Category: Life in Estonia

Zooks Watches Estonian Film “Talve”.

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Tere!

This time, to begin with a short review of an Estonian film, I’ll tell you about my background a bit. When I was in Japan, I went to Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, where I studied in the Department of British and American studies. 

As getting into the university, I was put in one of the middle levels of English classes. This means that my English level was not as good as now. Also it was mandatory to take a class to enhance the listening skill for me based on my TOEIC’s score.

However, I still think that I had a great encounter in this university — I could know the best way to enhance the listening skill (besides the classes). As far as you read my blogs, your English must be fine, but I’m telling you how to do it

One day a few final-year students who studied abroad like in the U.S. or UK had a presentation about strengthening the listening skill. This is how to do:

  1. Prepare your favourite film or series. I chose one of glee’s episodes about Michael Jackson. (I’m not a huge fan of him but the episode was great.) I chose it because it’s short, I like music, and I like glee.
  2. The first actual step is to watch what you selected in your mother tongue once. (Just once!)
  3. Then you repeat watching it with English subtitles and English audio. At this stage, it’s okay to check the meaning by switching the subtitles.)
  4. Finally you watch it without subtitles.

I really liked this method, and I could actually enhance the skill by watching only two episodes. (The other episode was regarding Whitney Houston.) Of course classes and studying for TOEFL or IELTS helped me as well, but I think this method was the base.

So if you know the way, you can apply it to any languages.





But!





The problem is that it is really difficult nowadays to get films or series with subtitles in English and other languages . In my case, that was English and Estonian. I wanted to train my listening skill with favourite films or series, but in Estonia even “Frozen” is not available in Estonian subtitles. (I’m so curious considering the deaf people.)






So!




I tried an Estonian film, which is “Talve” that is also in this article’s title.

Reference

“Talve” was in cinema in 2020, which depicts Estonia in 1942. The original novel was written by Oskar Luts, and the word “talve” comes from the word “talv” which means “winter” in Estonian. (I don’t know why it is “talve”.) There are films of this series as well.

I was still poor when buying this DVD. I hesitated to buy it a bit because I was afraid not to see it. (As an additional information, when I watch something new, my expectation is super low.) Besides, the reason why I chose this film was because I didn’t know any other suitable films for language learning.

Now I watch it almost twice a day in the way that I mentioned above. Of course there’s no Japanese, so I watched it in English and then in Estonian.

As a review of this film, I kind of enjoyed it since the genre is more likely a comedy. However, at some points the “funny” scenes depend on the original language (Estonian), so without knowledge of the Estonian language, it’s not easy to understand how funny it is. What is more, the English subtitle isn’t that great overall, but it’s good not to get tired while watching as the length is only 90 minutes.

There is a scene of sauna, drinking vodka, etc, which sounds Estonian, so perhaps it’s useful to understand Esotnian culture a bit. 

I don’t know how many times I have watched so far due to the repetitive watching habit as mentioned, but it’s also good to have some sounds as I live on my own without any flatmates now. I hope I can enhance my listening skill with the Estonian film. Are you interested in it? It seems you can rent it online.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Uses Estonian Children’s Literature Centre.

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Tere!

How often do you read books? In my case, I buy a book whenever I feel like reading it. (But I’ve been in a not ideal situation because the COVID-19 situation in the UK has compelled me to wait for about a month now. It’s been two months since I ordered.) This time, in addition to the previous article on “Talve”, I’m going to write about Estonian literature…no, about extensive reading. The extensive reading is one  of the ways to learn a language.

The extensive reading is reading as many books that are at your language level as possible. When I was in a university in Japan, I was in the Department of British and American Studies, where we had to read books in English, take and pass the quizzes to gain the word counts. (And it’s totally okay to exceed the minimum word count.) We also had the minimum number of words of books, depending on the classes or levels.

It might sound that with this method we could enhance our reading skill, but I believe this would rather strengthen the vocabularies. (In fact, some researchers have the same opinion as mine, others not. In my opinion, without increasing the reading speed, the extensive reading cannot enhance the reading skill.)

I wish Estonia had such a system, but anyways they don’t have it, so I thought I should find at least something to read. Then I went to the library in the Old Town!

