I don’t write about people, heck I don’t even talk to people unless we have something in common. There are only a few people that have had a big influence on my life, I call them my sempais, my shishos, my senseis, my mentors. This post is kind of like a reply post, but also as a thank you post.

Embarrassing, Shy, Socially awkward. Yes those are words that would fit us well, don’t you agree Ruben? But yet, we somehow managed to talk to each other and start this ball rolling, and hey, I could’t have wished for a better first university friend then you!

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First encounter

So I walk into my first real university class, which was a lecture on Communication for IT professionals, and I decide that I should sit at the front of the room (second row to be exact) cause, you know, you don’t want to miss anything as university is serious business, unlike high school. And since I didn’t really have any friends and was a shy guy, I sat alone, and I hope no one would sit next to me. To my surprise a talk geeky looking blond guy decided to occupy the seat closer to the window, 2 seats away from me. I figured since this is a lecture, it shouldn’t matter cause we won’t have to talk anyway. Oh boy was I wrong.

Soon the lecturer said that we need to talk to the person beside us about some topic (which I completely forgot). Well now I’ll have to speak to this Aussie looking guy. To my surprise we had a nice talk and at some point during the conversation I must have pulled out my … phone and he noticed that I had Kyubey there (he was my avatar at the point, so he was both on my Facebook and Google+). He not only noticed, but also recognized the character and said: “Thats from Madoka Magika right?”. I was surprised, shocked, astonished, bewildered and other synonyms of this word. This person sitting next to me know one of my favorite shows, not only that he had watched it! He introduced himself to be Ruben Schade and, well, at that point I added him on Google+ (screw Google+) and started talking to him about more and more anime. Including, but not limited to those with cute lolis and KugiRie.

Some time later…

Since Ruben was also (technically) a first year student, we were together in pretty much all the subjects! By spending our uni days together we became closer friends, and my respect for him grew, he was like a sempai to me, like someone I want to be when I am that old (aside from the being at uni part). He introduced me to Kyary’s PON PON PON and got me so hooked on it, I couldn’t stop. He opened up the doors of the IT world to me, especially security wise. After meeting Ruben, I understood that “I don’t know nothing!” (German K. 2005). I respected him and looked up to him (I still do!). Anyway, since he was pretty much my only anime loving friend, I wished to expand that circle and so I managed to find out that UTS has and anime club! So I dragged him there, to the 27th, or whatever it was, floor of the Tower for a friday screening where we watched Friday… and GTO drama. We met Alex, the soon to be president, Seb the potato and Clara the tweetmaster. We joined the club, and hey, now he is webmaster, I am screenings director.

Still here

Now 3 birthdays and 6 semesters down the road, we are still close, still enjoying uni life (well I am in Japan and Ruben is working XD). What’s important that we got to spend time with people who shared common interests, got to make friends with some amazing potatoes (I mean people) and Ruben even scored in the personal live department thanks to that one small event. I guess if we didn’t join the club we would still be close, but our lives would be different. If we hadn’t met, I doubt I would have got to enjoy such a fulfilling university life. Thanks to you, Ruben, I joined Twitter and now use it regularly; Thanks to you, I started to treat security more seriously; Thanks to you I got a better understanding of how the industry works, Thanks to you I started this blog and am still writing it 2 years down the road; Thank you for helping me understand how to get my own domain, how to get server hosting, and how to set up everything I needed for the creating of my blog; Thank you for giving me an idol figure who I can look up to and to aim to be as good as you one day. I put in effort to improve only if there is competition, if there is someone there who is better than me, you were, you still are and I thank you for being there in my life.

I love you Ruben.

------> #nohomo <------

It seems like I am only talking about music these days eh? I am just busy working on/learning how to create something awesome. This is the newest song by one of my favorite J-Pop idols: Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Its called Kira Kira Killer, but its not about death, its about being struck with new ideas and about creativity.

So PSY has just released a new song called Hangover and as you can expect its about drinking. Its even more crazy then Gangnam Style and Gentlemen and it has Snoop Dogg! So far its up to 3 million views in just half a day, lets see what happens when the rest of the world wakes up!

