UK Games Expo 2019 – Haul

I am very much skint after the UK Games Expo that was on a couple of weekends ago and I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry… So instead I thought I would write a blog post about it! 😛

This was the first time me and Dane went to the UK Games Expo and we loved it so much! Not going to lie, it’s definitely the busiest con we’ve attended to date and definitely one we’ll talk about for a while for various different reasons. I’ll be mentioning them here too of course.

So come and have a nose at what we bought, as well as read about what we thought of the convention. 🙂

Our initial thoughts on the convention was that it wouldn’t be as big as it actually was for a start and as we walked through the entrance and looked around, we were shocked and a think a tad nervous that we wouldn’t get around everywhere. Spoiler, we did! 😛

Something we noticed quite heavily as we walked around was just how fucking rude people attending were. If they weren’t shoving past to get to stands and stalls, they were not even using, “please” or “thank you” as and when necessary. It pissed me off something rotten and depending how rude people were, depended how rude I was back. This put me off immensely but this isn’t due to the people hosting the convention.

This being said we will definitely be attending again next year, maybe on the Friday as we heard from quite a few people how this day is the best out of the three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) as well as maybe Saturday so we can get two days in.

We wanted to play some games whilst we were there but due to how much is going on at the convention – we were far too tired for it, which was such a shame as there were loads of games we wanted to have a go at.

As this post shows from the photo, we bought a LOT of stuff, so I thought I would write a haul today so I could show you everything we picked up. I hope you enjoy this haul from us. Prepare for lots of geeky items! 😛

Also, as some of these (well maybe half actually!) items are Dane’s too, I’ll get him to write here when it comes to anything of his and why he decided to buy it! I’ll pop a “D:” when it comes to his sections so you know he’s talking instead of me. 🙂

The first thing we bought were D&D dice. Hey, you don’t go to a board game convention without buying some dice, am I right?! This was the first stand we really looked at properly as it wasn’t stupidly busy. They had the Chessex dice there and I had a specific pair and style in mind. These weren’t there, but the Borealis style I was after were! They had a couple of pairs (a pink and lighter blue pair) but I fell in love with these light green set and decided to pick them up!

Dane also bought himself a pair of dice too and opted for these blue and red ones. They’re so damn pretty and he doesn’t have anything like this so it’ll be cool for both him and me to try our new dice out at our D&D session on Sunday.

D: When we were walking around the convention the one stand that really caught my attention was the one for Barpig, a card game about pig adventurers in a bar. Even before I spoke to the people running the stand I was pretty much sold on buying the game anyway. They had a pretty good offer that both myself and my friend couldn’t resist after talking to the people running the stand, as well as being given a quick demo. I was sold and couldn’t walk away without buying the game. The day after the convention me and Nat played this game together only to discover it’s between 3-7 players, which is a shame as we were looking forward to an evening of playing it. This being said, we’re now especially excited to play it with friends!

For the convention they had a special price and goody bag for this game. For £19 you got everything in the photo including the game itself! This is what I was sold on the most and didn’t hesitate to pick it up.

They currently have the expansion pack BARPIG: After Hours up on Kickstarter until Monday 1st July. I’ll link it here so you can go and check it if you like the sound of the game.

These were some of my favourite items I picked up from the convention, just because they’re Japanese goodies and from some of my favourite things. I stumbled upon this stand about halfway through the day and spotted some Nendoroid figures, so knew I had to go for a nose. When I spotted two official Studio Ghibli puzzles on the table I KNEW Dane had to come and have a look around the stall too! I quickly snapped up the puzzle from the table and shouted for Dane to come over. As soon as he saw the puzzle he told me to get it, but not before I had a nose around the rest of the stall. It was amazing to be honest with you and was by far my favourite at the convention as they just sold so much stuff I love. I saw they had the Pokemon Centre Eeveelutions bell charms for sale too as a decent price so I decided to pick one up. I ideally want this for an ita bag I plan to put together sooner rather than later. It’s so cute, the perfect bag companion.

I honestly cannot wait for me and Dane to work on the My Neighbour Totoro puzzle together and hang up! I’m feeling like it can go up in our bedroom by my side of the bed. 🙂

Just when we thought we weren’t going to actually pick up more than one game, we found a stall where we fell in love with all the games on sale! We decided to pick up half of them and since then have played the one. The games are both by Jason Anarchy, who was a lovely guy to talk to as we looked through the games, asked questions in regards to them and even had a joke as we were paying and such.

