Austria 2016 – Vienna

April 30, 2018

Day 14 – Travel day into Austria

We were up early, waiting for our bus to arrive on the main street of Mestre. We had a long bus ride from Venice to the Italian Austrian border, where we would switch and take a train the rest of the way into Vienna. A full day of travel logistics that I’ve never done before made me incredibly anxious as one mis-step could de-rail the entire trip.

I was pleasantly relieved when the bus arrived and we promptly loaded our luggage in an orderly fashion before we were on our way. The difference between the service of the driver with his friendly and helpful nature compared to those I’d dealt with in Italy instantly struck me and would become a recurring theme throughout our time in Austria.

Italy 2016 – A rainy Venice

March 27, 2018

After nearly 2 weeks of bustling around Italy, we would finally reach our last destination – the quintessential tourist stop of Venice. Our time actually spent in the city would end up being cut short as we experienced the only rainfall of the entire trip during our two day stay there. That said, we still made the most of our time and got to see some of the interesting parts of the city.

Italy 2016 – A short stay in Milan

February 21, 2018

When I was planning out our trip in Italy, I had no intentions of visiting Milan. However, after the discovery of a certain video game that features architecture based off the Milan Duomo, my interest was piqued and I conducted some more research on the area. I decided to re-route our journey for a quick stopover with only one full day to explore. It ended up being one of our favourite places from the Italian leg of the trip despite our short stay.

Watercolour and Gold Leaf Christmas Cards

January 28, 2018

Along with the usual bustle of December, I once again gave myself the task of making my own Christmas cards. This year’s design would turn up the complexity from previous years with a Christmas scene painted with watercolour and some gold leaf highlights since I had so much left over from last year.

Originally my plans were lot more ambitious. I wanted each card to have a different image that when put together would create one giant Christmas scene. Time constraints dampened that idea though and instead I chose one that would be easy enough to roll out. I mocked up the design digitally before printing it out to use as my main guideline for all the cards.

Supanova Brisbane 2017

November 14, 2017

Supanova was back in Brisbane again last weekend with all the cosplay, comics, figures, plushies and talented artists you’d expect from this type of convention. We went through our usual routine of systematically checking out all the stalls before sitting down to watch wrestling and then afterwards grabbing lunch and buying some things for ourselves. We also also able to catch up with friends throughout the day as well! Here are some photos from the Sunday 🙂

PAX Aus – Melbourne 2017

October 31, 2017

It’s that time again for another PAX Aus roundup! This year was another great turnout from both the big players and the indie developers. We saw many new and upcoming releases on show like Mario Odyssey and Monster Hunter world, an increase in the use of VR across all platforms and found interesting and refined titles throughout the Pax Rising showcase. Below is a selection of what we saw on the day.

Back in Japan – Hakone

October 3, 2017

I’d been wanting to visit Hakone since our last trip to Japan, initially planning for it to be a day trip out of the city. After realising that travelling to and from would significantly limit our time, I decided to wait until our most recent trip to stay a couple of nights in the area.

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).

Topical Musings

Incoherent ramblings of an Australian digital designer