I’m sure you haven’t already seen enough Pokemon GO content this week, right? Well here’s my 2 cents 😛
I’ve been playing Pokemon since I was 8 years old, so naturally I became addicted to Pokemon GO when Australia was lucky enough to get it first (heck yeah). But I had some expectations for this wonderful game that didn’t quite end up being the reality…
Thank you for watching! Please like, comment and subscribe ❤
Sarah May xxx
Going to Brisbane, for me, usually means one thing – shopping. Coming from a small town, travelling to a large city means encountering many stores that just don’t exist back home. After an entire week in Brisbane, I definitely expected to come home with more things, but I just didn’t find affordable, nice things that I wanted to buy! I desperately wish I bought things from Forever 21, Topshop and Lush but I just didn’t, but here’s what I did end up buying:
Queen Street Mall
White Crop
Shop: Paper Scissors
Price: $12.99
I love the beautiful detail along the bottom of this crop! It’s slightly see-through, but is just long enough to cover my stomach when worn with a high-waisted short/skirt. It’s such a great summer top, and it was so unbelievably cheap! The material is so thin and breezy, I just need to find some cute shorts or a summer skirt to wear with it, then I’ll be wearing this everywhere this summer!
Mint Shorts w/ Lace Overlay
Shop: Paper Scissors
Price: $15.99
I fell in love with these shorts the moment I saw them! They came in both mint and peach, and it was a very difficult decision between the two because both colours looked amazing! These shorts sit very well, and can reach mostly up to my waist. The lace overlay extends past the bottom of the mint material, which looks beautiful when worn.
Floral Crochet Crop
Shop: Chic-a-Booti
Price: $15.99
I loved this – it’s so colourful and casual, and the crochet detail along the bottom is so pretty! It sits lower than a regular crop would so it can be worn as a regular top if desired. I’m not too sure about the quality of this top, as the “Chic-a-Booti” tag that can be seen in the photo has already half fallen off with no wear yet, but time will tell.
Grey Aztec Print T-Shirt
Shop: ICE Design
Price: $10.95
I couldn’t believe how cheap this top was! The fit of this shirt is quite big, and despite being a medium in shirts I fit into an extra small, but purchased a small for the extra bagginess as it suited the style of top. The shirt tends to slip off the shoulders, but it sits so great when worn and is such a comfortable material. This is definitely a summer staple for me and I’m sure I’ll be lounging around in this top quite a lot.
Miscellaneous
Original Glazed Krispy Kreme
Shop: Krispy Kreme Australia
Price: $13.95 (1/2 dozen)
Krispy Kreme donuts are somewhat of a delicacy up north – and it’s a rite of passage to buy a box from the airport store and bring them back home. Something about them makes them so delicious, and the fact that we don’t get to eat them very often only makes it better when we do get our hands on them. Their original glazed donuts are amazing, but I can definitely recommend Apple Custard Crumble and Kookies n’ Kreme if you feel like something more exciting!
Mini Penguin Erasers
Shop: Gallery of Modern Art Gift Shop
Price: $3.95
I saw these little guys when I visited GOMA and needed them immediately. I had a choice between farm animals, marine animals, vehicles or these little penguins – and guess which one I chose? I don’t know if I will even use these as erasers, they look adorable just sitting on my desk!
Supanova
Doctor Who “Van Gogh” T-Shirt
Stall: Popcultcha
Price: $35
I am a huge Doctor Who fan but had never found a T-Shirt that looks generally cool without screaming “look at me, I’m wearing a Doctor Who shirt!”, so when I found this Van Gogh shirt, I loved it. To non-Whovians, this could look like a regular, artsy shirt. I had to buy this shirt in a mens medium as all the womens sizes had run out and a small wouldn’t accommodate my cleavage, so this shirt is so so long on me 😦 I love it though, and I wore it around Brisbane and on the plane home!
Bulbasaur & Squirtle Double-Sided Pillows
Stall: Sugart Creations
Price: 2 for $25
How cuuuuuuute are these! I saw them and had to have them, and if the Charmander print was as cute as these guys I would’ve bought that too (except he just looked sad instead of adorable). These pillows are so goddamn soft and are made out of a material that kinda feels like velvet, but clearly isn’t. Sugart had so many other cute pillows, too!
Eeveelution Pink Floyd T-Shirt
Stall: Tee Turtle
Price: $35
Tee Turtle had so many cool Pokemon prints, including the adorable Pokemon-in-the-shirt-pocket prints, but I just loved this one! The colours are amazing, the shirt is so comfortable and the whole idea of the rainbow Eeveelutions is so pretty!
Overall, I’m so happy with what I bought throughout my week in Brisbane. I managed to save so much money by buying only cheap clothes! I wasn’t even aiming to buy all under $20 things in the mall, my limit was $30 per item but I just happened to only find cheap things! It’s been a while since my last haul, so I hope you enjoyed this post!
