Back in Japan – Tokyo 2017

June 12, 2017

We knew as soon as we left Japan last time that we would be back and after two years we were landing in Tokyo once again. I consider visiting Japan as something of a ‘true holiday’ because the usual stresses of overseas travel have been replaced by familiar routines from previous trips. I’m able to really relax because I know how to get around on their public transport, where my favourite places are to eat, what I want to go see again. Everything is just easier and I can fully enjoy our time there.

In Tokyo we would visit our usual haunts like Akihabara and Nakano broadway to nerd out on figurines (two full suitcases of them in fact) and wander the streets of Harajuku for new clothes. We’d also visit Disneyland again, though it would end up being rained out, and hit up our favourite sushi train in Shibuya almost daily.

This trip would also see us exploring new places like our day out to Yokohama along with our first shrine festival – Kanda Matsuri and other sights like Roppongi Hills and the Salt and Tobacco Museum (way more interesting then it sounds). This would also be our first time visiting Hakone which we stayed at for a few days. I’ll write a full post on this later.

Enjoy this small collection of photos, all taken in or around the Tokyo area.

Italy 2016 – Visiting Florence

April 6, 2017

After our week in Rome, we started the next leg of our more shorter stays in Italy. We began by travelling north, catching the train for an hour and a half before arriving in the busy central station of Florence.

Italy 2016 – Exploring outside Rome

March 23, 2017

Day 4 – The Villa d’Este fountains in Tivoli

After the failure of our first trip to the Villa d’Este gardens, we headed back out of the city again to the town of Tivoli. The train journey offered up a change of scenery from the built up apartments and busy streets to sprawling towns and small, rural stations the farther we traveled out. The station in Tivoli itself is quite unassuming, in fact to get to the main platform we had to literally walk across the tracks (a lot more lax on the health and safety side here).

Italy 2016 – Discovering Rome

March 8, 2017

I’m finally getting around to writing about our Europe trip back in September last year. I had intended to at least start on these before 2017 began but by the time I’d recovered from the holiday we were into the busy end of the year (hello Christmas) and I just decided these posts would have to wait.

This was the longest holiday we’d ever taken, spanning a whole month across two countries with seven different destinations in total. This also made it the most anxiety inducing trip we’ve ever put together. Here we were about to travel across the world to places we’d never visited before, having limited to no knowledge of the local language, with no guides apart from ourselves to get us from one place to another. Months were spent researching and planning everything we’d need to know for this adventure so it would go as smoothly as possible (and give me some peace of mind). Thankfully, almost everything come together and we survived :P.

Our trip began flying into Rome, noting the ‘odd’ stone pine trees lining the streets and the sandy painted buildings from above. Getting out of the airport was an interesting peek into Italian cultural quirks, including seeing people walking their dogs in the airport (more on this later). After some confusion around train tickets, we finally traveled into the city and wandered the old streets to our hotel not far away where we could finally get some rest.

Handmade gold leaf Christmas cards

January 12, 2017

Continuing the theme from last year of avoiding overly complicated cards, I wanted to find something that wouldn’t be too stressful to create. I’d always had an interest in using gold leaf but was unsure how difficult it would be to incorporate. After doing some digging and watching some videos, I discovered that the process was rather simple and the materials fairly inexpensive. From that moment, I decided to create a completely gold leaf card with a simple brushstroke design.

The only materials you need to get started working with gold leaf is some brushes, gold leaf sheets and a special adhesive, all of which you should be able to pick up any good art supply store. For the gold leaf sheets, you don’t need to buy the expensive ‘proper’ version, gold imitation leaf works fine.

Supanova Brisbane 2016

November 17, 2016

It’s been interesting to see how Supanova Brisbane has changed and evolved over the years that I’ve attended. There are anime and game trends that come and go, the various venues (air con!) and the inclusion of new technologies, like VR.

That said, there has always been certain constant aspects of Supanova like the creative cosplay, the numerous figurine and comic booths, the talented artists and the special guests that are central to the convention’s pop culture composition.

Below are a few photos taken on the last day while we searched for sweet anime goods :).

PAX Aus – Melbourne 2016

November 9, 2016

Another year, another PAX Aus! We were once again in Melbourne to attend the gaming convention and excited to see what would be on show this year, especially out of the PAX Rising indie showcase.

VR has definitely come into its own this year with multiple booths embracing the array of VR platforms for their development and the convention has even introduced its own VR Freeplay area for visitors to trial the technology. This is a stark difference from the last 2 years where we’ve only seen small glimmers of it at select booths (which usually need an appointment to try out).

We also saw the inclusion of lots of large upcoming titles including The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy XV, South Park: The Fractured but Whole and Watch Dogs 2 along with the return of some familiar games like Swordy, Goat Punks and Inflatality. All of this along with many new indie titles, tournaments, game hardware, table top games, industry talks and more.

Here are some of the many photos I took on the Friday of the convention (I’ve included links to the games’ sites where possible, see caption notes).

A year with Lucy

May 17, 2016

Today marks the one year anniversary of picking up our little fluff ball known as Lucy. On this day last year we drove over an hour out of town to pick her up from the breeder and she sat on my lap in a laundry basket on the way home. It was a truly exciting day for us and especially for me as Lucy is the first dog I’d ever owned.

Coming home from work has never been the same with an overjoyed puppy greeting you at the door before bringing a toy over to play. Having her come over and lay as close as possible to you on the sofa on a cool night is equally heartwarming. While there have of course been challenges over the past year (including but not limited to toilet training, teething, an ear and eye infection, a bout of fleas, a scary attack in a dog park, a couple of hair matts, all along with her general timid nature around strangers), she is so much a part of our lives now that I can’t imagine it any other way.

Easy handmade Christmas cards and gift tags – Christmas stockings!

January 13, 2016

Christmas cards - christmas stocking design

I can’t believe it’s already 2016, the last few months just seemed to fly by. I hope all of your end of year celebrations were fun and joyous ^_^.

Keeping up with tradition of the past few years I once again made all of my Christmas cards, this time creating Christmas stockings using just paper and gift wrapping. Below is a step by step guide on how I made them along with their gift tag counterparts.

Supanova Brisbane 2015

December 2, 2015

We finished off the last weekend in November once again with Supanova Brisbane – three days filled with cosplay, art, gaming, comics, anime and overall creativity. I was able to attend on the final Sunday, spending most of it wandering around the stalls and looking for elusive figures to add to my collection all while running into friends along the way.

I once again took my camera along to catalogue some of the many sights from the day. I wish I had taken some more photos of the many awesome cosplayers!

Topical Musings

Incoherent ramblings of an Australian digital designer