When doing the extensive reading, there is a criteria to choose a book. For example, you are fond of the Harry Potter series, and your English level is A2 to B1. Then if you try to read one of those books, it would take hours to read and understand a few pages, which is not the extensive reading.

This happens because of insufficiency of vocabularies.

Then, how can you choose a book? Pick up one book and read the first page. Provided that you have less than a few words that you do not comprehend, the book suits your level and you can start reading that book.

In my case it’s Estonian. Of course I consult a dictionary a lot to read not only the Harry Potter series but also some short articles in a textbook. However, I knew that if I would start doing the extensive reading, I will gain more vocabulary, and it will lead to a result in reading itself in the end.

Even though the target language is different, the criteria is the same. I should read a book which has less than a few words that I do not understand in one page. Also as far as I know, there are no books that are rewritten specifically for the Estonian language learners, I needed to choose ones from a general lineup. It means I should choose literature for kids. (However, it’s still difficult.)

In Tallinn there are some libraries. In addition to universities’ libraries, there is the National Library of Estonia, Tallinn Central Library and so on. In the Central Library, there are books in English or other foreign languages such as Spanish.

However, what I wanted was books in Estonian for kids. I had no idea which branch library of the Central Library has such. (Perhaps they don’t really have any.) Then I did some research, and found Estonian Children’s Literature Centre in the Old Town.

Like its name, they do have lots of books for kids (until teeneagers). I was wandering around there and found Harry Potter, the Song of Fire and Ice.

The Song of Fire and Ice
Harry Potter
Original book of “Talve”

I know those stories so I wanted to borrow but I thought I shouldn’t because I wouldn’t be able to understand them properly. So I decided to borrow five picture books for toddlers. What I borrowed was translated from English, but rabbits were cute so I decided to borrow them.

When borrowing books at National Library of Estonia, Tallinn Central Library or universities’ libraries, you can use your Estonian ID card as a library card, but in this centre, it costs one euro to make a library card. But it’s still cheap considering the number of books that I can read. It was a self-investment. The librarian was a middle-aged female but she could speak English.

Library card

Eventually I borrowed five books for two weeks.

My speaking level is not that high although I finished the B1 course, so I want to increase my vocabulary little by little. (It sounds as if the vocabularies are everything, but without them we can’t really talk.)

It’s a key to enhance each skill in balance when learning a foreign language.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Goes to Animal Shelter in Estonia.

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Tere!

In Tallinn, Estonia, we had had a lockdown since the 28th of December 2020 until the 17th of January 2021. I still feel that it seemed better than the ones in London or Paris where my old friends live because in Tallinn take-away was allowed for restaurants and cafes, and there was no need to submit any document to get a leaving permit. (Yes, in France they needed to. My friend didn’t have any printer so she submitted a hand-written permit to the police.)

In any situation with COVID-19, places that we could go are limited in any part of the world. Besides, I met one Estonian during my third hospitalisation (which happened in October 2020). One day after the hospitalisation, we were messaging and talking about my mask that my mum bought at Kumano Taisha Shrine in my hometown, and then the topic was switched to an animal shelter in Estonia.

Then we agreed to go to the animal shelter. It was the first time in three years and half for me to go to the animal shelter in Estonia. Also it was the first time in my life. 

The animal shelter is near a lake in Männiku. We talked about the area and lake while walking with a dog. And I completely thought that the lake was somewhere that I had been to in July 2020, but when I was searching the exact place of this animal shelter, I figured out that there were multiple lakes. (Considering that, I want to erase all the talks that I had done at that time…)

We went to the animal shelter by car since this companion could drive. However, it seems there are buses such as bus 116. It’s 116 and the area is (kind of) suburb of Tallinn, so the bus may charge you a few euros. Just keep in mind that it might happen.

We went to the animal shelter one regular Saturday at 12pm, when the shelter is open. I’m not sure about other days and times, so don’t forget to check those if you are planning to go there. It may be different.

Moreover, it seems we needed Estonian ID cards. Since this time he registered as a representative of our group (of only two though), I didn’t do anything. What I want to say is maybe you need an Estonian ID card if you want to walk with a dog. (If you are interested, just contact them because I have no idea in the case of travellers.)

