Wow, that went by rather quick. I remember how I was writing up the 2013 retrospective, as if it was yesterday. Why did the year fly by so quickly? Well I guess it is due to me being in Kagoshima, Japan! A new region to explore, a whole new bunch of Pokemon to catch! … wait a minute, wrong world. Anyway, lets see what the most memorable events were this year.

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Lets make it a list, shall we:

• In January I found out that I passed JLPT N2. That was a great achievement, which I am super proud of. Thought I highly doubt that I will ever take N1, even thought I feel my Japanese has greatly improved while living here for 1 year.
• I turned 21 this year, and I got to celebrate my birthday by winning a cosplay competition and watching the 3rd Madoka Movie. Of course there was a proper celebration as well, with much food and really good presents.
• Right before leaving for Japan I visited Vietnam and Cambodia with my lovely parents.
• And also we got to see Kyary Pamyu Pamyu live in Sydney. One of the best things to happen this year for sure!
• Well and then in April I left urbanest in Sydney, and left for Japan. After arriving in Kagoshima I was swarmed with paperwork and setting up my new home for the year.
• Settled down, and ready for the year, I began studying in Kagoshima university and entered a laboratory which researches human vision.
• Oh boy did I travel, I went all over the place: Kansai, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Oita, and around Kagoshima. All these travels and experiences can be found here.
• We also saw Angela Aki preform live in Kagoshima. Not only is she a very talented singer and pianist, but also she is really beautiful.
• Aside form Traveling around Japan, we also went to Korea with Amy’s mom. That was of course after Amy joined me and my family for a few days in the onsens of Ibusuki.
• In September, Amy and I went to a small onsen village called Kurokawa Onsen. There we spent 3 days just relaxing, enjoying the food and the atmosphere.
• When the second semester of uni began, we got a whole new group of students from Turkey, France, Germany, etc. And we created the gaijin gang, together traveling around Kagoshima and now they went to Nagasaki (without me, cause I’ve already been there, twice).
• And now finally we are up to christmas and New Years. Amy and I are just relaxing in Kagoshima, and I am cooking us some Olivier Salad and bread with caviar.

С Новым Годом! See you all next year!

And here are the words which were used most in my posts:

This winter break being far away from home, far away from our families, Amy and I went on an adventure around Kyushu to see everything it has to offer. For our 6 day trip we, went to Nagasaki and the deserted island of Gunkanjima, Huis Ten Bosch theme park, Beppu city and the town of Yufuin. I’ll try to write up as much as I can, but it is late and we are sleepy.

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Day 1 (23rd Dec) - Nagasaki

After reaching Nagasaki at around 4pm and checking into the hotel, we were thinking of what to do, where to go. Luckily this little website had an answer ready for us. They say that the night view of Nagasaki city is worth a million yen, maybe for some, but for others I think it is worth a bit less than a few thousand. It is definitely gorgeous; all the shining lights in different colours looked like stars in the distance.

Day 2 (24th Dec) - Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Museum & Huis Ten Bosch

This was my second time to Nagasaki, and second time to the Atomic Bombing museum, so I will only briefly say that I hope such a thing will never happen again.

In the afternoon we proceeded to the Dutch theme park - Huis Ten Bosch located close to the city of Sasebo. It is honestly a very impressive place. The moment we walked in, I felt like I was back in Europe. Maybe not Latvia, but still Europe. It was strange seeing all these Japanese people walking around as I was completely immersed in the feeling of Europe, this feeling of home. It was pretty impressive during the day, but it got so much better in the evening. The sun went down, and the town was covered in darkness, when suddenly all the lights went on! Everything: the houses, the church, the tower, the roads, the bridges, even the grass lit up in gorgeous colours. Thats is what I call a light show. We had a (kinda)real European Christmas.

Day 3 (25th Dec) - Gunkanjima

Hashima island, also known as Gunkanjima (battle ship island) used to be a coal mining plant and home for over 5000 people. It became famous world wide after about 20 years after it closed down in 1974 (and also because of the movie Skyfall). The island is just full of broken down building as ruins of the once great mine. And it was recently opened for tourists to explore. Of course visitors are not allowed inside the old rusty buildings as none knows when they will collapse, but we still managed to get a lot of great shots of this forgotten place.

