So after a pretty fun and eventful 6 days in New York and attending all three days of Anime NYC, it’s time to go back home to Toronto to complete my first ever solo travel journey. Considering that I am writing this now at home means that all went well and I didn’t die but for all intensive purposes all segments of travel went smoothly today although there were a few minor hiccups. Let’s see how today went and a brief overview of some of the anime goods and NYC souvenirs that I brought.

I woke up today in the hotel at like 7am. The night before I had asked the hotel concierge to book a taxi/car for me to get picked up at 8:30am to get me to LaGuardia airport. I was sitting there at like 8:15am after I got all my shit packed up and checked out of the hotel/return my key card and etc and told the lobby person that I was waiting for a pickup to the airport. She saw the note left by the previous person and said that when they come in they will let me know. 8:30pm came and went and no driver came into the hotel for me, what the hell? I asked the lobby person and she called the cab/driver service they are using and after a short call, it turns out they fucked up; they put in their system a ride for 8:30pm instead of 8:30am, mannnn. So yea, I was more annoyed than worried but then the lobby person told me that they had sent a on call driver to me immediately to pick me up instead but it’ll take like 15-20minutes to get here. Well, there was nothing I could do really, I could have just used Uber or called myself a cab service but I thought it would be easier/better to contact through the hotel, thinking they would be better. Guess I was wrong. When my ride finally showed at like 9pm, I thought I was gonna get a nice yellow taxi cab, but instead it was just some regular looking hooligan Mexican guy in his black Honda CRV lol. It smelled a bit like vape shit inside and he originally had Mexican rave club tunes on or some shit but then quickly changed it to some Mexican radio talk show that then played Mexican ballads. I’m not sure if that is better or worse lol. He should have just turned off the radio all together. Asking me where I was heading, he entered my destination into his phone and mounted it on this dashboard with a nice Google Maps on the screen to show him the way. Oh boy. I hope this guy knew what he was doing but based on the image above, he did his job just fine. A slightly rocky start but I made it here to the airport in one piece so that’s all that matters.

After checking in there was the standard luggage drop off process and entering the security and carry on checks after which you go into a path of various gift and food shops. Such as the image above.

They had quite a few food stuff in the area even a Juniors cheesecake mini store for those wanting to get a last try at eating that cheesecake but for me I felt like Dunkin Doughnuts, now just called “Dunkin” apparently.

They have kiosks where you can order from if you want to use credit card but for some reason alot of the people in line didn’t want to use it. I decided to give it a try and the system is kinda shit, so I see why people don’t like using it, it’s a bit confusing and a bit too linear compared to McDonalds kiosk ordering for example where if you want to make an edit to your order you have to like start from scratch and go through everything again.

I wasn’t particularly sure what doughnut I was ordering to be honest, there was no pictures in the system, which is very shit. I ordered a “Frosted Doughnut” but when the women working asked me which one, the one with just pure frosting or with sprinkles I knew I had ordered some shit I didn’t want. I asked if I can get this one and pointed and she’s like sure whatever, they are all the same price anyway. What I ended up choosing was apparently “Mini Chocolate Cake doughnut” mann. It was basically the same thing from what I know at Tim Hortons as “Double Chocolate”. Names man, they mean shit. The doughnut itself is what I would expect, not bad, coffee is ok too.

Before you enter the main gates they have this kind of water fountain laser thing in the center in this food/shopping space which is kind of cool.

Ah yea boi, just as expected my flight is using the same terminal as arrival and I was now able to get some Shake Shack as my final early lunch in NYC. Fuck dem White Castle sliders.

Ah yea boi, this time I got their smoke shack burger, double patties; it’s the same Shake Shack burger that I ever had, the same one that I had in the hotel in LA via Uber Eats when I went to AX last year and it has bacon, cherry peppers and shacksauce, pretty pure basic shit, no veggies this time, gud shit. I went with regular fries this time and just a bottle of coke instead of the more fancy rootbeer.