So I’ve been in Kagoshima for a month and a half now, so I believe that I can give some tips for my kouhais, future UTS students coming to Kagoshima for exchange. Please note, this post will be updated numerous times throughout my ICS period. I also really envy my kouhais, cause I will make sure they get almost everything that I have bought here, as I won’t be taking this stuff back to Australia, with the exception of my monitor and rice cooker.

This post will be separated into 3 parts (上中下), which will be released when I have time to write them up.

Lets get to it:

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Paperwork

Japan is very pedantic about paperwork, you have to fill out everything that is required with absolutely correct details (even though none can tell if you fudge something, if you write one thing in one place and different thing in another, they may call you up). For any and all papers there you need to write your name, full name. Yes, middle name, chinese name, etc. full passport name. In my case I have to write Vadims Brodskis everywhere, other people may have to write Melanie Xiang Yan Tay for example. Some forms have a separation by Name and Surname, in Japan you can’t have a middle name, so you have to split your middle name and add it either to your name or surname (recommend adding to your name as they will address you by your surname). If you don’t have a phone number to give them, make sure to tell them that you just arrived and have yet to make one. If they ask for your address back home, make sure to write it fully with the country and postcode.

The years in Japan are counted in both the normal way (2014) and in the Japanese Calendar (平成26) which marks the year of the emperor. Figure out your birthday in Heisei, 1993 is 平成5. Also all dates are written in the format YYYY/MM/DD so be sure to get it right.

Most official place such as banks and post office will ask for a seal (印鑑) instead of a signature. You can make one at any Inkan shop for around ¥1000. You can only put Katakana, Hiragana or Kanji, so make sure to figure out how to shorten your name to around 2-4 characters. Mine became ワジム. Most of the time it doesn’t matter what you put on it, they really don’t care cause you are a foreigner. My tutor was shocked when I made it into something that isn’t my name, because that is not how you are supposed to do it (furigana for my name is ヴァディムス). Nobody cared, I use it everywhere perfectly fine.

If you are ever unsure when signing (or putting your seal) on any paper, ask your tutor for help. It is their job (and they get paid for it) to help you with these kind of things throughout the year. Be careful with mobile phone contracts and tv contracts as they can be very strict and with a huge cancelation fee if you don’t like it. I will have a section on mobile phones later on.

Accommodation

You will be staying in the International Student Dormitory (国際交流会館). It has 3 buildings (1,2,3).

• 1 - cheapest, ¥4,000 rent, shared bathroom and kitchen. It will be closed for renovations starting July.
• 2 - ¥6,900 per month rent, shared shower and kitchen.
• 3 - ¥25,000 per month rent, personal studio (bathroom, shower, kitchen included).

As this is 6 times cheaper then living in housing in the center of Sydney (UTS Housing, urbanest, iglu, etc) I decided to go with the 3rd building, which was only built 2 years ago and I am the 2nd resided of this room (previously occupied by Paul sempai from UTS). You can see photos of the room and bathroom in the album at the end of this post.

To pay rent you need to open a bank account in either Kagoshima Bank (鹿児島銀行) or Japan Post (日本郵便). The landlord/manager will give you the necessary documents to fill out, and your tutor should help you with opening an account (銀行口座). The bills, such as electricity, water and gas are separate. They will only be ¥1000 per month each, but they need to be paid thought the convenience stores. Its a very easy process, just take the piece of paper which you will get in your mail to the convenience store and pay the amount. Done. In regards to internet, you need to pay ¥12,000 for the whole year, which need to be payed in the beginning of your stay in 2 installments or just once for the whole year. But you get internet connection straight away, so don’t worry about not being able to contact home when you arrive.

The 3rd building has 2 laundry machines on each floor for the residents to use, and they are free. Rubbish needs to be separated and put in its respectable containers outside of building 2. Each building has bike parking with a small cover, so you should definitely park you bike there. Same goes for uni, make sure to park you bike under cover, that will protect the metal parts and you bike will be less likely to rust.

