On the 1st of February at 11:38pm I turned 20. As usual my parents and I went traveling, this time to Melbourne and Fiji, thus I celebrated my birthday in a tropical style on Mana Island Fiji.

That was amazing and I can not thank my parents enough for always giving me these opportunities to see and experience different countries around the world.

But I also wanted to celebrate my birthday with my friends from university. So we went ice skating! Met up at central, went to Macquarie Shopping Center, had lunch there, waited for an hour… then went onto the rink to skate.

So this years victims… *cough* guests were: Mrs President Alex, SurfingBird David, CrazyCatLady Cindy, Dango Dalyna, Samurai Isaac, Korean-chan Baek, Muscle man Robbie, WaterMAN Sashin, KingPotatoe Seb, and OrangeGuy me.

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Some of us have skated before, some have done it once or twice, and for others it was their first time! We all had a lot of fun teaching each other some tricks, some even tried spinning, breaking and skating backwards. It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

After a quick train ride back to central we went to KuraKura for dinner where we met up with Onigirikiri Clara, PythonOnRails Ruben (I just made that nickname up), and Cameraman Tac. What better way to finish of the day then having a nice japanese dinner, no? NO~! Off to my place we go, Bear Grills we watch! Whyyyy did we turn on the TV… So we spent the evening watching Bear Grills survive in the desert by eating bugs and drinking his own… well you know.

Thank you so much to all my friends who could make it to skating and dinner, I had an amazing day. Also thank you so much for all the presents!

(I hear that some are still on the way O.o).

When I initially saw the preview for this show (Chu2) I though: “Hmmm Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) is making a action anime with super national battles?! Woah!” And then upon watching the first episode I realized: “nope, no action here, just cute girls doing cute things”. But boooooy was I off the bat with that!

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If I could sum this 13 episode series up in a few words, it would be: moe, comedy, drama, & DEATH.

Main girl, Rikka, is “suffering” from a syndrome known in Japan as Chuunibyou (8th grader syndrome). Basically she imagines that she is a mage with awesome powers and that she can fight the evil demons with swords and guns. The main guy character (MC), Yuuta, also used to suffer from chuunibyou, but has gotten over it and it makes him very embarrassed to remember the stuff he used to do when he was in middle school. There are some more characters like Dekomori, servant of Rikka, 2 years younger and always says DEATH at the end of the sentences instead of desu~. Also Deko is known for her thin but long twintails which she likes to twirl (imitating a spinning hammer). Then there is Kumin (pillow-senpai), who loves falling asleep at random times, and who is as pure as unicorn; she even wears white all the time! Then there is mandatory KyoAni sidekick (Makoto) to the MC, basically if you have seen Clannad or Hyouka, you’ll know what I’m talking about. And of course the b**** queen Nibutani Shinka (former chunibyou MoriSummer); this girl was the favorite of most people, then we found out about her dark side and it went downhill from there for most, me as well (not everyone though, my friend Tac still loves here to this day!).

Its very hard to get the balance between comedy and drama well, but KyoAni did an amazing job with this series. Each episode kept the viewers on their tows and we were always screaming for more. Up to episode 5 or so we had no idea that this show had a dark side…. And then shit got real! What was very unexpected of KyoAni: an actual love confession! I thought their pureness limit wouldn’t allow them to go further then holding hands, but OMG there might even be a kiss scene in the upcoming OVA. Lest see how the OVA turns out, and if it exceeds my expectations, this show might be my favorite of 2012. But generally its a very good show made by one of the best anime companies out there, KyoAni.

9/10.

When I was in Japan in July of 2012, my friend Kosuke and I went to Tokyo for a few days (I blogged about it). We also visited the Ghibli museum in Mitaka. It was an awesome experience, but there is one thing I really regret not doing there. In the gift shop there were Soundtrack CDs (OSTs), DVDs and most importantly the new Ghibli collection BluRays! They were 7140円 a piece, which at the time I deemed to be too expensive for a BluRay at the time. But when I came back to Sydney, I realized that I seriously wanted them. Thats how I started my collection. First I got Nausicaa, then my amazing friend Frank gave me Totoro for Christmas and Laputa for my Birthday! It will take me a while to get all of the Ghibli BluRays, but I accomplish this goal I have set for myself. If anyone is interested, I order them from this website: cdjapan.co.jp

This year for my birthday my parents took me to Melbourne and then later on to Fiji. It was an amazing trip and I took a lot of gorgeous photos.

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In Melbourne my dad and I went to see both the men’s and women’s finals of the Australia Open. This was the first time I have ever seen a live tennis match, not to mention that it was the Australian Open!

We also rented a car and drove around the city and the valleys surrounding it.

Then we flew to Fiji and spent 5 days just relaxing on the beach and enjoying life :)

You can see all the photos here:

My dad was teasing me for a few months now, showing off the new telephoto lens he bought for a few thousand 4 months ago. Then at some point I told him that putting that amazing new lens on our 6 year old camera is like installing 64GB of RAM into a machine with pentium 3… So apparently he listened to what I was saying and got me this baby for my birthday: Canon EOS650D! All the photos of our trip to Melbourne and Fiji will be taken using this new device. Stay tuned for some amazing photos

Ever since the smartphone boom in Japan there was a constant search for the best messaging app. And then there came LINE.

It is not much different from all the other messaging apps, but it has this one killer feature that made it the best: stickers.

These “stickers” are emoji style images that users can send to each other in order to express their emotions.

Unlike normal emoji which get old pretty quickly, these stickers are constantly updated. Like for example the recent addition of the Miku or EVA or Gangnam style stickers.

I use this app a lot and recommend it to all my friends. Here is a promotional video:

I would like to wish all my friends, mates, pals, bros and buddies a very very Merry Christmas!!!

Here is a vid of Miku singing Merry Christmas and thank you.

My good friend Tac (@Taccarin) put together a video highlighting the most memorable parts.

All I can say is, this was one of the best nights of 2012!

So one day I was browsing this bay where all the pirates chill and there was a rather interesting link, so I clicked it and what do I see!

Ever since then, this song has been stuck in my head…