I spotted Pretending To Grownup, a card game about doing adult things and scoring points through it. I spotted it through the artwork, which is by Megan McKay (Doodle For Food). She’s currently one of my favourite doodlers on the internet right now and I especially love her Dogs with Jobs sketches that she draws! Me and Dane have since played this game and it’s so much fun! It would definitely be more fun with friends to be honest with you, but considering just me and Dane played it, it was fab and I honestly can’t wait to play it more!

D: I was after a good party game, so as Nat had a look through the game she wanted I asked Jason what Drinking Quest was all about. He told me it was pretty much Dungeons & Dragons but with lots of drinking involved. This sounded like my sort of game so I knew I had to pick it up. I think I would have regretted it if I didn’t. Whilst I was paying for the games (it was £20 each or two for £35!) Jason wrote a little message and signed the lid of the game. As you can see he wrote, “It’s dangerous to go alone… Drink this” and drew a little drink as well as signed his name. Very cool! 😀

D: If there is one board game I really love it is definitely Zombies!!! I can’t remember where I bought this from but Nat has a feeling it was a spontaneous buy from Waterstones years ago. Since then I’ve wanted to buy the expansion packs and have added them to birthday, Christmas and anniversary gift ideas for years. It’s taken me going to the UK Games Expo to finally get at least 2 of them and from the actual creator of the game. He was lovely to chat to and even did us a cheap deal for these. Instead of £12 each he did them both for £20, bargain eh?! I regret not buying more in all fairness. Me and Nat played this game on our first evening together during our week off and we both forgot how hard this game can be, especially now we have more pieces and zombies to play with! We love this game however and cannot wait to play it with more people.

If there was a stand I really did enjoy shopping at during the convention it was at Oathsworn. I feel like this was the stand I spent the most time at as I was overwhelmed by how many miniatures there were, as well as how cute the little animals were. Everyone was looking at miniatures throughout the day, even though me and Dane struggled to find out D&D characters from one of our campaigns (I’m a Dragonborn bard and he’s a half goliath, half half-elf ranger) and had zero luck.

Instead I decided to pick up an animal miniature for any future campaigns me and Dane might go into or do in the future. NOW we’re working on some new characters for another campaign we’re doing with friends and my character for this will be a fennec fox rogue. I’m so excited to create my character for it already!

One of the stands I was rather excited to by from was TeeTurtle, a brand I’ve wanted t-shirts from for years! I actually have one t-shirt from them which is a Pokemon themed one with a Charmander sat in the a pocket on the chest. I picked this up on eBay years ago and still love it to this day.

We decided to take TeeTurtle up on their buy three t-shirts for £75 and get the fourth free. If you work this out you technically get all four t-shirts for less than £20 each. This may seem really expensive but TeeTurtle are an American brand and to ship to the UK costs a bomb! So we made sure to stock up at the convention whilst we had the chance. TeeTurtle were at the EGX convention in Birmingham September 2018 and I regret not grabbing any t-shirts there.

We decided to get two each and I regret not picking any t-shirts up earlier in the day. We picked these up a couple of hours before the convention was due to shut and the quantity of all sizes was very much small. Most of the sizes that me and Dane wanted had gone, which was such a shame. But this being said, we managed to grab some sizes in designs we wanted. The two on the left are Dane’s t-shirts and the two on the right are mine… Obviously the foxes are mine! 😛

Dane was actually going to buy me the Foxy Nerd design last year for Christmas but due to the prices for shipping etc he left it in the end.

The two designs on the bottom are both t-shirts we intend to wear during D&D session and we can’t wait to rock them this weekend! Honestly we could have bought so many t-shirts but due to most sizes being out of stock we didn’t get much choice of what we could buy. I hope to see them at another convention in the future so I can get the chance to pick up more designs.

This is a geeky beauty company that I am so happy to have discovered at the convention. Geeky Clean is a beauty company that sell bath bombs, soaps, bubble bars and more! I walked past the stand during the convention but didn’t think much at first. Dane went for a nose at a stand opposite so I decided to go and have a sniff of the goods at Geeky Clean. I fell in love with the bard scent, which is EXACTLY the same scent as Lush Snow Fairy. It’s a gorgeous bubblegum vanilla scent and I knew I had to pick some goods up with the scent. When I showed the soap to Dane he also really liked, so I made sure to pick it up. These weren’t expensive in my opinion (£4.00 or the soap and £4.50 for the bath bomb) and I’ll definitely be buying from the store again the future! When I’ve given these a go I will DEFINITELY be reviewing them on my blog.