The rest of the day was spent visiting temples of Nagasaki and photographing everything we could.

Day 4 (26th Dec) - Sleeping in Saga

Went back to Saga, slept most of the day, watched TV, ate food. Not that exciting? Traveling is hard work! We needed a break.

Day 5-7 (27th Dec-29th Dec) - Beppu and Yufuin

Beppu is famous for its hot springs (geysers/“hells”) and Yufuin is just a quiet mountain town with a bunch of onsens (hot springs/spas). Seeing the “hells” and bathing in the onsens makes you think about how amazing our Earth truly is. You can’t find this anywhere else in the world, and it is an essential part of Japanese culture. I am glad we had the chance to embrace it, even if it was only for a few days.

Finally, I would like to wish a everyone a Happy New Year! 2014 will be over in just a few days, so get ready to embrace 2015 and all that it has in store for us.

As usual the photos from our trip can be found on my

Another year, another Christmas. As I just realised, I skipped last years Christmas post, but that was due to the long post about my blog redesign, which is still beautiful as ever.

But this year, I am taking a well deserved break from everything and traveling around Kyushu. I have already visited Nagasaki, Gunkanjima, and Huis Ten Bosch; and will continue on to Beppu and Yufuin tomorrow. And don’t worry, there will be a post with my impressions and photos from this trip.

Lastly,  to all you folk out there in the world, Merry Christmas!

What are your first thoughts when you hear the words active volcano? Mine used to be: “run away as fast as I can”. But ever since I came to Kagoshima these words have changed to something more calm. Thats right, even though Sakurajima volcano is active and erupts about 3 times a day, it is still fairly safe and there are even people living on the used-to-be island. In 1914 a great eruption happened, and thus Sakurajima was connected to the peninsula and lost its status as an island, but the name remains and literally means Cherry Blossom Island.

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After living next to this giant mountain for over 8 months, I finally decided to pay it a visit. I summoned the gang and we set off to Sakurajima. To get there we took a ferry from the port, its a 24 hour service with boats running every 15 minutes (every hour during the night). You gotta love Japan for its convenient transport. On the “island” we went to the information centre, where they have an exhibit of the history of the volcano, from its formation to present day (I took photos). Then we caught the bus which took us to the interesting spots close to the city (we didn’t actually go around the whole volcano, cause the bus which does that leaves at 9:40am and there is no way we would get up that early and another at 2:30pm, but we were already there at 11am, so didn’t want to wait).

Unfortunately we didn’t get much sun, so the photos aren’t as energetic and colourful, but good nevertheless.  Upon our return the gang went to Kagoshima Central station where they have a shop for import foods. Thats where we bought all our christmas chocolate (and Haribos). And in the evening there was a very heated UNO match, which I didn’t win, but I didn’t end up losing either, so thats good.

Great day, great photos, please enjoy:

One day, I receive a message from our Turkish gaijin Burak saying that we are going to Kirishima. It was rather spontaneous, but I am not the kind of person to decline an invitation to a trip, especially if I have never been to the place before. The reason for this trip was simple: to see the beautiful red leaves that cover Japanese trees in Autumn. And so we hired a car and drove to the Kirishima Jingu (shrine). Another trip together with the Gaijin Gang.

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To our surprise, there were not as many leaves as we had hoped. Thought we did manage to take a lot of gorgeous photos of the shire and the nature around it. There was also a small pond next to the second building of the shire. That pond reminded me of all those Japanese movies, or Hollywood movies portraying Japan. tranquil, untouched, and looming above it was a tree covered in red leaves. #utsukushii

Some of the photos in the following album were not taken by me, and you can probably tell by the sudden change from a Canon camera to a Nikon one (in the metadata of each photo there is info about the camera). Those were taking by the talented Turk photographer - Burak and his 4000$ camera.

Link:

Kagoshima city may be small in comparison to Tokyo or Osaka, but because of that you can enjoy traditional Japan much more, than if you were in a metropolis. Todays outing was just that, a trip to the traditional gardens of senganen in the north of Kagoshima, where they are currently holding a chrysanthemum festival.