Once it’s open and you registered, they give you one dog at random. This means that you can’t choose dogs. We got a super black dog. I have no idea what kind of species he was. The dog was just handsome and looked good.

Then we walked around the lake with the dog.

That’s it.

Walking with a dog was a main activity, but that was it.

You can watch a video of this dog here (that is my Japanese page).

We walked with him for perhaps about one hour, and just headed to the shelter to give back the dog.

Sometimes the dog was pretty barking to other sheltered dogs, and vice versa. However, there was no trouble or even happening.

Also, in this animal shelter there are lots of cats as well, but since we both had cat allergies, we just looked at cats from the window. In my experience, some cats like me, others don’t. When travelling in Riga, Latvia with my friends, we had a cat in our hostel, who did a cat punch to me. On the other hand, 80% of dogs like me. For example, when I went to Timbeter’s boss’s place, her dog liked me a lot, hopping and jumping on me. (However, I was very slightly frustrated because he gave me some dirt on my relatively new shoes.)

Anyways, it’s worth going to the animal shelter because our activities at home are limited in general, and it’s also good to walk somewhere unfamiliar so why don’t you go there? 

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Calls Technician to Have Internet at Home.

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Tere!

How’s everything? The other day I wrote a story about moving to the new place. For such an event we would need to get some necessary home appliances and daily essentials, but there is one more crucial thing — the internet.

I knew that I had a LAN cable hole at home, so I simply bought a WiFi router and was going to sign a contract with a provider. That was my initial plan.

In Estonia there are some internet providers. According to some people who I know:

  • STV: “Who would use such a provider?” by my former colleague
  • Tele2: the best
  • Telia: you won’t make a mistake
  • elisa: “Just expensive. Who needs it” by my friend

Now you know which one is best.

When signing an internet contract in Estonia, Telia would be the best option. If you can invest and afford, buying a router that works with a SIM card and signing a contract with Tele2 is also an option. (I wrote like this because I’m not 100% sure if Tele2 has a WiFi renting service.)

Based on my colleague’s and friends’ advice, I decided to go to Telia in the shopping centre. The clerk told me that I needed a technician, so I booked a time when he would come on the week that I would completely move in.

Then one Friday the technician came and said

This is the older type of internet.

?????

He mentioned there was Telia’s network in the building, but the network that went to my room was by elisa, so he had to bring a cable from the outside to the inside in order to connect the internet.









Neither the broker nor the owner said such a thing…








Also he said he had to make a hole to have cable for the internet around the doorframe. I called my owner, but the technician couldn’t speak Russian so the owner’s husband answered the call. We got a permission to make a hole, and the technician made an effort, but

I can’t proceed. There is metal inside so I can’t make a hole. 

Really.

Eventually the technician couldn’t have the internet at home, so we gave up.

Next day I went to the Telia shop, and cancelled the contract. Then immediately I went to the elisa shop and booked another technician. Their service was available even on Sunday. I saw some positivity to work at home on Monday.

On sunday the technician came to my place, and checked the internet status:

The connection is cut somewhere.

??????

Why????

Just in case I told him that the Telia technician came and made a hole, and he said that was probably the reason.

Although the technician had another booking in half an hour, I had a permission from the owner already, he made his effort.

After a while the technician successfully and thankfully set the WiFi, and I could work on Monday at home.

This time I learnt when getting the internet at home:

  • Go and talk to the provider before buying a WiFi router. (Possibly the WiFi cannot be used, and the providers give you an option to rent a WiFi router);
  • Call a technician definitely;
  • Give up providers if they are not in your room.

This is no one’s fault this time. However, I thought either the owner or the broker should have known this. By the way I lived in a flat without the internet in Kyoto some years ago, but I could get a rental Wifi router (pocket WiFi). In Estonia I couldn’t find such a solution. (All the pocket WiFi routers that I found were for travelling.)

And one more thing — it cost 10 EUR for 15 minutes at Telia to have a technician, but elisa didn’t charge me. Anyways, I’m glad to have the internet at home.

The hole is big so I cover it with a tape.

Have a lovely internet life at your place too.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Changes Place in Estonia (Vol. 4).

