Last week I was down south at Aberdeen Comic Con.

My journey starts, as often it does when I’m traveling alone, on the overnight boat from Kirkwall to Aberdeen. Fortunately, both journeys down and back up were relatively smooth, I heard the weather while I was gone was pretty bad so I was quite fortunate.

Of course coming into Aberdeen on a Thursday morning has a very large issue. Nothing is open and my hotel check in wasn’t until the afternoon. Eating breakfast on the boat and leaving only around 8am  helps alleviate the fact nothing is open till some hours later. But there is a lovely muffin shop in Aberdeen’s Union Square that’s open somewhat earlier than the rest that I like to visit. Had a nice smoothie there.

I did have a plan though. Watch the new Dune movie which did mean waiting till around after 12 but I got to see it in what turned out to be some gimmicky ride like form 4DX so that burned a good number of hours before the Hotel. And once I checked into my room, I started watching some things on YouTube on the TV before I conked out.

Friday was mainly me picking up a few things. Some books, some models and watching the brand new Ghostbusters movie… also in 4DX. While I’m saddened the cinema I was at didn’t have the special popcorn bucket offers I’d seen on the internet, there was an ice thing for Ghostbusters so got that.

Anyway the weekend was the main event. Aberdeen Comic Con. So up early… well not really for me but 8 am breakfast followed by waiting in the queue to get into the convention at 9. As we go in the area is indeed as promised larger than the one last year. Right away is a stand of some special drinks and behind that a very large stall selling Vinyl POP figures. I’m not a fan of those so I ignored them. I walked between the individual stalls for artists or second hand things. Sadly, I never found anything of either this time. But while moving about I did get lots of nice pics of Cosplayers.

Plus I achieved my main goal of getting a picture and autograph from David Yost aka Billy the original Blue Power Ranger.

I continued to move about, getting photos with cosplayers and exampling something new to this year’s events, the photo displays, an advantage to the larger size this year. Plus, they had some classic game stalls too which allowed me to play some games while sitting down. But really, I was waiting for the cosplay contest, I failed to get that recorded last year so I made sure this time including a full video of the winners.

Day 2 of the convention did feel a little more low energy, perhaps that was more me than everyone else, I was burned out more. The last few nights I was a bit more restless getting to sleep and I had the knowledge of the journey up overshadowing me. But I did have a second goal to get, the autograph of Bernard Hill who played Théoden in Lord of the Rings. Standing in the queue I chatted with others who had brought posters, the extended DVDs and even a large painting for him to sign, many people were collecting Lord of the Rings actors’ autographs.

The other thing I did that day while waiting for the time to get on the boat was another new experience, watching wrestling in person. I watched two matches, a doubles match and a one-on-one. It was somewhat enjoyable but it was the kids who really loved it, their cheers and boos.

But one thing about the holiday, is you look forward to coming back… well more being back, still had that long boat ride to deal with. It was a little rougher at one point so just lay back to help reduce chance of seasickness till that was over and since you’re reading this it’s safe to say I arrived safely. Now just need to find where to put those autographs.