Your address for local stuff will be:

890-0056 鹿児島県 鹿児島市 下荒田４丁目５０−２０ 国際交流会館Building Number号館Room Number号室

Or this for International stuff:

Kokusai Kouryu Kaikan, Building #, Rooom # Shimoarata 4-50-20 Kagoshima-shi Kagoshima-ken 890-0056 Japan

Transport

The city itself has trams and busses, which are relatively cheap;  ¥170 for one trip on a tram, and around ¥200 for a bus ride. The JR line goes from the Kagoshima Central (鹿児島中央駅) north to Kirishima (an further) and south to Ibusuki. Kagoshima itself has a bus service and a tram service. As I have yet to take a bus, I do not know the fare, but it should be around ¥200. One trip on the tram (市電) is ¥170. You can buy an IC card - Rappica to use on busses, trams and some ferries, but I would highly recommend you don’t and wait, as you will receive one for free sometime at the end of June (together with ¥50,000 worth of book shop vouchers, which you can chose to spend on books, DVDs or sell them to other people (quietly)).

Kagoshima Central is also the last stop of the Shinkansen (新幹線) - Bullet Train. It goes from Kagoshima all the way to Aomori in the north and they run twice every hour. So you can pretty much just catch one from Kagoshima all the way to Osaka and then change to another one to Tokyo and again change to Aomori. It will take a while and it will cost you. The closest big city which you would want to go to is Fukuoka (福岡), the Shinkansen from Kago to Fuku is a little over ¥10,000 one way. Its not a cheap trip, but there is a cheaper option! JR Kyushu has a international student pass (留学生パッス) which covers all of Kyushu and you can use it unlimitedly for 3 days. You can buy it at pretty much any big station for ¥14,000.

There are ferries going to smaller cities like Tarumizu (垂水) and Sakurajima (桜島), as well as islands south of Kagoshima, such as Yakushima (屋久島).

Flights from Kagoshima to various places in Japan are rather cheap if you fly with budget airlines such as Peach or Jetstar. Peach only flies to Osaka KIX though, so be careful. JAL and ANA are usually twice if not 3 times more expensive, so be careful of that as well.

The airport is roughly around 45 minutes away from Kagoshima Central by Limousine bus and is ¥1250. Make sure to take it when you just arrive as taxis will be really expensive. Going from Kagoshima Central to the International Student Dormitory is not as simple. You can either take a tram to Korimoto (郡元) and then walk for 10 minutes, or change two busses and walk, or just take a taxi and pay around ¥1200.

Your best friend will be Google Maps and it has everything you might need and want in terms of traveling. The times are correct and the suggestions are perfect. There is another App which has even more features which is called Yahoo乗換案内. It is available for both iOS and Android for free, so check it out.

They announced it at E3 2012, they showed a glimpse of it at EB Expo 2012, and now, almost 1 and a half year later, it is out! And wow what a game it is! So South Park The Stick of Truth is an RPG where you play as the new kid in town who just arrived and is trying to make friends with the local boys (and girls). During his adventures, sir Douchebag (thats the name you are given) must help the human kingdom, led by the Grand Wizard Cartman, take back from the Elves, led by High Elf Kyle, the ancient relic of immense power - the Stick of Truth. No spoiler version.

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The game is done in the same style as the cartoon itself, so 2D draw characters bouncing up and down while walking and speaking as if they were made from paper (which they were back in the day). The voices are done by the original cast of the series, so that is great! The game brings back so many good memories of the show, and it has references to pretty much all the side characters and events that happened throughout the last 17 seasons.

Without going into too much detail (and spoilers) of the game, I can just say that anyone who plays it should definitely explore the city (and Canada), try to get as much money as you can, and don’t sell anything (you get an achievement). Also doing all the side quests is fun, cause you get to meet Mr. Hankey and Mr. Slave and Jesus and Manbearpig!

I would recommend that anyone who has been following the series should play this game as it pretty much adds 3-4 more episodes worth of story to the overall plot of the show. But play it after watching the 3 Game of Thrones episodes of South Park season 17.

8/10

Wow, I can’t believe that it has already been 2 years since I set up this blog and made my first post. It has been a long ride, and I can only look back the past with sweet memories of writing up these blog posts that mostly consist of my own opinions or just random cool stuff. Like for example last year instead of celebrating a year of blogging, I was too busy being excited for Armikrog! (which still hasn’t come out)

My blog made a long way… I changed domains twice, changed to private hosting, and had 3 theme design changes. Not only did my blogs design improve with the improvement of my HTML and CSS skills, but also the content has become more interesting and more consistent. I have improved as a writer, and I am more willing to voice my own opinion.

All of this is thanks to Ruben, who inspired me to start blogging. Ruben, you will be getting a few surprises from me soon™.