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Tere!

Do you know how long I have been in Estonia? I’ve been here for more than three years now. (My fourth year started last August.)

In short, I have changed places to live almost every year.

Previously I talked about how to move to a new place in Estonia in this article, so please read it first if you are thinking of living in Estonia.

This time’s account is rather a background story of moving to a new place in Estonia.

I decided to move out because I was sick of my Hong Kong flatmate’s attitude, behaviour as well as his ways of thinking. Normally we decide where to live based on school or office location, bus stop, supermarkets, etc. At that time I didn’t have any new determined job yet so I had no idea in which area to live.

When I came to Estonia, I shared one flat with 11 other people in the city centre. Then I got a job so I moved to Mustamäe where the office was. This was the second place.

However, since I was so sick of my Indian flatmate, I moved to another place in Mustamäe but it was still a walkable distance from the office. This was the third place. Remember? The one that I had to agree to the flatmate agreement like what Sheldon in “Big Bang Theory” made. (Sheldon is better in fact.)

Besides, at the third of my hospitalisation, the Hong Kong flatmate was a part of the reason that I was there, so I decided to move out besides a new job.

However, at that time I didn’t have any new job yet (as mentioned earlier), and had no idea where the next office would be located when I was looking for a new place. That’s why it was kind of hard to decide.

In Tallinn many nice but cheaper flats are in Lasnamäe where lots of Russians live. Mustamäe has smaller flats like 11㎡~. In the town, of course the rent is pricey. Põhja-Tallinn is fancier but there are few supermarkets in the neighbourhood. Kristiine has few properties. 

For those reasons it was quite difficult to find an ideal place.

However, there was something that I could not compromise — the size.

Since I’ve had a 160cm office desk, I needed a space that I could have such a big desk and some space for the laundry dryer rack.

Without real understanding the size of rooms, I found two places. One was in the town, and the other one was in another area close to the town.

Since my friends always told me to live somewhere not in Mustamäe but in the centre. Then I went  to see the former place which was way different from the pictures and so small. 20㎡ was actually really small (for me).

For this reason I went to see the other place. The kitchen was not separate but that was not my priority. There was a separate bedroom and the bed was semi double. The toilet was together with the shower, but there was a bathtub. Also there was enough space for my lovely 160cm desk. Eventually this place became my new home.

The owner can speak only Russian, but when we have something to tell each other, we use Google Translate or something to communicate. Her husband can speak English so when there is something important he can talk with me.

It’s the first time for me to live alone since the time I lived in Kyoto, and though it’s good to have someone to talk with, it’s also important to have my own time. Therefore I’m planning to invite people for dinner at some point, such as former good colleagues. (Like I send Christmas cards to the company that I worked for in Japan.)

By the way, of course I have had many objects because I have lived here for over three years, but I still haven’t used any moving service. Even this time.

Because I didn’t have enough money.

I went back and forth multiple times to the new and old places by spending one month. (The hardest time was when I was carrying the desk legs. Those were surprisingly heavy.) The reason why I mentioned “one month” is that my broker told me that the owner couldn’t wait for one month. Ergo I had to pay for double rents with my mum’s financial support, but instead I had enough time to carry all my stuff.

In this house there was a coffee machine (that I had longed for), a refrigerator as well as a laundry machine, but one electric appliance was missing — a microwave. (I’ve had a rice cooker and a toaster.) I could buy a microwave at 50 EUR at IKEA, which is not too expensive. However I thought that there should be something cheaper, so I checked on Facebook’s marketplace, and found one for 35 EUR. It was heavier than I thought (though it was crazy to carry such a thing by bus), so I eventually took Bolt to carry it and in total it cost around 40 EUR. (There was one more cheaper microwave in the marketplace but the size was bigger than the space so I gave up.)

By the way, you can buy a laundry rack at Maxima (supermarket) for 10 EUR. Also I could buy a mop with disposable (wet/dry) wipes, so I can clean the house too. I’m quite satisfied with life here. (But super technically speaking, I want a meat slicer. With it I can cook more Japanese dishes, but it costs 100 EUR and big.)

Reference

That’s all about moving to a new place! I hope I will stay here for a while (like more than a year)…

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Goes to Market in Estonia.