D: We’ve been eyeing up plenty of miniatures and need a way of painting them. These brushes are pretty fancy and excellent quality feeling. I was going to go for the more expensive ones but as it’s going to be our first time painting miniatures I thought best not to just yet. Just need some paint now! I’m actually rather excited to help Nat bring her fennec fox miniature to life with some colour.

D: I want to start being the Dungeon Master with a couple of our friends that are new to Dungeons and Dragons and been looking to try and find a nice easy way to lay out the map for everyone. I have seen plenty of grid paper, laminated maps, DIY solutions and expensive pre-made maps but these seem like a good option. Hopefully, our group will be able to try them out soon! They cost me £30 and are by a company called Role 4 Initiative. I didn’t think £30 was a bad price considering the brand is American and it would have cost me a hell of a lot more to import from there.

This is the final item I picked up on the Saturday and it was actually from Collectormania which we were allowed free access to after 1pm due to attended UK Games Expo. I thought this was pretty awesome! Looking back I don’t fully know why I bought these lanyards… I used to use one on my house keys last year so it was easier to get them out of my handbag but after I was made a key holder in my old job I used said lanyard on my work key, only to have someone break it a few days later. I was gutted as it was a Deadpool lanyard. Now I’ve kind of replaced it with either a My Neighbour Totoro or Eeveelutions! I’m sure I’ll find a use for these sooner rather than later. 🙂

We actually went back for an hour on the Sunday just to buy a gaming table from Moby Geek! We actually saw this table on the Saturday and enquired about it and was offered it for £230 if we took it away that weekend. We decided against it and said we would order it at home. We fast changed our minds Saturday night/Sunday morning and ended up contacting the company to see if we could attend the event late Sunday to just come in to pay for the table and then take it away. They were more than happy with this and come 4pm I went into the event to pay, get Dane in and take away.

Since then we have not only used the table to play games, but to also eat on! The lid comes off of the table so that you can play games inside of the table – which is amazing. We are yet to give it a go without the lid but we are excited to start being able to have proper game nights with people.

So that was our (very expensive!) haul from the UK Games Expo! We really did enjoy ourselves and had a blast! We were shattered that evening however and couldn’t wait to be back at home and tucked up in bed.

I’m especially excited now to rock our D&D t-shirts to our next session, as well as use our new dice.

Did you attend the UK Games Expo? If so what did you pick up? Are you interested in board games, D&D etc? If so let me know which games you love playing, what your D&D character is like etc in the comments. I’d love to hear all about it!

Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a lovely week so far. 🙂

Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con (Haul Inc.)

On Sunday me and Dane went to the anime and gaming con which was held in Birmingham. The con ran on both the Saturday and the Sunday and although we wanted to attend both days, Sunday stood out to us the most. We’re so glad we only went for the one day though. We had a lot of house stuff to do Saturday and if we had attended both days nothing would have been done. Oh the joys of being an adult and homeowner eh? 😛

The con itself was amazing and everything we imagined it would be like and more, so I thought I would write about it today for you all, as well as share what we bought at the con as well. Sadly I didn’t get any pictures of the con as we were too busy enjoying ourselves. I’m awful at getting pictures at places like this. 😦

As old readers will know me and Dane have been to a couple of conventions now including Birmingham comic con and Hyper Japan and this one was very different to those two. For a start the con as tiny in comparison to both of those, but that wasn’t a bad thing! We liked that it was small as it meant we got chance to really look at what everyone was cosplaying as and even get the chance to talk to people if we wanted to. It also meant that we could look around everywhere without having to queue, there not being enough room to walk around and even the worry of forgetting about looking at anything.

We also never bothered dressing up for the con as we’re boring farts and never really bother with anything like that. We could have worn our South Park outfits but meh. I wore my Iron Fist dress with Dane’s plaid jacket, tights and some brothel creepers. I loved my outfit and whilst I was a little self conscious in it, I felt comfortable for the majority of the time. I of course had to wear my Sailor Moon Luna bag that Dane bought me last year at Hyper Japan. I forgot how much I love that bag!