Thank you ❤
Sarah May xxx
Supanova is a popular Australian pop culture convention held triannually, holding conventions in two cities per month, taking place in April, June and November. Brisbane Supanova (or Brisnova) for 2014 was held from Friday November 28th – Sunday 30th, and I had the pleasure of attending the convention on what is arguably its biggest day – Saturday.
Brisnova 2014 is the first pop culture exhibition I have had the opportunity to attend, and it surely didn’t disappoint. 2014’s Brisnova was moved to the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre for the first time, and it seemed the conveners were very happy with this upgrade. This year’s Supa Stars line up consisted of favourites Jack Gleeson (King Joffrey from Game of Thrones) and James & Oliver Phelps (Fred & George Weasley from Harry Potter). Other fan favourites included Neve McIntosh, Manu Bennett, Alan Tudyk, Louise Brealey, Peter Hambleton, Grant Imahara, Peter Cullen (voice of Optimus Prime), Jeremy Shada (voice of Finn the Human) and author Matthew Reilly. These huge Supa Stars made Brisnova 2014 one of the most successful conventions yet!
If there is one thing I must say about Supanova and pop culture conventions in general before I begin, is that you must expect to wait in lines for most of your day. If you expect this, wear appropriate supportive footwear and ensure you have enough cash on hand before you arrive, you will enjoy your Supanova experience so much more!
My Brisnova experience was shared with my boyfriend, Sam, who was super excited to arrive. We didn’t cosplay, unfortunately – we just didn’t have time to get costumes together, but we will certainly cosplay if we go next year! We got to the convention centre nearly exclusively by following the crowds of cosplayers on the train, and arrived at about 9:45am for doors opening at 10am.
Once we got through the doors, we made a beeline to the complete opposite side of the huge hall to the Supanova store to get photo tickets for James & Oliver Phelps, in which we waited in a very long line. Photos were $50 per twin, so $100 for a photo with the both of them. Honestly, Supanova – who meets only one Weasley twin!? To save money, Sam & I both put in $50 to get the photo together. We then headed straight to the photo studio, where we waited in a very long line. We met James & Oliver, they were very very tall and seemed friendly from the less-than-30-seconds we got with them (walk in, us: “hi!” them: “hi!”, pose, photo taken, walk out), and our photo turned out to be pretty nice, and makes me feel incredibly short:
James & Oliver Phelps (Fred & George Weasley)
L-R: James Phelps, myself, Sam, Oliver Phelps
Next up, Sam dragged me over to Katie Cook and Andy Price, artists that work on the My Little Pony comics (which Sam is incredibly obsessed with). He got some stuff signed, commissioned artwork (for $160 – phew!), and fangirled incredibly hard. Since they weren’t overly popular guests and were set up at a regular stall instead of the main signing area, we could spend heaps of time with them and we ended up chatting while Andy Price drew Sam’s commission right in front of us. Katie did hers overnight, as it was much larger and required more time. The two commissions Sam purchased turned out amazing, and featured on the Twitter/Instagram accounts of both artists:
After quickly picking up our Weasley sandwich photo, we got caught in a huge line to head out of the convention centre (why!?) to head over to the Quadrupeds Inc. seminar by Katie Cook, Andy Price, Paul Abstruse and Joyce Chin on the other end of the convention centre. The crowd was small, maybe about 15 or so people. The seminar was pretty entertaining despite me being unfamiliar with the work of all four artists on the panel. When it ended, I stood up to the worst muscle pain I have ever experienced because of all the standing and waiting in non-supportive shoes. I could hardly walk, and hobbled around from that point on. The pain ended up lasting for four days after Supanova, ouch!
After making it through the crowd waiting for Matthew Reilly’s seminar, Sam had run out of cash and needed to use an ATM. As there were only 2 ATMs in the entire centre, and it was half an hour before we reached the front of the line! We walked (and I hobbled) back into the centre, where Sam realized he wanted a signature from Jeremy Shada (voice of Finn the Human), which meant standing in line at the Supanova store for another token, then in another long line to wait for Jeremy to sign Sam’s stuff with a scary looking volunteer at the end forbidding anyone to take any photos unless they had paid for one. Afterwards, we waited in another long line for lunch (which consisted of shitty, cold sandwiches), before finally getting to explore the exhibition at 2pm, four hours after we arrived at Brisnova.
We walked very systematically through the many, many stalls as so we wouldn’t accidentally miss anything. There were such a large variety of stalls, from T-Shirts to comic books to corsets to weaponry. Nearly every single stall drew at least a bit of interest from us as we passed by, and most were packed full with people – especially the huge EB games stall in the back corner, which had a huge line just to enter! Other notable things around the convention centre included a TARDIS, a Back to the Future DeLorean, Daleks, a Syfy Fancam 360 (so cool!) and a wrestling arena.