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Tere!

How often do you go to the market? When I was 12, I went to Oregon, the US and experienced a proper market because in Japan supermarkets are apparently more popular. In Estonia, there are quite lots of markets (which is called “turg” in Estonian). Of course not all the Estonians go there, and in winter the vegetables, fruits and flowers shops are closed. 

However, in this season (summer) all the shops are open and I went Nõmme turg to buy something for the first time in an Estonian market. This time the article is about my discovery in the Estonian market.

Table of Contents
1. Meat
2. Fish
3. Veggies and fruits


1) Meat

When I want to buy meat at the supermarket, I tend to choose poultry due to its cheaper price, but from time to time I want to eat something else. If you feel like eating beef, go to the market.

In my opinion the beef in the supermarket costs as expensive as the one in Japan, but in the market the most costly beef is approximately 8€ per kilo!

But!

As going to a butchery shop, I had no idea which part I should have bought, so I chose the one with bones in 6€ as a trial.

That was good though.

The shop is called Sigwar and the owner can’t speak English. This means it was a great time to try my Estonian! I said:

Ma võttan ○○.

Üks kilo.

I still don’t know how the third case of this part of beef is. Probably I made a mistake, but it didn’t matter in this case. If you want to try, you just can say something you want in ○○ when you make an order. The direct translation of this sentence is “I take ○○”. Besides, they sell meat kilo by kilo, so you simply can say how much you want. Then they will scale the weight and you will pay.

I didn’t have any difficulty in that, and since I’m non-Estonian, the owner seemed happy as well (to have communicated with me in Estonian).

By the way, this meat available in Nõmme turg is from Latvia according to my friend.

This is probably because historically the Estonians seem to eat more pork than beef. Of course nowadays it seems that they eat beef also, but I guess the Latvians eat more.

Which do you prefer?

I prefer fish.


2) Fish

Another day I went to Nõmme turg to buy some fish.

But! 

In the shop, the fish names were written in Estonian, and I could recognise only a couple of types of fish by their looking, so it took time to make a decision.

In this shop at Nõmme turg, a fish that looked like makarrel was sold, so I decided to buy one. I had an experience to buy salmon at Rimi (supermarket), and I remembered I could get only from one kilo, ergo I was worried about the amount. Anyways, I said:

Ma tahaksin △△. (I would like △△.)

Then the owner asked me:

Palju? (How many?)

Üks. (one)

Then she took one makarrel and scaled it.

It cost around 2€.

The makarrel in this shop cost 4 euro per kilo, so it presumably weighed 500g.

She sold me the fish even though that was way less than 1 kg (unlike Rimi).

After getting home from turg I sliced the makarrel into three, and cooked half with miso which is a Japanese seasoning and grilled the other half with only salt.

Yam.

3 id=”veggies”) Veggies and fruits

Finally the article is talking about the veggies and fruits. The veggies and fruits look more fresh than the ones at supermarket. Perhaps because of this, they are more expensive than the ones in supermarkets.

At that time I really wanted to buy cherries.

Usually they sell berries in huge boxes, but really occasionally they have smaller boxes. Or maybe you even can ask them.

But! 

I forgot how to say “box” in Estonian, so I looked around and found one shop that sold cherries in a small box. This time I didn’t have to say anything to buy.

However, it seemed this shop accepted only cash. Although it’s said that Estonia is a digital nation, once in a while you may need cash.

That’s all about the story that I went to Nõmme turg!

I recommend you to go there if you like seafood as they have much more options than supermarkets!

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Does 5 Quarantine Challenges in Estonia.

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Tere!

I know it’s still trendy but in Estonia the national quarantine period was over in the mid of May.

I thought:





I can’t go anywhere, which does not mean I cannot do anything!



Then I decided to implement some #quarantinechallenge . Mainly there are five things that I have done, but I didn’t intend to do five things. Coincidently I’d got five challenges.

A few of the challenges may be useful for you so perhaps it’s not senseless to read this article.

