of technology!

This is an unedited photo captured on my iPhone 5s at 6pm on the 8th of April.

Стоп Хам (Stop a Douchebag) is a youth movement which fights against traffic rule violators and arrogance on the roads of Russia. They fight against people who park their cars in the middle of the road, sidewalks or even pedestrian crossings. They also fight against people who think they are the smartest and drive on the sidewalk to save time and go around a traffic jam. Why do they this? Well if its not them then who? Who is going to fix this mess that roads in Russia have become? There is a saying in Russian: “We only have 2 problems in this country: Idiots and Roads”.

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What do they actually do?

They stand around on sidewalks and wait for cars to come at them. Sometimes they are met with smiles and laughter, but more often they are met with arrogance and violence. People in Russia (and other former USSR countries) don’t like following rules, they don’t like obeying simple traffic laws. Why? Well because they think that they are the smartest, that they can outsmart the herd of sheep that are blindly following rules, that they are above the law just because they have more money or power. Well these young guys and girls here to prove them wrong. They don’t take bribes (unlike the police), they won’t move because they are threatened, they won’t back down because this douchebag is in luxurious Mercedes car. Most of the time it goes well, they get to a resolution, but sometimes things get waaaay out of hand.

Here is their official (Russian) YouTube channel, which has over 374,000 subscribers, so I recommend you take a look and see just how amusing bad the situation is.

And here is an unofficial channel that adds English subtitles to the videos. So check it out and lets pray for their success.

Almost a year has passed since I left beautiful Sydney. And now I am back, back to a new year of uni, new job, new apartment in Rhodes! But at the same time I can now see all my good old friends, eat all the amazing food I have been missing out on, and spend 3 times more than I should on daily necessities! Yay for Sydney!

But seriously, I came back on the 17th of February, which is a month ago. I’ve been very busy with buying furniture (from IKEA), seeing friends, going to uni again and 20 hours of work a week. All I can say I am happy to be back, but at the same time I do miss certain things about Japan. Right now I am trying to hunt down a place where I can buy a simple bicycle for a decent price (not in the 1k range). Aside from that, the apartment is mostly furnished, just waiting on dining table and sofa.

My life is back on track, so I will end this small update post by saying that while life can be hard some times, and we have so little time to do all the things we want, its important to appreciate every little thing that has happened, and continue going forward!

Every year a bunch of snow sculptures are constructed in the Ōdōri park in Sapporo. This year is the 66th Sapporo snow festival and I had the opportunity to experience it first hand.

To start of, I would like to say that with big events like this, it is important to book hotels and flights early. I booked everything around the middle of November and that was apparently too late by Japanese standard. All the affordable hotels in Sapporo city were booked out, so the best I could find was a Toyoko Inn in the nearby city of Tomakomai, which is 1 hour away from Sapporo by train. But that was ok and well worth it in the end.

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The main attraction was the giant Star Wars sculpture made by the Japanese defence force. It was made to celebrate the reboot of the Star Wars movies, with Episode VII coming out this year. There was a bunch of other amazing snow and ice sculptures which we got to see before some of them melted and were removed.

We also got to go to 2 special shops: the Snow Miku Shop and the Madoka Magika Shop. The Snow Miku shop had goods and a small museum dedicated to the history of Miku and especially in relation to the Snow Festival (there has been a new Snow Miku every year for the past 5 years). The Madoka shop had a whole lot of goods available, which can not be found in regular anime shops, so that was a very pleasant experience (my wallet is crying). There was also a restaurant that had Madoka themed drinks and a QB ice cream (he tasted like vanilla), so we couldn’t resist.

Lastly I went to the Sapporo Beer museum located a few subway stops and a short walk away from the main station. There they had exhibits on the history of breweries in Hokkaido and how beer was sold in Japan ever since the Meiji Restoration. At the end of the museum, there was a beer testing area, where we got 3 glasses of beer for 500¥ (~5$). After getting a bit drunk on good quality beer we went to the next door Japanese style BBQ restaurant and enjoyed the rest of our evening eating delicious meet.

And here is what you have all been waiting for, my beautiful photos:

My 10 months in Japan is almost over and it is time to pack up and fly back to Sydney. What can I say, it’s been a wild ride. A lot of events, celebrations, and great experiences overall. But now its time to say goodbye, time to leave Japan for a while, time to go back to my proper studies in UTS.

It’s a strange feeling. On one hand its sad to leave Japan and Kagoshima, as it is a nice place to live once you get used to all the quirks of the culture and social interactions. Then on the other hand, my mind is already in Sydney settling down in my new house in Rhodes, setting up my new iMac and just getting ready to go back to university.

There are a lot of things that will be greatly missed: like the fast and convenient trains; the ability to go anywhere by bike; the delicious, healthy and cheap food; the safety; the rejuvenating waters of the onsen; the fast and unlimited internet; and just life in general. But then again there are a lot of things that I have to look forward to, such as: variety in food, delicious meat, cheap and juicy fruit; the ability to pay with my credit card everywhere; not having to deal with stacks of paperwork every week; next semester of uni and new challenges.

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Maybe because I can adapt to a new place easily, that I don’t really find much sadness and discomfort in leaving the old one behind. Maybe because I am always busy looking forward and thinking about my future, that I don’t have time to worry about the past, and regret not doing something better. To me the world is one whole thing, it doesn’t matter whether I am in Japan, Australia or Europe, wherever I am, I will call that place home. And one amazing piece of technology, the internet, helps enforce this idea of having a single home - the Earth. By staying connected I can be everywhere at once, I can live in any place in the world, yet be connected to the events and people somewhere entirely different.

I have already shipped 2 11kg boxes to Sydney, which cost me about 150$ and I am slowly starting to sell off my kitchen appliances and pack up my suitcase. In just 2 weeks, I will be back in Sydney, and will be remembering about the fun I had here, but always looking at the future, at the fun I will have in my life from now on.

Why am I wiring a post like this? Because of this: This Japanese Life Blog. I have read the book, I have read his blog, and his writing makes you reevaluate your life, your priorities and see that everything changes, you just need to change with it.