Tonikaku, Happy birthday jamiejakov.lv (.lv .com). Lets make a lot more good memories together!

Traveling sure is fun, isn’t it? You get to see and experience the world where we live in and get to be a part of the vast diversity of cultures that people have created for themselves. Most people don’t have the opportunity to explore the world, due to time or money constraints. I, on the other hand, had the time, and my family had the finances to support traveling to over 45 countries in our world. Ever since I was 3 years old, my parents would take me abroad, starting with nearby countries such as Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.; but then expanding to places like Kenya, Brazil and even Australia.

Mentioning this to people who have yet to travel outside of their home country or have just traveled once in their life, surprises or even scares them. Not everyone has this possibility and that is why I am grateful to my parents, that they gave me this opportunity to visit a large number of countries on the Earth.

Here I would like to list all the countries I have been to so far in an order from left to right, based 0n the image above. Whenever I visit a new country, I will make a new map and a new post, so you can see the evolution of my travels.

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Lets begin:

1. Canada
2. United States of America
3. Mexico
4. Cuba
5. Venezuela
6. Brazil
7. Argentina
8. Spain
9. France
10. Great Britain
11. Germany
12. The Netherlands
13. Italy
14. Monaco
15. Switzerland
16. Lichtenstein
17. Austria
18. Czech Republic
19. Slovakia
20. Hungary
21. Croatia
22. Greece
23. Poland
24. Ukraine
25. Belarus
26. Lithuania
27. Latvia (original home)
28. Estonia
29. Norway
30. Sweden
31. Finland
32. Russia (motherland)
33. Turkey
34. Egypt
35. Kenya
36. Botswana
37. Zambia
38. South Africa
39. China
40. Thailand
41. Singapore
42. Indonesia
43. Vietnam
44. Cambodia
45. Japan (more current home)
46. Australia (current home)
47. Fiji

Wow thats a long list eh? And I am only 21 years old now! Image how many I will get by the time I am 50! Looking forward to it.

Onsen (温泉) is the Japanese word for hot spring and public bath. These bath houses are a very essential part of Japanese culture and there is even a fictional story about it (Thermae Romae). The reason I came to Japan was to experience all of its cultural aspects, and so I find myself going to an event for foreign exchange students to learn about the culture of Onsen.

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The island of Kyushu (九州), on which Kagoshima is located, is famous across Japan for its beautiful and refreshing Onsen. As I have never been to one before, this was a great opportunity for me to try it out and learn the ways of the Onsen. Most importantly, you must get fully naked and wash yourself; then after making sure that your are perfectly clean, you can enter the relaxing and rejuvenating waters of the baths. Of course completely naked as well. For some it might be a rather embarrassing experience. Well let me just add that there were 5 TV channel crews and around 13 people in there with us. That was pretty… interesting.

Well anyway, we were on TV! And on the NHK website.

Here are the videos:

At the end of this whole thing we were given a small lecture on how to make and pour real Japanese green tea. And we got a free teapot at the end! Its so pretty!

Original from NHK:

外国人留学生が日本の温泉を楽しむ 
5月15日 14時21分 

外国からの留学生たちに日本の温泉文化を楽しんでもらおうという催しが鹿児島市で行われました。 

この催しは、鹿児島市の民間の温泉施設が初めて行ったもので、中国やフィリピン、それにドイツなど 
６か国から鹿児島県内の大学に留学している１１人の男女が参加しました。 

初めに留学生たちは、温泉施設の大広間で従業員から入浴のマナーについて説明を受け、 
湯船に入る前には必ず体を洗うことやタオルを湯船に入れてはいけないことなどを学びました。 
このあと浴場で体を洗い流したあと、ゆっくりと温泉につかりました。 
留学生のほとんどは温泉を初めて体験するということですが、広い湯船にじっくりと肩までつかり、 
気持ちよさそうな表情を浮かべていました。 

ラトビア出身の男子学生は「温泉に入ったら、日頃の授業の疲れが吹き飛びました。 
両親が鹿児島に来たときは連れて行きたい」と話していました。 

ソースに動画があります。 

ソース： NHK  
画像： image

Golden Week is a holiday in Japan which consists of multiple celebrations such as Showa day, Constitution Memorial day, Greenery day, Children’s day. It is the time of year, where pretty much all of Japan starts traveling around to visit places that they haven’t been to, or places that they would want to visit again. Even though I am not Japanese, I decided to embark on a journey of my own. From the 2nd till the 7th of May wIe went to Kansai (one of the central regions of Japan) and visited the cities of Kyoto, Nara and Osaka.