Table of Contents
1) Exercise x Pokemon GO
 2) Hobby x Skillshare
 3) Instagram x Trip
 4) Skype x Party
 5) Learning x Work

1) Exercise x Pokemon GO

To begin with, this is about Pokemon GO and some exercise. You may have noticed that the quarantine situation is unhealthy, but the thing is that in many counties it was allowed to take a walk. I started taking a walk a daily exercise.

A couple days later, I reinstalled the Pokemon GO app which I immediately uninstalled when it was released a few years ago. My challenge was basically: how many pokemons I could get during this quarantine.

I started this challenge on the 26th of March and finished on the 17th of May.

Here are several fundamental information.

Buddy: Ivysaur

Level: 24
Distance walked: 102.3km (according to the Japanese one)
Pokemon caught: 1,028
PokeStops visited: 503
Pokemon seen: 275
Pokemon caught for the Pokedex: 243
Gym badges: 6

The results about the battles are below.

By the way, you may wonder why I had a Russian-like name for the account. It’s an abbreviation of 

Anti CORONA Virus.

It’s trendy and matched with the purpose, isn’t it?


2) Hobby x Skillshare

The next one is Skillshare. The reason why I used this web service is because my friends — Masho — had a presentation video taken by Skillshare and shared it on her Facebook.

When going from the link that Masho shared on Facebook, it said that I could get two-free months on Skillshare. Therefore I registered and watched five videos including hers.

The genres that Skillshare has had vary from the hobby-level topic to the professional one and not only about art. The lectures are basically in English, and yet if the speaker’s mother tongue is not English, they sometimes have the scripts in their languages. 

During the quarantine, I watched: 

(I might write about my opinions on the details of those videos.)

The videos that I watched during this quarantine are all related to art (rather illustration?). This is because I wanted to enhance my skill while I couldn’t go anywhere. I told you in the beginning — “I can’t go anywhere, but it doesn’t mean I cannot do anything” –.

If you are interested in learning something on Skillshare, you also will get two-free months from here.

(If I remember correctly, you may need to register your bank card information, but given that you stop the subscription before the two months ends, they wouldn’t charge you. However, I remember that it was kind of complicated, so I recommend you to schedule it on your own planner like Google Calendar.)


3) Instagram x Trip

This is, technically speaking, not anything that I did during the quarantine but something that gave me a few ideas so I share this.

I have two purposes on my Instagram:

1. Let the audience enjoy the pictures of what I saw, which are retouched as precisely as possible and;

2. Let them enjoy 9 coloured and maximised pictures that make a national flag of the visited countries on my instagram profile page.

Some of you might remember that I was supposed to travel in March, but COVID-19 forced me to postpone it. For this reason, I decided to post older pictures of two countries as the instagram trips. On these trips I “went” to Latvia and Ireland.

I posted pictures on Instagram randomly while you may see the Estonian flag version at some point already. If you are looking forward to seeing different flag versions, just try to keep being updated with my travel plans 🙂


4) Skype x Party

In Japan, Zoom party was slightly buzzed. You might not use Skype anymore, and yet you should have an account because Skype is still useful and in a sense necessary in business. Also Skype was initially developed here in Estonia!

My friends and I had an online party, and we knew that we could use facebook for a real talk, but we chose Skype. We did the online party twice in total.

Reference

Moreover, I personally achieved one goal that was to drink Corona beer during the quarantine. I know it’s stupid but I enjoyed myself. Otherwise, I just opened a bottle of Jameson and drank it half by myself.

Reference


5) Learning x Work

This is also nothing particularly done during this quarantine, and yet I literally felt that it was very important. 

You may know that social media is usually casual, but you may not have any idea about Twitter in Japan. A number of business people have accounts and are quite active, posting useful information. In my opinion, those who are sales people, marketers or designers are main users, though probably because I follow such types of people more than other types.

On Twitter second by second you can get helpful information. It may be owned media such as company blogs or may be the third platform to share information like note. 

I always bookmarked interesting tweets and even after reading the posts, if I felt it interesting and useful, I sent the tweet links to Slack or Discord (as references).

In business I believe that the developing ability is one of the most important essences. If you just follow what written there with your eyes, you cannot gain it as your own knowledge. The more you consider how to adjust the idea to your business, the more you will grow up. (At least I believe such)

That’s all what I did during the quarantine. How was it? Is there anything interesting or that you may want to try in the near future?

