JamieJakov Blog

Photos

April 9th, 2015

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 synch, 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.

If the Internet was a High School

March 26th, 2015

Imagine if all the website we browse daily were living people, teenagers in fact, attending a high school. Wouldn’t that be an awesome combination of personalities! There have been numerous videos showing our websites as real people with personalities, but I feel that this one definitely tops them all! Take a look and see how true most of these depictions are.

Стоп Хам

March 25th, 2015

Stop Ham

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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Guess who’s back!

March 18th, 2015

Rhodes

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 then 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!

Sapporo Snow Festival

February 11th, 2015

SnowFestival

Every year a bunch of snow sculptures are constructed in the Ōdōri park in Sapporo. This year is the 66th Sapporo snow festival and we (Amy 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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On leaving Japan

February 2nd, 2015

Kagoshima_Sakurjima

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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The shrines of northern Kyushu

January 27th, 2015

Yutoku Inari

For the past few weeks, a few of my friends from Sydney have been exploring the land of Japan by traveling to places around Tokyo, Osaka and now coming all the way to Kyushu. On Saturday afternoon we met up with Richy and Ling, who made their way from Tokyo on the shinkansen this morning. Also a few other familiar faces joined us that day when we went to Dazaifu Shrine. The shrine itself is not much different from most other shrines in the country, but it is definitely a very popular place. The sheer number of tourists at the shrine showed us that not only Tokyo can be popular with the foreigners. After making our way back to Saga that evening, Amy, Ling and I went to meet the gaijin gang of Saga university and had a few drinks with them. It was fun to see how well foreigners get along in Japan, where you are treated as a foreigner no matter which country you come from.

The next day we ended up sleeping in, which threw us off schedule for the rest of the day. But we still managed to visit Yūtoku Inari Shrine in Kashima City, Saga Prefecture. And thats the shrine you see on the top of this post. Its a giant structure with big support pillars, which honestly looks fake, as if it was a toy or made out of plastic. But it is very very real and impressive. With the day coming to an end we made our way to Ureshino Onsen to dip our feet in some hot and healing waters. And then to finish off our adventure, we went to a yakiniku (Japanese BBQ) restaurant, where we ordered this big platter of Saga beef. All I can say is that it was amazing. Even thought I have lived in Japan for over a year (overall) now, I am still easily impressed by how delicious it is.

Also one thing I would like to note is that lately I have been getting really into photography, so after watching a bunch of tutorials on taking and editing photos, I can say that all of these were taken in raw format (most in AV setting) and have been edited with Aperture. Please do take a look at what I have created.

Psycho Pass Movie Review

January 20th, 2015

PsychoPassMovie

Set after the events of season 1 and 2 this movie brings a new arch to the Psycho Pass series with a new story while bringing back some familiar faces. If you haven’t watched seasons 1 and 2, there is little to no point of watching the movie as it revolves around established ideas and characters. Though season 2 was not as well accepted as the original, it is still worth watching as it hold some key plot points which are discussed in the movie.

For those who have seen the previous seasons, they will be pleased to hear the Gen Urubuchi is back in charge and he once again does a marvellous job of creating a new environment and portraying the characters in that setting. Before I continue any further, I would like to warn everyone that if you press “Read More” then you will be spoiled for seasons 1, 2 and parts of the movie.
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2014 Retrospective

December 31st, 2014

Sakurajima Shiroyama

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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Kyushu Christmas trip

December 30th, 2014

Huis Ten Bosch

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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