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As I have been to all three multiple multiple times I was appointed as the official tour guide for this trip, I hope I didn’t disappoint.

First day was a trip around Kyoto, Fushimi Inari and Kinkakuji were our main destinations, with a small lunch break at a delicious soba place in Arashiyama. My good friend Satoko accompanied us during this trip and it made it just a bit more enjoyable. This time I got to see Kinkakuji (photo above) shine in full golden glory, which I didn’t get to see before due to cloudy weather in July 2011.

Second day was a trip to the sacred place that is the building of Kyoto Animation studio. After that we proceeded to the land of deer and temple - Nara. One small problem arose there… There were no deer in Nara on that Sunday. Only maybe 5 or 6 of them were behind the gate and none were found in the park. This is so bizarre, even scary. The ones that were there weren’t hungry at all, so they didn’t want to eat our sembei (deer cookies). We did manage to find a pair further in the park which was willing to bow for us and so we fed them all the sembei that was in my pocket. Thankfully it didn’t rain that day, unlike my first and second time in Nara.

Third day it did rain, and it just had to rain when we went to an amusement park. Hirakata is the city (suburb so to say) where Junichi Okada and his family lives. Because Amy loves Okada so much, visiting this park was a must. The rides were fun and Amy sure enjoyed herself in the shops, I wish it didn’t rain though. To finish off the day we went to Osaka Castle and then the Kaiyuukan (aquarium). It was monday - Children’s Day, so the whole aquarium was full with children of all ages. Its an interesting and educational place to go to, but sure need a bit more space, or less people.

Fourth day was reserved for anime and idol shopping. From Mandarake to Animate, we went everywhere. We even found an idol shop which had V6 merchandise! After a long day of going everywhere, we met up with my old friend Kosuke for some sushi.

Last but not least was the 3 hour trip to the airport, a 1 hour flight and a 1 hour bus ride till I got home. So tired, so very very tired. But lets do this again!

My photos:

Now that Tac has arrived in Japan last week for the JET program, we can once again go out to anime shops and arcades together! And thats pretty much what we did this weekend. Not quite. It all started in Saga. I came to see Amy and we went around Saga castle and Saga shrine. Very nice places: pretty, calm, beautiful; just like most of the things in Japan. The next day was more interesting, but also more painful (for our feet). We got to meet up with Tac in the (early) morning and catch a train to Hakata (Fukuoka). There was a rose exhibition there at the station, so we managed to get a lot of beautiful photos of roses! And you know what else they have there? A POKéMON centre! It is beautiful! So many Pikachus, Froakies, Chespins, Fennekins, etc… My love for Pokémon, which I thought to have died when I was 10 years old came back so I couldn’t help but spend a bit of money on some gorgeous goods.

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After nibbling on some donuts  we met up with Kenny, Albert and a lot of international and Japanese students from Kyuushu University (Kenny’s Uni). Why did we gather 14 people at 11am on a Sunday in the middle of Fukuoka? To go to the owl cafe フクロウ喫茶! Yes they were real owls! For a mere 1000円 we had a whole hour to play with the owls. By play I mean we could pet them, we could let them sit on our hands or fingers, shoulders and head as well. I like owls, they are both cute and strong. Some of them were pretty big, as you can see by the photos which will bellow.

We played some BishiBashi (Baek and Frank would be disappointed, I failed so badly). We went to the Taito Station arcade and I got to play Ultra Street Fighter IV (only for a bit though, cause we didn’t have much time to spare). We went to Mandarake. We went to the Jonny’s store, and Amy’s wallet was crying after she came out of there. We went to Book Off, where I managed to get some presents for my friends back in Sydney. And we went to the GEE!Store where they accepted my point card which I got 4 years ago; it was still valid!

Overall an amazing day was had. A lot of fun, a lot of sweat and a lot of blisters. My feet still ache. Too bad we can not do this more often as Tac lives 2 hours away and I live 2 hours away.

Here are my photos of the weekend: