[Ad – Gifted Product] When it comes to card games, we play a select few of them at our board game night at Geek Retreat. We often have board games or dice games that have card-related aspects to them, but we don’t find many card games themselves. It feels like the market is full of the same old, so when someone said Flip 7 was “better than Uno” I was really curious to see what my children thought of it. I must say, however, that Flip 7 is hyped up A LOT. And, that sort of hype, had us all having such a high expectation.
[Ad- gifted experience] Amelia has been getting into collecting Pokemon Cards, so we’ve had our eye on more events around our area. We’ve gone to a few card shows in our town, but hadn’t been to one of the medium or large sized card shows, so when we were invited to the London Card Show at Esher Sandown Racecourse, we wanted to see what it was all about!
To start, there were a lot of people selling cards of course; Pokemon cards, Sanrio cards, Baseball cards… There are cards for literally everything! They had a few stands that had painted cards, which were really interesting, and a few that had hand-made merch in the theme of different niches, that weren’t quite trading cards but were still very fun. It’s interesting having so many cards in one place. We had gone to the Pokemon Centre the day before at Pokemon EUIC, so had grabbed a few EBTs at their normal price. Seeing the same boxes in the card show for double or triple the price was wild. There were also stands that had an EBT for, let’s say £80 and then another with the same box for £120, so it’s well worth walking around and deciding what to spend!
Beyond shopping, the London Card Show Esher had a few fun activities. There was an autography station, so that you can check out different guests and get them to sign cards. If you’ve brought along kids, they had their own zone with ever-changing events. We went right in the morning, when they had some mindfulness coloring sheets and crafting activities, but throughout the day they had card pack opening battles (giving away free cards) and other little events. It’s quite lovely! There was also a main stage that ran activities, which was playing Pokemon in the morning.
If you were looking to play some video games, the London Card Show had a Retro Zone, where there were some emulators set up in old arcade machines, with plenty to play. These were quite fun and we saw a lot of use of them. There was also a free photo book. When it came to stands with activities, EbayLive were doing live pack openings, which you could sit and watch, and they had two games where you can win free packs of cards by spinning a wheel or playing Plinko.
There was also the McDonald’s Universe area within the London Card Show. This was a first look at the new McDonald’s Universe collectible cards. They had one in the goodie bags that everyone got, then four in a display, showing off their rarities. You could walk over to a wall, select a card, reveal it, then decide if you wanted to trade it for one more or stick with what you’ve got. These cards have some retro depictions of McDonald’s items, which is pretty neat! I was surprised to see that there is no real game to them – they are just collectable – but they are still interesting in general.
We had a lot of fun exploring the London Card Show – and were happy to get in an hour before general opening, because at general opening, it was PACKED. There were tons of people looking for specific cards, exploring the show floor, trading with different stands and bargaining to get the best prices. The London Card Show is next appearing at the Excel in London!
When it comes to Austria, I hadn’t really known what was traditional and what was not. I’ve been to Germany a handful of times, which feels similar in vibes, so was excited to try some more traditional food when visiting Austria. When we landed, we went to Grätzlheuriger, which has Austrian and Slovak food. The inside of the restaurant is very cozy and quant, which feels traditional, without being flashy. The staff were very kind to us English speakers and gave us English menus, that also had a picture side, which was very helpful as some of the translations were a bit perplexing to me!
[Ad- gifted experience] It’s not the first year that I have attended the Pokemon Europe International Championships, which is a huge, overwhelmingly Pokemon focused event that happens at the Excel each year. As this year is the 30th anniversary of Pokemon, there was an even bigger buzz than usual as the event was coming up. I am very much into Pokemon, running a local Pokemon Go community (that’s officially partnered with Niantic) and I’ve written about Pokemon events as a member of the press for quite some time – so I wasn’t going to miss this event which was a stone’s throw away from my town!
[Ad – Gifted Product] Valentine’s Day isn’t only an adult holiday, and as such, having something fun for children to get involved with makes for a fantastic day. Robin was pumped to try out the Chocolate Lolly Maker, which allows you to take some chocolate and make it into something new! If you, like us, have tons of chocolate left over from Christmas, giving it a new life around Valentine’s Day is actually a great way to get your leftover candy consumed.
