My new years resolution was to be more organised and get more control over my money. And the one thing that helped me achieve this goal was the App - Numbers.

Even though I masterly avoided using any Microsoft software throughout university so far, ever since I started working, I was required to use Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Mainly when dealing with numbers and calculations, I was told to use Excel, even though I have never used it in my life (never had the need so to say). Well That helped me get an understanding of how spreadsheets work, but to be honest, it wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Of course many people will argue that the functionality of Excel is all that matters, but alas no, if the design is bad, then I don’t feel I want to use the application any more than I have to.

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This is when my good friend Max (Muzaffar), accountant, showed me how he handles monthly expenses and budgets. It was beautiful. Rows and columns of integers and floats, descriptions for all the expenses, etc. And not to mention it, he is also very good at explaining how things work and why you have to include a certain formula to achieve the desired result. I owe Max big time for introducing me to this concept of keeping track of money using spreadsheets.

So I decided to start one up myself. First using some 3rd party App for the iPhone, but then later on moving onto Numbers. First of all Numbers already has a template for managing budgets, which was immensely helpful as it already had all the formulas that I wanted, except for a few. Then with a few tweaks, design changes and edition of a calendar I created a budget tracker which was perfect for me! Its very simple to use. On the Transactions tab you just add the date, description, chose the category (from a pre made drop down), and input the value. Thats it, using this data, the table (which can be seen in the image above) calculates which category the money belongs to and increments the Actual amount, then calculating the different left.

I would recommend anyone who want to keep an eye on their savings and spendings to use Numbers or Excel or Google Docs, as this may help in the long run when you wonder - “where did all my money go?”, or  “what should I spend less money on next month?”

(above image is from our previous hotel: Borei Angkor)

Now we have reached our final destination - Sokha Beach hotel in Sihanoukville. Here we will be spending 6 days just relaxing on the beach and eating fresh fruit. But I will be posting up more photos from the hotel and stuff later on (by the end of the trip).

For now, have some from our previous hotel:

You know Venice right? A city which lives on water. The photo above is not from Venice, far from it, it is from a small city (housing 10,000 people) on the Tonle Sap Lake in Cmabodia. People have lived on this lake for generations and will continue doing so, but one thing that separates this town from any other town is that during summer all you can see are poles, thousands and thousands of poles (and I do not mean people from Poland). Then, during rainy season, the water goes up 9 meters and floods everything in sight. Thats why these people had to build houses on such huge pikes as a foundation for their homes. Its an amazing sight, which you wont be able to see anywhere in the world.

After that we had a very nice spa massage and cocktails while looking at the sunset. This is the life.

Photos:

Yesterday, on the 3rd day we took a 1 hour flight from Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam to Siem Reap in the neighboring country of Cambodia. Once we arrived in Siem Reap and got to our  hotel, we were in for a little surprise. Apparently my dad’s agent booked us rooms in the so called Privilege Floor of the hotel Borei Angkor. What this means is that we get our own reception on the floor, free minibar refills, a bathtub in our bathroom, complimentary champagne in our bedroom and free access to the Damnak Lounge where we can have free cocktails while watching the sunset. Well basically we are living in a 5 ☆ hotel with like extra service. Even my dad was like: “I did not pay this much!” All the photos are on my flickr~

Today, we went on a tour of the Angkor temples. These buildings were built in the 12th century and are still mostly standing in tact! Seeing them left us speechless. We were constantly asking our tour guide: “How did they build them so well in those ancient times?!” There were a lot of tourists all over the place, which is understandable as this is THE most famous place in all of Cambodia. But even so there was enough space for all of us, that just goes to show how grand these temples are! Also it was scorching out there, around 35° C so we had to drink a lot of water and cover our heads. That didn’t help us from being drenched in sweat.

Photos here:

Today we had a boat tour of the Mekong river and various markets and factories on it. These included a candy factory, various rice plants and loading facilities, and other interesting places. Most of the day was just spent on the nice little boat, looking around at the houses and slums of the people living there and taking photos of pretty flowers.

It was a good tour and we got to see and experience the life of normal vietnamese people.

More photos on my:

The city of Saigon, or as it is currently known: Ho Chi Minh City is one of the largest cities in Vietnam and has a long history of occupation, war and freedom. Today we had our tour around the most famous parts of the city, such as the Independence Palace, Chinatown, and the War Remnants Museum (you can check my Foursquare for the exact locations of the places we visit).

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We began with a visit to the War Remnants Museum where the guide told us the horrible facts of the US/Vietnam War of the 60’s - 70’s. There were a lot of photos from those devastating times and weapons/artillery remnants left and kept for exhibition in the museum, most of which can be seen on my photos.