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The flowers were gorgeous, aside form the ones which were covered in ash from Sakurajima, seeing those was sad, poor flowers. Even though the weather was cloudy at first, it cleared up by midday, giving us an opportunity to take great photos! Oh and many photos were taken. We had like 4 people with really good cameras, so expect to see a lot of awesome photos uploaded in the next few days to our foreigners of kagoshima university group Photo Stream: Gayjin Gang.

For my personal photos (and a few ones I took from the group Photo Stream cause I really like them):

This weekend there was a big balloon festival in Saga and of course I went there to check it out. Only problem was that there were no balloons.

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Its sad, because the weather was pretty bad at the end of the week and it was just pouring on Saturday and Sunday. Even when the skies cleared up by Monday, the balloons weren’t allowed to be up in the air, as the winds were too strong, making it near impossible to control them. Though they did fly at 6am, which we missed, cause we were asleep.

There were stalls like at any festival and a lot of people! We got to see a giant whale and a night show using just the burners. Also today we went to the city of Karatsu, for a festival called Karatsu Kunchi. Don’t know what its about, but its pretty big and the floats were cool.

My photos here:

In 2012 it was decided that the next big world football event - FIFA 2018, will be held in Russia! And last week the official logo was unveiled from a place far far away. If you think of Russia, what comes to mind? Snow, bears, vodka and AK-47? Maybe for some of you, but for educated people, Russia is a symbol of feudal culture, old and deep history, and of course the conquering of space in the modern age. So the announcement of the FIFA 2018 logo, was made from the International Space Station on the 29th of October.

With this logo, the creators want to show the heart and soul of Russia, and I believe they did a great job with that.

Its 4 years away, but I am already excited to see how this whole tournament will play out.

Статья на русском и видео ролик с передачи Вечерний Ургант: rus.delfi.lv

View album on Imgur

(hover over the image to reveal the controls for viewing the album)

I appologise for the huge delay of this post, but here it is. On the 1st of July Kagoshima University had their annual international students poster session. During this event, a chosen number of students make A0 sized posters and small speeches about their countries. The topics can include anything from just general overview to more in depth explanation of things like: events, festivals, government, education system, etc. Of course I was asked to take part in this as well, and so I prepared a beautiful poster about my hometown Riga. I talked about the geography, population, transport, food, sports and our gorgeous art nouveau buildings.

I had a lot of students and older people come up to me and ask me questions about Riga and Latvia, especially about the food (Japanese people love food). The old guy in glasses listening to my explanations of Riga you see in the photo album is the head of Kagoshima University. He said he went to Estonia about 30 years ago, but has yet to travel to Latvia.

I hope I can participate in more events like this one as not only is it good practice for my Japanese skills, I also really enjoy designing posters or signs, thats why I spent around 4 hours making my poster look that pretty.

This weekend I spent together with my good friend Tac, who is currently working as a English teacher in the city of Shimabara as part of the JET program. We went around the city, a nearby hot spring and Nagasaki city.

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The area is pretty remote so getting to required a Shinkansen, bus, ferry and train. Shimabara city is located a bit east of Nagasaki, on a peninsula near the centre of Kyushu island. But being so far from big cities it has a countryside charm which you can’t find in big cities like Tokyo or Osaka. Small roads, nature, quiet surroundings and beautiful old architecture. Also we went into a small cafe which served mochi, but that wasn’t the main feature, that place had a million cats! Maneki neko on shelves everywhere. You could buy any one of them and the biggest, and coolest one in my opinion, was 2000$. We also went to the nearby town of Unzen, which if famous for its hot springs (which you can see in the photos). And I managed to set a record, 28222 steps walked (22.3km), it was a looooong day.

Visiting the place was really nice, but it was much nicer to get to chat the whole day to a friend who understands you well. Thanks for showing me around and bearing with my long photography sessions Tac. It was an awesome trip. As I said, Shimabara is a beautiful place to visit for a day or two, but staying longer would be kinda boring. So try to make the most of your time there, have fun with the kids and look forward to traveling around in the future.

Oh! We also went to Nagasaki, where we saw the bombing museum, chinatown and a lot of temples. It was interesting to learn about what happened in Nagasaki in 1945, in addition to what I already knew and learned from Hiroshima.

I love doing these kind of small weekend trips, especially with friends. Too bad it is much harder to do that in Australia as everything is far and expensive. Thats why I plan to travel as much as I can while I am here, in Japan.

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