Pretty good shit man. Just look at that bite cross section. This was at like 10:55am when I got my order, my plane technically leaves at 11:30am but they start boarding at like 11:05am. With that in mind I was in a bit of a rush to finish my burger and fires. I would have like to savour it more you gotta do what you gotta do I guess. A few others besides me had the same idea. Some guy sat besides me to my left and opened his burger and finished it even before I did, even though I had like a good 5 minute start. Wow. He then said to me “Good burger right?” I was like, “Yea, it’s good” and then he went on his way. Wow.

By the time I finished my meal it was like 11:15am. I picked up my carry on shit and continued on my way to the gate. By the time I saw the gate, I saw that there was only like 3 or 4 people left in line to be cleared entry onto the plane. lol shit, it’s a small express plane after all. I think I was only of the last few people to actually board. Wow, a bit cutting it close I guess but I made it, and the system assigned me the window seat which is always nice I guess.

After a very quick hour and a half flight, which honestly I think I dozed off a bit due to the burger, before I knew it I was already back in Toronto, going to the kiosks to declare nothing and shit. After a quick wait to pick up my Luggage I called my dad to pick me up from the parking wait area and I was on my home. Yay I made it back home alive in one piece.

Because it was so early I was dropped off back at my place to unpack and clean up/shower. I’ll visit my family home to return the luggage and give some souvenirs to my sister and parents later tonight.

I overall brought quite a lot of stuff this trip but nowhere near as much of the stuff from AX last year or even from my Japan Trip earlier this year but I somewhat expected that. I mean, among my haul also has bait generic items not anime/convention related since I did visit other tourist places and got stuff like this; this small not-lego models of the USS Intrepid and F-14 tomcat fighter jet aka Top Gun’s plane.

I like vessels, especially Starbucks vessels so since I picked up a Starbucks mug in Tokyo, I thought it would be appperiate to get a New York mug as well, I mean, they are like sister cities after all in terms of scale, population, cultural significance, large confusing subway system among other things. I realize that this is the mug for the state of New York and that there is a different one for New York City but yea, they didn’t’ have that one so I just take what is available. More reason to come back again right?

I call this collection of items my small trinkets of goods, ranging from hololive travel tags/pins, pins. fridge magnets from USS Intrepid, Bubba Gump Shrimp, fridge magnets from MOMA, Mi Goring and Curry Ramen keychains from artists alley at AnimeNYC, Suisei pin, Empire State Building keychain and some collectable coins from a machine from the Intrepid Space Shuttle pavilion.

In the Kinokuniya booth at AnimeNYC they had this special art book from the author of Initial D, I couldn’t resist myself. The book is quite expensive and very thick but I think it’s worth even with the unfavorable USD/JPY/CAD exchange rates, it’s about like $72USD ouch but Takumi tho and AE86 I can’t resist.

I actually picked up this book before AnimeNYC when I visited the Kinokuniya store in the city. It’s the first artbook for Konbu Wakame, an artist/illustrator/author of manga titles that had recent anime adaptions of works such as Jahy-sama and Saikin Yatotta Maid ga Ayashii and as you can guess, kind of has a thing for tanned brown skinned girls as both works feature the main girl/character with similar visual design aesthetics. His/her illustrations and designs are recently very popular to be made into anime figures so that’s also an area of overlap in which I enjoy. I’ve pre-ordered a few of his/her’s figures as well so yea, I am a fan lol. The book itself is about like $55USD which is surprising considering it is physically a bigger and thicker book with more pages compared to the Initial D artwork.

I brought alot of clothing and weeb shirts, more than I can actually remember. Most of which coming from Hololive related merch stores like Omocat or even the official AnimeNYC merch store not to mention base ass NYC related tourist shirts in this big pile seen here. I am too lazy to show all of them in detail but most are base black t shirts with designs lol.