Continuing on we went to the Chinese temple and then we were taken for a rather amusing ride on a human ricksha. We were driven all around the center of Saigon, straight through the fish markets, mean markets, fruit markets, clothes markets, and of course the motorbike markets. This city has more motorbikes then there are people in Latvia. Due to the lack of public transport the whole city travels by motorbike and they are literally everywhere. Its crazy, to cross the road you need to just walk between all the bikes and cars; they don’t slow down, they don’t stop, you just have to avoid them, and they have to avoid you. Its what I like to call organized chaos. Everyone is driving in a manner which most people would say is chaotic, however the vietnamese themselves have absolutely no problem navigating through crowds and around traffic jams. This is one thing that I love the country so far.

After this ride around town we went to the palace of Independence which was overthrown by the communist forces and thus restoring independence to Vietnam (thats where the name comes from). It is now a museum which showcases how the country used to operate under a presidents rule and how it has changed now that the communists are at power.

Here is a photo album of ALL the photos from my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia (latest first):

From today till the 22nd of March, my family and me will be visiting the mysterious lands of Vietnam and Cambodia. We have decided to embark on this journey not only to experience the culture and traditions that these countries keep hidden, but also to relax and enjoy our long overdue vacation.

The trip schedule is as following:

• 8th March - 11th March: tours in Ho Chi Minh city.
• 11th March - 14th March: Seam Reap, Ankgkor Wat and Tonle Sap Lake
• 14th March - 21st March: Sihanoukville, time to sunbathe and relax on the beaches of Cambodia

I will be uploading photos and writing up our experiences from this holiday.

(above photo from Google)

If you don’t know what this is, I think it is time to climb from under the rock you have been hiding for the past 2 weeks and start watching & participating! This is not just Pokemon, oh no, this is much more. As Wikipedia put it, Twitch Plays Pokemon (TPP) is a social experiment, I’d say it has become a social phenomenon. Basically what TPP is, it is a stream of a Pokemon Blue game modified to accept the commands typed into the chat of the stream by the people who are watching, thus making them the players. As this idea is new and original, the concept became super popular and thus amassed over 70,000 people to play at a time (though it has died down and only 30,000 are playing at the moment, but still!).

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If you have played Pokemon when you were young, you would know how hard it is to beat the gym leaders, how complicated some of the mazes are and how much time it requires to pass the whole game. Well now imagine that there are another 49,999 people playing the same character together with you, and each one of them has a different idea of what we should do. Thus resulting in utter chaos and confusion, but also massive fun!

What is more astounding then the concept of the game, is the sheer number of memes and original fan art which was created based on the progress of the game. Memes were based on the Pokemon which were added to the team, events that lead to sacrifices and hard obstacles. The Pokemon have all been given nicknames based on what they were named in game and all have been given a role in the party. Most notable characters being the Helix fossil - our god, bird jesus - our saviour and the false prophet Flarion.

Know Your Meme has all of the popular memes written down and explained for all of you guys who either haven’t been following TPP or have no idea why they are calling the 23rd of February - Bloody Sunday.

The main reason why people like TPP and why it has become so insanely popular is due to that fact that absolutely anyone can contribute to the success and progress of the game, and absolutely anyone can troll the players and make sure they fail. Both of these aspects are what make it fun to watch and play.

This is their current team with Lord Helix already evolved into Omastar. At the time of writing this post they have been playing for 15 days and 10 hours, have collected all 8 badges and are on the way to Victory road. However the team is a little underpowered so they need to level them up a bit beforehand. Let the grinding begin!

PS: Praise the Helix.

UPDATE: On the 1st of March at approximately 9pm Sydney time, they have defeated the elite 4 and Blue! This day will forever be knows as Helix Day!

Yesterday I started putting away all the figures that have made my shelves their home. Now they are back in their cramped up boxes and those boxes are in another box (Yo DAWG~). Now my shelves are so empty and soon my whole room will be as well. It is sad to leave the place that you called home for over 3 years now, but I must look ahead and welcome my new place in Japan!

Today I must start sorting though my endless pile of clothes to pick what I can give back to my parents to take back to Latvia, what to leave in Sydney and what I need to take with me to Japan for my ICS. This will be tough task, but somebody’s gotta do it!

Continuing on with my birthday celebrations from the 1st of February, I had 2 more parties. One with my friends from urbanest on the 8th of February, exactly a week after my official birthday and then one more today with my friends Ruben and Clara, who couldn’t make it to my birthday on the 1st. (And Seb was there too) We went to IKEA and had a lot of meatballs! So many that I didn’t even have dinner. Ruben and Clara gave me the amazing Shinobu heroin book and the new Latvian euros, which they had ship from Latvia! Thank you so much! I did however have to go through 6 layers of wrapping… again…

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my friends from urbanest for their gifts. Especially Anna for the Beautiful World photo book, I must definitely visit all these places! And thanks to Dennis who got the guys together to get me a big chessboard. Also Darrell, thank you for the newest edition to my hard drive family, it is so small cute and white that I can barely resist myself.

I think I have a few more presents coming soon, so I might expand this post later on. Stay tuned.