I bought the Van Gogh Doctor Who TARDIS shirt from the Popcultcha stall, while Sam stopped at every stall that sold anything remotely Spiderman related and sifted through what I estimate to be over 2000 comic books total. I tried and tried to find a Legend of Zelda T-Shirt, but unfortunately couldn’t find anything except for a single triforce shirt in a very unappealing shade of green. By the time we reached the artist booths, Sam had bought many, many comic books and it was nearly closing time. With only 15 minutes before the doors closed, Sam convinced me to go back to Sugart Creations, who were selling ADORABLE cushions. I bought the cutest Bulbasaur and Squirtle cushions (I didn’t buy Charmander because he looked so sad 😦 ). Then, we made a last minute dash for Tee Turtle, where I bought an Eeveelution Pink Floyd T-Shirt. All of Sam’s and my own Supanova purchases are below:
Overall, my Brisnova experience was pretty awesome – I didn’t expect to enjoy it so much since I didn’t know many of the guests, but the entire atmosphere was really cool! My inner nerd definitely came out, and I’m sure I’ll attend another pop culture convention again! If you live in/near Melbourne or the Gold Coast, definitely attend the April round of Supanova – the same goes for Sydney and Perth for the June conventions! Adelaide and Brisbane have to wait another year for Supanova to come back, unfortunately, but it’s bound to be even better as the years go on.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
Sarah May xxx
Most college rooms can be dark and boring places when you first move in, right? Mine felt like a blank, grey-walled sauna when I first moved in, but it didn’t take me long to spruce up my own little place with my own personal touch.
Sometimes, a little bit of handmade, meaningful items really make your college room a home.
Sarah May xx
WARNING: This post includes no mention of Playstation games – my childhood consisted of Nintendo consoles and an Xbox!
I was an unbelievably boyish child – while girls my age were playing with Barbies or *shudder* Bratz dolls, I was playing video games. The consoles that consumed my earlier childhood were the good old Nintendo 64, and my trusty Game Boy Advance. It was a good childhood, and the games that I played as a child remain with me today – I doubt that I’ll ever really sell them!
Note: Most N64 games in this list were bought second-hand, and therefore were fully completed prior to playing.
Super Mario 64 (N64)
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This game was so unbelievably fun to play and run around in. Despite the game already being completed, I loved being able to run everywhere and play every level back to front. My favourite part of this game was the free reign I had – I didn’t have to be completing a level to play, at that age I was happy to run around outside Peach’s castle. Although, I was never able to beat the final Bowser boss as a child.
Mario Kart 64 (N64)
The classic Mario Kart began my love for racing games. My younger brother and I would play this game together all the time (and I would always win), and even now when I play it with my boyfriend, I can still completely dominate him!
Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald (GBA)
I owned the Sapphire edition GBA, and my brother owned the Emerald edition GBA. The third generation of Pokemon featured in this game is easily the generation I can call a favourite (yes, even over the original!). I bought Pokemon Ruby to complete my collection and my Sapphire edition has all three legendary Pokemon at level 100, including nearly all third generation Pokemon. As a nine year old child, it was a pretty great achievement!
GoldenEye 007 (N64)
I was too much of a scared child to attempt the more difficult levels, despite my Dad unlocking them all, but I still loved completing the earlier levels with basically all possible cheats to prevent dying, and the multiplayer component was great!
Mario Party (N64)
What a great party game this was! However, it would take way too long. The mini games in this version of Mario Party were fantastic, and my house was always the house of choice to party at when I was in primary school, purely because of this game.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Honestly, I did not appreciate the pure amazingness of this game until I was much older. As previously mentioned, I was much too scared of dying in video games, so I used to run around as young Link in Kokiri Forest, talking to all the little characters. If I was brave, I would venture out into Hyrule field and ride Epona around and visit Kakariko Village to, once again, just talk to the villagers. Despite my fear, though, it’s such a timeless game that deserved its 3DS reboot.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64)
Yet again – terrifying as a child. This game was so much darker than Ocarina of Time, being given only three days before a moon falls and destroys the world isn’t exactly cheery. In terms of interesting side characters and locations to run around in (so, basically, no gameplay actually occurred), I much preferred this game. My home N64 lacked the expansion needed to play this game, but my grandmother’s N64 had it so it was definitely a privilege to get to play it!
Banjo Kazooie / Banjo Tooie (N64)
I loved these games! Such cute characters with free reign to run anywhere I wanted. The levels were still pretty good, too, and mostly wasn’t too scary for my little mind – although, Banjo-Tooie possibly scarred my young mind forever from a certain scene in Jinjo’s Village 😦
The Sims / The Sims 2 (PC)
A big thank you goes to my grandmother for having The Sims 2 and a few expansion packs, and for letting me borrow them and install them at home to play. As a child who was significantly older than other children at my grandmother’s during school holidays, I liked to escape and play The Sims 2 every single day.
The games I played as a kid are ones I’d happily play again today, and I’m lucky to have owned physical copies of what are now classic games, and some are very expensive to acquire today! I don’t regret my childhood one bit, especially because it was this awesome!
There are plenty of Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance emulators for those wanting to try out these classic games – I myself use Project64 and Visual Boy Advance, shh!
Until next time,
Sarah May xx
My Paper Flowers 