Leave the comments and make me happy!

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Sells iPhone, Buys New One in Estonia.

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Tere!

Recently I bought a new iPhone by selling the older one in Estonia. My friends know that I have had an iPhone whilst only friends in my hometown know that actually I have been an iPhone user since I was 14 or 15. 

You may think:








Wow, she must be from a rich family.





But








I saved money by myself and bought an iPod.








Reference

When getting in high school, my mam bought a cell phone for me, with which I could only make calls, email or something like so-called SMS nowadays, having no internet.

I had a green one.
Reference

As a second-year student in high school, my iPod was running out its storage, so I bought an iPod touch. My mam envied my new device so she bought an iPhone for herself. However, since finally (?) she thought that it was pitiful  that I had no internet on the phone, she bought an iPhone 4s for me.

In two years I changed it to iPhone 5s, and due to the fact that in December 2016 I dropped my it in the toilet at the restaurant in Kyoto when drinking with my Irish friend (and I also washed it), I changed the device model again.

Reference

Since I already decided to leave Japan at that time, I wanted a phone with the SIM free and I bought one free-SIM iPhone. Nowadays it’s really difficult to live a life without a phone anyway, so I didn’t care about the model that much. Then when I was travelling in Germany with my friend, he found that my iPhone was not 6s that I had thought for a few years but 7 actually. The iPhone already had something wrong so I wanted a new one, and decided to buy it after saving enough amount of money by working as a freelancer.

Reference

One day I talked about such a story to my customer support Estonian colleague, who said:

Probably you can sell it at 100€ or something.

Really.

In Japan the system is completely different. Usually we buy SIM-locked phones at the phone carrier shop as those are cheaper and “sell” their older phone accordingly to the payment schedule of carriers that they have used. (It may sound complicated, and it is actually.) In other words, normally they don’t sell older phones at some device or telecommunication shops which are not phone carriers before buying new ones.

Then the colleague told me one store called Mobipunkt.

I contacted them by email in advance, and they said iPhone 7 could be sold at around 130€. However, I expected 100€ because my iPhone’s battery health was bad (81%), and the colouring was a bit faded.

In the end of April I got notified that the salary as a freelancer has been paid so next day I went to Mobipunkt in Linnahall. Nevertheless it was still during the quarantine period owing to COVID-19, as even such a shop seemed to be considered as a telecommunication service, the store was open. (That’s why I could decide to go there.)

When entering the inside of the store, only one staff member was there.

I told him that I wanted to sell the older device and buy a new one. He said the engineer would check the device, which would take five to ten minutes, which the time like I could see around the whole shop. In several minutes, the staff came back and told me the selling price. I agreed to the price and told him the type of model, the storage size and colour of the device that I wanted. He deducted the older device’s selling price from the new device price, which was the final price for me to pay.

I got a backup in the previous night and was ready for everything so basically that mentioned above was all. The price of iPhone 11 was 815€ and I could sell my iPhone 7 at 100€ so I paid 715€. You might want to pay on the installment plan, but I didn’t want to pay for the interest, for which reason I saved money.

I knew that there would be a new model from Apple, and yet I take photos with the camera of my phone, so whether there is a night mode in the camera was quite important. iPhone 11 Pro was too expensive and I really don’t like triple cameras. (It’s so creepy and disgusting.) That’s why I bought iPhone 11.

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After the purchase, I went home and restored my backups, and changed the app store because I wanted to use SEB’s mobile banking app. (The app store change is not related to the device change but it was just a good timing for me.)

You might know that the phones available in Japan makes sounds when taking pictures, but this time it doesn’t (as it seems the device was from France?). Anyway, I feel so GOOD.

That’s all about the personally recent happiest story.

Aitäh! 🙂

Zooks Gets Laptop Repaired in Estonia.

ZooksLeave a comment

Tere!

When I became a first-year university student in Japan, I got a brand new laptop for the first time in my life. (I’d had only second-hand ones so far.) The brand new laptop was VAIO’s model, which I had used for around seven years until I came to Estonia and got a degree in postgraduate school. It means that it had been dying but it survived during my thesis period. In autumn in 2019 when I temporarily went back to Japan for the first time in over two years I finally bought a new laptop. This time I bought one from ASUS.

