JamieJakov Blog

I’ve Graduated

October 23rd, 2016

What a long, strange trip its been… I came to Australia in 2010, when I was only 17 years of age. I stayed with a homestay family and studied a foundation course in UTS:Insearch. Then after a year of that, I was accepted into UTS to start my 5 year double degree of IT and International Studies (Japan Major). Then just 5 years later I find myself graduated with distinction, with a full time job, living in a great apartment with an amazing housemate and surrounded by people who are made me who I am today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r88PGpRxoig

Of course I would like to thank everyone for helping me with this long journey. First and foremost – my parents. Without them, I wouldn’t be here; without them, I wouldn’t have had the knowledge or the skills to get me where I am now; without their support I would not have been able to 6 years of studies, work and life. So thank you mom, thank you dad. I hope I did good, I hope I made you proud, and that your investment in me will not be in vain.

Then my friends. Starting with the first even friend in UTS – Ruben, my weebmate – Tac, my housemate – Alex, my potato – Seb, my Eastern-European friend – Mad, my artsy-friend Amy, everyone else and ending with the new anime@UTS exec team for 2017. Thank you everyone for your support, for telling me off when I was acting stupid, for giving me a pat on the back when I did something good, and overall making my campus life as rose coloured as it could have ever been.

So after 6 long years I have finally graduated from UTS! *throws hat into the sky*

However, now it is time to embark on a new journey – I must change the world, one line of code at a time. And I hope that all these great people I have met in university will still be there by my side throughout my adult life.

Photos are right here, on my:

Sydney Brick Expo

April 18th, 2016

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved LEGO. This simple, yet complex game of building anything that your imagination can think of, has entertained me for numerous years. Alas due to the move to Sydney, I could not bring my trusty LEGO blocks with me and continue building (though I started building with the power of software).

Well, even though I might not have any blocks with me, that doesn’t mean I stopped liking LEGO! So Amy invited me to go to the Sydney Brick Show. At this exhibition, various artists (yes they are artists, they produce art with their creativity) show off their creations. Some were large, others were motorised or light up, some were references to pop culture, then others look plain cool. There was a lot to see, and a lot of people that came to see, parents and children all around. It was great to see so many lego enthusiasts loving their hobby and showing it off to the new generation.

Oh how I miss my LEGO. Also photos:

Hearthstone

February 7th, 2016

As you all know, Blizzard has made a lot of great games in the past. Memorable titles such as Warcraft III, Diablo II, Starcraft and of course currently WoW have all been hugely successful in their genres. One of their latest games (well it came out in 2014) is Hearthstone. It is a collectable card game, where you fight one on one against opponents from all over the world. Hearthstone is based of the Warcraft universe, so for people who have played Warcraft III and/or WoW, the characters/minions/spells will be very familiar.

Like any other card game out there, you have a deck, which contains minions, spells, and weapons. Each hero has 30 health and your objective is to bring down the health of your opponent to 0. Its a lot of fun, and you gotta give props to blizzard for making a f2p game for the masses, that can be played on mobile and doesn’t require much skill in order to play. Of course if you want to reach legendary rank, then you need skill, luck and a whole heap of cards.

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Australia Day 2016

January 27th, 2016

Every year families all around the country gather together to celebrate Australia Day. Its the day that the whole nation celebrates the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Port Jackson, NSW. Australia has become a very multicultural society, but nevertheless everyone gathers together for festive barbecues and beach outings. All of this is usually followed by a display of fireworks in the CBD of the major cities.

Also, there is a antique car show! So Amy and I went to explore it. Old cars are so majestic, and the photos turned out great:

Eiga Dorobou Cosplay

October 7th, 2015

I’d say this was one of my most successful cosplays, if not THE. I have cosplayed a number of different characters in the past, as outlines in this post about cosplay. But our joint NO MORE Eiga Dorobou (NO MORE映画泥棒) with Amy definitely tops the list.

SMASH! 2015 was held on the 8th and 9th of August 2015 (yes its been 2 months, but they just posted up the photos) and so we decided that I would go as the camera guy for both days, and Amy as Madoka during the first day, and the policeman for the second. I can say for a fact, that the people loved us. We had probably over 100 photos of us taken in those 2 days. People were excited to see us, even though a lot of them had no idea what we were, or where we are from. Thanks to the Gintama Movie some people knew the cameraman from that, but only a handful actually recognised us as the characters from the stop movie piracy ad, played in Japan before every movie. It was a very fun experience, now lets think of what we can cosplay as next!

Here are some more photos: 1, 2, 3.

Avenue Q Musical

July 17th, 2015

Avenue Q poster

So far I have only been to one musical, that was “Mamma Mia” on Broadway NY in 2009. But yesterday Amy and I went to see Avenue Q at the Enmore Theatre. It was a great show, and I can say, I laughed so hard my cheeks were hurting. Before going in to watch the musical, I had no idea what it was about or anything, aside from Amy’s brief explanation that it has something to do with Sesame Street.

After watching I can give a brief plot summary. The story takes place in New York on, you guessed it, Avenue Q. We are shown the life of all the residents and a new collage graduate struggling to make ends meat. Even though they might seem like a regular bunch of people (and monsters), but they all have something that makes them special. Like Tod, who is gay (even though he doesn’t want to admit it) living together with Nicky, unemployed college graduate; Brian, the jewish ex-baker with an oriental wife – Christmas Eve; Trekkie, the monster, who … utilises the internet to its fullest potential; and others. What else makes them all special, is that they are all just a little bit racist, for now and of course, it sucks to be them, if they were gay.

And now I finally know where the some of the viral songs and memes come from. Overall great show, very happy Amy invited me to go. Her is a link for the playlist of songs, but I would highly recommend that you go watch it yourself if you can.

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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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.

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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