Sarah is the managing editor at PopCultureTragic.com. You can find more information about her at www.sarahbillington.com, www.billingtonmedia.com or follow her on Twitter @SarahBillington
Must-Have Travel Apps: Australia & NZ
Whether you’re travelling interstate or on a different continent, travel apps can make your trip a whole lot easier. Here’s a lowdown of travel apps that will come in handy for holidays Down Under.
Quirky Themed Cafes and Restaurants in Tokyo to Check Out
You can find all types of cuisines in Tokyo, but you don’t go to these cafés and restaurants for the food; you go for the experience. The abundance of themed restaurants range from cat cafés, maid cafés and anime restaurants to more obscure offerings such as the Robot Restaurant and the prison asylum-themed restaurant ALCATRAZ E.R. It’s worth plotting weird cafes in your Tokyo itinerary as many are very popular and require reservations.
The workplace stigma around mental health is still very real
Most employers understand a sick day. Though your boss may not like it when you stay home, with symptoms like sneezing, sniffing and coughing, they’ll understand it. You’re visibly unwell and unable to do your job to the best of your ability for the duration of the cold. And by not coming into the office, you’re not infecting everyone else. Mental illness, however, is a different story.
Though prevalent in the workplace, mental illnesses like anxiety or depression are not viewed like physical...
6 Tips for Haggling at Local Markets and Bazaars Abroad
Ever since I was a young boy, my grandfather used to take me haggling at many of the swap meets and farmers markets in and around the areas of Mississippi and New Orleans, where I grew up. It was early childhood exposure to this odd and electrifying culture of buyers and sellers that’s stayed with me throughout my life. Not to mention that it’s helped me to save a ton of cash.
Travel and Haggle
Over the past few years, travelling the globe, I can’t help but be drawn to these same places of ...
Not Your Average Skype Call: Calling Your Parents As You Jump Out of a Plane
Modern technology is a wonderful thing for the avid traveller.
With video calls and the internet it is easy to keep in touch with loved ones back home. Even when spending months (or even years) away from home as you adventure the globe, it can feel like you never even left. In the eradicating-homesickness-and-getting-on-with-the-good-stuff kind of way, I mean. And if you're savvy with these things, you can even record your conversations for posterity, or for the internet to have a good, amaze...
These Fishermen Caught Something Terrifying
Usually a passive pastime of quiet contemplation or friendly bonding, there's nothing like the sudden change of luck and the rush of excitement that can come at any time when there's a tug on the line.
But sometimes you get more than you bargained for. Could it be dinner on the other end of the line? Or could, perhaps... you be dinner?
Here for your shock and enjoyment are a couple of fishermen whose leisurely day on the water took sudden, dramatic turns. Holy cow.
Jakarta's Haunting Living Dolls
Living dolls (or just dolls in general) are the stuff of nightmares to many, and dolls such as Chucky and, more recently, Annabelle, have been used in films to terrify movie-lovers for decades.
But in Indonesia, living dolls were very real. Well. Sort of. And like dolls in general, they were not meant to terrify but to entertain. But that doesn't make them any less unsettling. In Jakarta's slums, Finnish photographer Perttu Saksa came across macaque monkey trained street performers and docume...
The Nightcrawlers are here: creepy af creatures caught on camera
In 2011, shocking private security footage from a premises in Fresno, California was released of an odd, somewhat disturbing-looking white creature walking across a lawn. It appears to be white with long, billowing legs, no arms or torso, and a head sitting atop... well... its legs. Check out the footage below.
Not long after, security cameras inside Yosemite National Park caught not one but two of these unseen-before beings which have been named (by who, I'm not sure) The Nightcrawlers. Tho...
CREEPY TRUE STORY: That Time I Actually Saw a Ghost on a Ghost Tour
I went on a local ghost tour a couple of weeks ago. I like most things creepy, and ghost tours, to me, are essentially history tours about bad behaviour and murder. You don't actually expect to see ghosts on them, do you?
I sure didn't expect to. But I shit you not, on Lantern Tours' Williamstown tour, I did. Not once, but twice! I wasn't even the only person to experience things on this tour, but neither of us really said anything too loud. It's not like we crowed to the tour guide or other ...
CREEPY TRUE STORY: When I Woke Up There Was A Man Next To My Bed
Lindsay Cameron of Brooklyn, New York, shared this frightening personal experience with Pop Culture Tragic.
This past November I woke up at 5:03 in the morning and there was a man standing next to my bed.
I had just fallen asleep probably thirty minutes prior so when I opened my eyes and saw a man with a low blue led flashlight it took me a second.
Did I bring someone home? Am I drunk? Where am I?
I gasped and sat up really quickly.
The guy turned toward me slightly startled. But composed. He...
Halloween Costumes Used to be Creepy as Shit
It wasn't always the age of the Sexy Nurse, Sexy Minion and the Sexy Pizza Rat. You didn't dress up as your favourite superhero or Disney princess. You didn't always have to buy or rent an expensive, realistic costume in order to enjoy trick or treating and getting up to mischief on Halloween.
No, back in the day when times were tougher it used to be perfectly acceptable to stitch together a costume from what you had at home, crafting skills or no.
And the results were often downright hauntin...
I Took A Mental Health Day At Work And Lied About It. Here’s Why.
In September, I started spiraling with anxiety at work. I was having a tough home life, two projects at work were going wrong, and my confidence in my skills, my abilities and my self-worth entirely were taking a hit.
Thoughts I couldn’t control started taking over my concentration. Bad thoughts. Thoughts that my manager was going to be disappointed. Was going to be angry. Would think I was a fuckup. Thoughts that I was a fraud. How had I been doing this job success...
Building Emotional and Social Intelligence in Kids
What is Emotional and Social Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence refers to someone’s ability to recognise, understand and manage their emotions. People with good emotional intelligence have strong self-awareness: they can articulate and regulate their feelings and they understand how their emotions can affect their behaviour and their thinking, especially in stressful situations. For example, if they’re kicking a wall, the person must be feeling angry. If they can articulate how they are fee...
Piecing Together the Power of Puzzles!
Turning Away from Screens to Jigsaw Puzzle Fun!
Puzzle books, jigsaws, cards, dice and board games are making a mega comeback as people of all ages are going glassy eyed, having their minds numbed and suffering from social-media fatigue from constantly staring at theirsmartphone, computer and TV screens day and night. Don’t get us wrong – we love the internet! It is a magical place of possibilities. We are social-media addicts too, and don’t get us started on our favourite TV shows or movies!...
Keeping Kids Crafty These School Holidays
School is out for your tweenagers, the weather is hot, and they have hours upon hours of free time to kill. With our Craft with Me collection of kits, you can keep them out of mischief and spend some family time together having fun, learning new skills and creating personalised and practical homewares.
Spend a morning creating a fun family menu planner board with our Craft with Me: Menu Board kit that can be hung in the kitchen so everyone knows what's for dinner for the week and turn a chore...