When I mentioned to people at work that I was going to the con I got a lot of questions such as, “Ooo will there be Japanese food there?” and to be honest I wish there was. Sadly there wasn’t any food stalls there but there was food offered by the place it was held at which was good! It was lovely weather on Sunday and it would have been lovely to have an ice cream van outside of the con… But I know that isn’t the organisers fault, problem, etc.

At the event itself there was always something going on which was great. There was the main hall where there were dealers and artists, a stage and a video gaming room. A corridor away there was the activities room and bar where you could go for something to eat and drink, watch anime, chillout, have your photograph taken in your cosplay outfit, play some games (TCGing, board games and RPG) and talks and workshops. Later in the evenings in this room they held karaoke and parties which we wished we had gone to.

We attended a couple of the workshops which were really interesting! The one Dane was most excited for was about the yakuza in Japan and although Dane knows quite a bit about it, I don’t and it was very interesting for me to listen to. The guy who got up to talk about it was great too and went into a lot of detail. The workshop I was excited for was about plushie making, which sadly got cancelled due to the host of it being poorly. There is always next time!

The stalls that were around selling things were good, although a lot of them were selling fake merchandise. As readers will know me and Dane collect Nendoroid figures so we know a fake when we see one! It was sad that we spotted three fakes and then saw that they had all sold. Very sad times.

Speaking of which lets get onto what we bought at the convention! We bought quite a few things most of them being mine to be honest. 😛

We picked up two Nendoroid figures from a seller who was selling legit merchandise. She was reasonable with her prices too! I bought Isabelle from Animal Crossing and Dane picked up One Punch Man. They’renow living in our Dane also bought me a cute little Umaru secret figure box too! I got one of Umaru lying down on her tummy which is so cute.

As well as fakery there were also some legit and lovely sellers at the event. Some who were selling their own work which is what we bought most of at the event. One guy was selling prints to people… A bit too heavily and forceful for us two. He was trying to get us to buy 10 prints for £40. Would have been a good deal if we wanted that many prints! We ended up buying one, this water Pokemon print for our bathroom.

As well as that we got two artists to draw for us, one of which isn’t actually finished yet. The first picture we got drawn was this chibi picture of me and Dane which is from one of our favourite pictures that we took not long after we got together. The artist is also going to draw and colour a digital image of us too, which we’re excited about! Another artist draw a picture of Dane from when he was in his band days. He would dress up in funny costumes whist on stage. This picture is from a costume he wore in Sheffield which of course is of him in a banana. It’s perfect and he loves it!

These are probably my favourite buys from the day, which are these two adorable Eeveelution t-shirts by Ohayou! who I’ve been a fan of for a while through Etsy. She does more designs than this which I really want to get. The two I picked up are one of a Sylveon print that says “dragon slayer” (if you don’t get it look it up) and one of an Umbreon looking sad… I couldn’t not take that t-shirt design home! The only thing I don’t like about these is the plastic feel of the print but it’s nothing serious. I’ll be wearing these all the time with some jeans, shorts and skirts. I plan to buy more of their goods in the future, or at least ask for them for Christmas. 😛

Alongside those goodies I picked up some little bits and pieces that were dotted around. I picked up some dog and red panda stickers, three Totoro pens, a Romantic Bear peel off lipstick (which I love! I have more of these on the way so I’ll be reviewing them all then), a pack of Eeveelution stickers, an ice verion of Ninetales sticker, a Lady Rainicorn sticker, a picture of Haiku in dragon form, and various badges.

As well as my opinion on the convention I wanted to get Dane to talk about his views.

Well, we had a really good time and were amazed at the incredible cosplay on show, but i think that was the biggest gripe for me. Too much emphasis on the cosplay aspect, not enough for those not so into cosplay to do. The talks were not very well organised and I felt sorry for a lot of the speakers as they had to alter their presentations due to technical errors and last minute changes and fillers. We didn’t watch any anime which is a disappointment as I was expecting a great chill-out atmosphere to watch anime and socialise. What we got was a tiny screen and a couple rows of chairs. To make people want to watch anything at an event you have to make it an improvement to what people may have at home. Personally, I can watch any of the anime shown on a much bigger TV, on a nice comfortable sofa with amazing sound. There was no incentive for us to take part.