A bit duller metalic pink.
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I was planning to buy one from either VAIO like the previous time or Macbook, but Macbook has only the charger port on the one side, and Macbook Pro was too expensive so I gave up the Apple products. I liked VAIO’s laptop design, but their spec was not enough for me. (Its storage was 256GB at maximum and I already used over 400GB with the previous laptop.) 

I wanted the brown one with Mickey.
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Then I asked one of my American friends, who said ASUS was great. I searched their laptops, found a cool one and bought it.

It has another colour: silver.
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I got the product in Japan (because I used ASUS Japan) and brought it to Estonia carefully. However, when I started using it in Estonia, something seemed wrong.

The screen was frequently flashing.

I contacted ASUS’s support centre, based on whose advice I restarted Windows or reset BIOS, but nothing solved the problem.

I was so worried about any repair shop available for ASUS in Estonia as here is a really small country. I googled half-already-disappointedly anyway








and there was!!!!!!!






Then in the middle of November 2019, I went to the repair shop, spending almost one hour for one way to go there. The repair shop is in Ülemiste, which is near the airport.

The repair shop itself is quite small and doesn’t have any machine to issue the waiting number. They accept not only ASUS but other brands such as Nokia so if given that you need to go to this repair shop, just go inside and talk to the receptionist if there is no queue. Probably there are two ladies (one of whom looked quite showy and the other one wore glasses as my visit), so tell one of them that you want to get your device repaired.

The lady with glasses handled my issue at that time, and yet since she couldn’t speak English but Estonian and Russian, she went somewhere and came back with some engineer. I’m still not sure if it was concindent, but the engineer was the guy who I had been contacting by phone and email before coming to the repair shop. After meeting him, the procedure went smoothly.

Then in one week after I went to the repair shop, I received an email from the repair shop to get the laptop back, but Jesus Christ – it wasn’t repaired.

But why? This is because, according to the engineer, no matter how many times they tried to reproduce the error that I encountered under any possible circumstances, they couldn’t see it. The engineer asked me to send them some video so that they can know the issue better. I paid attention to the laptop while using it and successfully took one video and sent it to them.

Some of you may remember that I was supposed to go on a trip in March 2019 by using some days from the annual leave. I was going to have one week off, by using whose period I planned to go to the repair shop before travelling since I wouldn’t need it during the trip, but unfortunately COVID-19 panicked the whole world and affected my travel plan. I couldn’t go on a trip that I planned, but luckily (?) Estonia allowed groceries stores, pharmacies and the medical services and telecommunication services to run their operation even during the quarantine, so I revisited the repair shop.

On the 9th of April, I went to the repair shop again as planned after all the travel plans were cancelled and postponed. While my laptop was in the repair shop, I used my company’s old DELL laptop which was super slow to do my jobs and write some blog posts. 

I thought the laptop was really slow because it was so old, but the fundamental reason was its spec. It had Core i7 which seemed good but the number after the core type was something in 3000s. I was also using Adobe Photoshop with that laptop (and several other Adobe softwares as well), which occupied 60% of the laptop’s ability. This is why the laptop worked so slowly.

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Eventually my CTO uninstalled around 10 Adobe softwares, which made the laptop not fast but a bit slower (better) and less irritating than the previous condition. 

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Besides, one day I talked about this story to one of my colleagues on the phone, he told me to use one of the computers in the his room (the developers’ room) in the office because we all worked remotely for the quarantine so for a while they didn’t need them. However! I’m the type of person who cannot take such an offer obediently. Also I didn’t want to bother him because I didn’t know when I would get my laptop back from the repair shop and it might have lasted even until we all got back to the office after the quarantine.

Then coincidently (or fortunately?) I received an email about the repair completion from the repair shop!

The time to repair my laptop: approximately one month.

As a consequence, this article was written with my baby (my ASUS laptop).

(By the way, I didn’t pay even one cent for the repair since my laptop still had a warranty. As some you may know, the residents with the citizenship in Tallinn don’t have to pay for the public transport so I literally didn’t spend any money.)

That’s all about my recent trivial private news.

Aitäh! 🙂