I completely understand it is the very first one held in Birmingham so things may not always go to plan and there may not be enough funding to create the best convention ever. For the price we paid it was completely worth it and I can only expect to see it grow. I would like to see it in a bigger space with more artists and shops, more emphasis on gaming and the talks/panels, interesting food options and a more inviting experience for viewing anime.

Overall we loved our day at the convention and it reminded us how much we love going to events like this. It’s made us realise how much we really want to go to Birmingham Comic Con in November so we’ll be booking to go to that very soon!

Hyper Japan 2015 Part 2

Well here it is, part two of Hyper Japan, as well as me showing more of what I bought.

After we had rested up at the hotel we got ourselves ready in some fresh clothes and headed back out. We decided we would get dinner at Hyper Japan as we hadn’t yet properly visited the Eat Japan section and were excited about all the food we would be able to try.

When we arrived we decided to go back into the Game & Anime Park to see if we missed out on anything, which is where we finally got to have a go on the Sword Art Online game, which once again, was awesome.

As well as that there was someone cosplaying as Jolteon, which was amazing considering the position they would need to stand in all day! They got a huge crowd, including us and were having pictures with people too, which of course I did.

We had some time to kill before we could go and pick up the picture we were having drawn of us both so we walked around the other areas again for a while. We had heard that there was a stall set up where people would have a Domo Kun around to take pictures with, something we had wanted to do previously in the day, but had missed. However we didn’t miss the second time and made sure to get in the queue for a picture. The guy who took our pictures took loads and they’re all amazing!

The person in the Domo Kun costume swayed back and forth between us so it looked like he was leaning on us, which is incredibly cute! I love Domo and have a largish plush of him in my room, I just wish I could have a life-sized Domo as a friend… Sad nerd is sad.

I wanted to give some of the bubble tea at Hyper Japan a go so eventually when the stand went quiet, I went to get some. I’m not going to lie, this wasn’t the best bubble tea in the world BUT the tapioca pearls were amazing! Very soft and squishy and definitely some of the nicest ones I’ve had. But although it wasn’t the best, it did the job and was very yummy.

As we had a further look around we found a stall that was writing your names in Japanese, as well as another stall that was making badges with your name on in Japanese. We of course got one of these each, and these are mine. We also found a travel stall that when you filled in a survey you got a free cute eraser, we of course did one each. These little cuties are now in my room.

There was only one (but a very good one) Japanese beauty stall in there that we had visited before leaving to go back to the hotel the first time around, but I forgot to mention it in part one. But I picked up this hair styling tool that is used to curl your hair whilst you dry it. If it works for Japanese hair, then I don’t see why it won’t work for mine! I still need to try it out properly and will do Friday before I’m off down south for a BBQ. I’ll make sure to update how it goes! The one thing that appealed to me the most about this is that it is plastic, not ceramic and therefore won’t do any damage to my hair. It was only £3 which I thought was a bargain!

Finally it was time to go and pick our picture up and I was so excited to see what the artist had done. So when she handed it to us I was really taken back. It’s one of my favourite things from Hyper Japan, London in fact. When we visited Comic Con in Birmingham we had our first manga picture of us together drawn and I loved that, but we did get a lot of comments saying that the drawing of me on it looks nothing like me, which if anything was upsetting. So the fact that with this picture everyone is saying this one actually looks like me, it makes me really happy! The artist just got all our details, including the plait of my hair, my bow necklace, my boyfriends sunglasses, and cap, etc. I’m just so happy with it.

After this we decided to get some food. I’m not going to be positive here, but I’m being honest. The selection of food at Hyper Japan was rubbish. There weren’t many stands and even so there wasn’t much on offer. We ended up having loads of chicken and vegetable gyoza’s, as well as some fried noodles that my boyfriend had as they made me feel a bit ick (I HATE bean sprouts!).

We ventured around taking in anything we may have missed and eventually we were told we needed to leave. Since Hyper Japan one of the sellers there has uploaded a video of the weekend onto YouTube and who is in the video? My boyfriend! It’s at 6:07 and you can see my boyfriend walking past the dancers. We were looking around the stall when they were dancing and it’s here we were told we needed to go, which sucks as we wanted to sort of blend in with whatever fun they were having.

After this we decided to go and claim our free pina colada’s from Malibu and they were delicious! It was pina colada day on the 10th July so we decided to take advantage of the free drinks.

When we were walking away from the O2, I took advantage of getting plenty of pictures of how gorgeous it looked at night. We got our train and then the DLR back to the hotel and had a lovely bath together and went to bed. We were shattered and it’s safe to say our legs were killing us the next day. Even though we went out for more adventures!

Before I wrap up this post I’m going to just talk about the negatives since Hyper Japan, as over on their Facebook page there has been nothing but people moaning about this years event. Saying it was too big, it was too public, the food range was awful, people kept getting lost, the list goes on.

I agree with some of the things that people say, the first one being that cosplayer’s were on show to the public which is true. If I was in that position I would feel incredibly anxious. Another being about the food and drink selection being rubbish, which it was in all honestly. My friend who has been for years even told me herself that side was rubbish. I was very disappointed. Another complaint was that the staff that Hyper Japan had hired were rude, which they were! At one point towards the end we bought a beer to share but we had to stay in the Eat Japan section to drink it, although people were drinking beer in the section we wanted to go into, which was extremely annoying. You would ask them questions and they would snap at you, which wasn’t nice at all.

Somethings that people are complaining about that I don’t agree with is how much room there was to walk, I didn’t honestly mind the walk and neither did my boyfriend. We put this down to how crowded and horrible Comic Con Birmingham was in November. I also don’t agree with the rantings about queuing either, we never had to queue much and if we did it wasn’t for long to be honest.

Either way, we loved Hyper Japan and I would love to go again for the Christmas Market in November, but it depends on money. We didn’t spend as much in Hyper Japan as we thought we would which is good, but I think that’s down to the fact there wasn’t really MUCH on offer for us to buy.

I recommend it, especially if you’ve never been like I never had. It’s definitely a different experience and I recommend any Japan  lover to do it at some point.

Have you ever been to Hyper Japan? What did you think? If you haven’t been before, would you like to? Make sure to let me know in the comments.

Until next time though, take care all and I hope you enjoyed my Hyper Japan two-part post.

Hyper Japan 2015 Part 1

I have struggled to start this post because I just didn’t know how to start it, and due to that it’s actually a day late… Oops! I’m literally just going to throw myself into it and ramble on about things in the order they occurred on the day, which I’ll warn you was long and also picture heavy! I also bought quite a few things at Hyper Japan or was given plenty of freebies, which you can see above, but I’ll go into more detail about those throughout the post.

This post is actually going to be split into two parts, because as I’ve been writing it, it’s just appeared to be WAY too long! So I’ll have part one up today, and part one up tomorrow!

Although we were shattered, we were ready for Hyper Japan and made sure we got up bright an early to get a big breakfast and then head over to the O2 where the event was happening. I’ve never been to the O2 in London before so I was in shock when I saw how big it actually is. But to get there we took the cable cart over which was pretty cool, although I was really anxious when we went over the first time, damn anxiety!

We arrived and the queue was ridiculous… However we had paid a little extra to get fast registration tickets, so we were lucky and didn’t need to wait in that queue. I later read online that it took people an hour to just over it to get into the arena. Not good! We had a bit of trouble waiting in the queue but for once my anxiety didn’t hold me back from voicing my concerns and I spoke to a member of staff about what was happening. Basically, people were pushing in and then laughing at us all who they had pushed past. Me raising these issues got us to the front of the queue, which we couldn’t complain about.

When we finally got inside we were even more excited! The O2 wasn’t that busy but it was sure heaving with restaurants. It just meant if we didn’t wish to eat at Hyper Japan, we had some choices around us.

There were various places you could visit at Hyper Japan including, Eat Japan, Hyper Fringe Market, J-Culture, Hyper Kawaii, Hyper Live, and the first place we visited, Hyper Game & Anime Park. This was probably one of the funnest places for us so it being the first place we went into was pretty awesome.

As the name suggests the Game & Anime Park was of course full of those. Nintendo was of course the main gaming event in there with loads of different demo areas for various different games, as well as a huge stage where members of Nintendo were talking people through new and upcoming games, as well as some cool events happening. We went there to watch about the latest game from Animal Crossing, Happy Home Designer (I’ve already pre ordered it!). I’m a huge Animal Crossing fan so I was super excited when we were told that event was happening on the stage. We watched the whole thing and due to being such awesome people, we were given a free Mario Kart 8 keyring, which I gave my boyfriend.

As well as that there was also a Playstation 4 console where people could demo the new Sword Art Online game, which is coming out in autumn this year! Exciting news for Sword Art Online fans like me and my boyfriend. We both had a go on the demo which latest about ten minutes and it was a pretty straight forward game. There was a huge queue when we first went into the Game & Anime Park so when we went in for a second time, that’s when we got to have a go.

Of course due to Nintendo being there, they also had some of their Amiibo items on display for people to look at, which of course we did. The ones I got most excited for were the yarn Yoshi ones, which have come out to accompany the Wii U game Yoshi’s Woolly World. They come in three colours, my favourite of course being the original green Yoshi. These are made out of real wool so not only do they look like little woolen figures, but they actually are!

Going back to Animal Crossing and the new game Happy Home Designer, these are coming out alongside it so it was nice to have a look at the cards that will be coming out for it. You use these cards to call different villagers and people in the town then and there instead of waiting ages for them. It was also nice to discover that Nintendo are bringing out an add on for old 3DS, and 2DS ‘s where you can use the cards, instead of needing to but the new 3DS.

Not long after the event where the people of Nintendo were talking about the new Animal Crossing game, a Pikachu suddenly waddled past us and over to the main Nintendo section. We followed it to discover that you could have pictures with it, so we got in the queue and got our pictures taken! It was so adorable and I wish we could have gone back and had some more pictures of it. But alas, we had things to do.

Before we left the Game & Anime Park I had a quick picture (or two!) with a massive Colossal Titan head that had been blown up with air for people to take pictures with. It’s from Attack On Titan, one of mine and my boyfriends favourite manga/anime. My boyfriend didn’t bother having any pictures with it, but I made sure to take advantage of it, as it was pretty awesome and the picture I got of me with it is definitely one of my favourites from the day.

We picked up a few bits and pieces from the Game & Anime Park and my boyfriend was lovely enough to buy me a handbag. I had my eye on it since the seller announced they would be selling them at Hyper Japan over on their Facebook page. When I told them I wanted to buy one they were lovely enough to let me look over the bag I got to make sure it was okay and such, which of course it was. It also came in a dust bag which I love! I keep it in there when I’m not using it to keep it nice and fresh looking. It’s a dupe of the Samantha Vega handbag which I’m fine with, as it’s a nice dupe and when I’ve used this bag since me getting it, it’s amazing quality and is really sturdy and great! I’m super pleased with it, and for £35 it was well worth the money. My boyfriend also bought me some green tea matcha Kit Kat’s, which were only 80p each! By far the cheapest ones in the whole of Hyper Japan.

We moved over to the other areas of Hyper Japan and probably spent most of our time there looking around all the various stalls and stands.

This is the Tofu Cute Candy Festival and something we visited twice because we loved it so much! For just £6 we got all these treats to eat and try, so we got two of these. There were various things we got from Pocky, Kit Kat’s, chocolate, sweets, and as you can see on this picture, a green tea matcha mochi, where was delicious. It was a great way to sample things before buying them in the shop next door. The shop was so busy too, it was probably one of the busiest stalls of the day.

As the Saturday Hyper Japan day is split into two separate events people are told they need to leave for half an hour whilst the event is swapped around so before we headed off we ordered a picture to be drawn of us together, as well as picked up a picture of me that someone had drawn in the Fringe Market.

We also decided to grab some food from the Eat Japan section. We bought some tuna onigiri, and to the Japanese onigiri is like a sandwich to us, which I LOVED! They were two for £6, which wasn’t cheap for but for how filling it was, it was really nice. I think we’re going to try and make these ourselves in the future.

Then we headed back to the hotel as we were pretty shattered and wanted to drop off some of the stuff we had bought, as things were beginning to be quiet heavy. The queue for the cable cart was long! But luckily we were alright and soon got into a cart with some people. I felt a lot more relaxed the second time we rode it and I would love to go on it again in the future.

And whilst I was going to continue talking about Hyper Japan, I’m going to stop for today and call this part one out of two. This post is just turning out to be way too long to fit into one post without it not beginning to be boring.

So tomorrow I shall talk about the second half of Hyper Japan in part two!

What do you think of my first Hyper Japan experience so far? Did you go to Hyper Japan? Let me know in the comments.

Until tomorrow, take care all.