What you see here are 3 items shrink wrapped vacuum pack sealed using a machine that I borrowed from my sister when we went to Japan earlier this year. The main use case is that sometimes, shit be bulky and full of air, like plushies, toys, or even clothing/sweaters that take up too much space in your luggage. The idea is that if you compress stuff, you save space and can buy/add more shit to your luggage. Looks like it worked but the air it slowly beginning to go back inside so maybe i’m doing it wrong. Bottom is the Suisei pillow I brought and artists alley and the other two are Hololive sweaters from Omocat. Not bad.

Moving on to examples of nice paper, here are the signed posters/prints that were given to be signed for by the production staff of Oshi no Ko ad Lycoris Recoil. Good shit but while the art and prints a great, I still kinda wished they allowed to sign Shikishi boards

A few nice examples of the prints that I brought from artists alley, Hololive Koseki Bijou and Frieren. Very nice indeed.

Nice gold foil print of Hololive’s Fuwa and Moco. I brought a Gura and Ina print last year from this dude so it’s nice to see that he’s continuing hololive focus, great art and print quality.

A few prints from Xeph of Hololive Pekora and independent Vtuber Shigure Ui (9-year old version) of viral meme MV fame, “Shukusei!! Loli Kami Requiem” on youtube and elsewhere.

More prints from a new artist I haven’t seen before, really good and big with excellent quality paper and art quality/style. Hololive Marine and Irys. Good shit. I actually have a few more prints that I brought but I don’t think it’s worh creating a new photo just for one print as well as a few other items which are hard to take photos off like a Azurlane wallscroll/Mug and some NYC Mugs and a few other items.

After I sorted my luggage and merch out between mines and gifts/future gifts I drove to my family home to return the luggage and give souvenirs and had Swiss Chalet for dinner lol. Not bad but it’s too expensive. I like the new packaging that they have, all paper but still useless if they want it to decompose since it’s still lined with like plastic/wax. Nice presentation tho.

Well then that about ends my little solo journey into New York and AnimeNYC. Overall I really enjoyed my trip and would definitely do it again solo if I needed to or felt like it, there is a certain kind of freedom and adventure when you are doing things without the need to plan and ask traveling partners what they want to do, eat, or go to next, if you need to rest or ask for washroom breaks etc. It’s all up to you and I think that’s both refreshing and scary if your not used to making decisions on the fly and pivoting/adapting if things don’t go as originally planned. You need to be flexible and change your plans if things don’t work out and in many times in my trip, that has happened but I made the best of it. I didn’t really have a concrete plan for my trip, just a list of things I would like to do/see/eat in no specific order but as each day came, my plan kind of wrote itself using Google Maps as my schedule planner as I primarily wanted to walk to places so the need to group places/food/activities in relatively the same geographic location was the best approach to travel here.

As for AnimeNYC itself, I would say it was really good and based on what I have heard from locals/others that have attended in the past, was probably the best AnimeNYC to date and I am glad that I made the gamble and bet to go to this convention without any prior knowledge of events/concerts or guests. Is it better than AnimeExpo in LA? No, it is not, but it certainly has the potential to become the east coats version of a AX sized convention. Based on my gut feel and unscientific estimate, this years AnimeNYC is roughly 40-45% the size compared to AX in terms of actual physical space, attendees, and artists/vendors/halls/industry/activity presence but has the potential to grow if it really wanted to/allowed to. Next year’s AnimeNYC is going to move to the last weeks of August in the summer but take up the entire Javits convention center and I have mixed thoughts about that. I’ve spoken to a few attendees in line with similar sentiments in that they are now trying to compete with other big conventions but feelings are mixed on whether that is good or bad, there are pros and cons to both honestly, so we’ll see.

Would I go again to New York and AnimeNYC? Yep, would again, if not for another excuse to visit NYC again, I feel that while I did a decent amount of stuff in the city proper, there is still so much more to see/could/eat do and that maybe warrants another trip in the future. I don’t like the heat of summer so them moving this event to summer deters it a bit for me since I like the cold fall winter. If I wanted to go to an anime convention in the summer, I would go to AX, I mean, it’s the biggest one after all but maybe AnimeNYC wants to change that and fight that dominance. We’ll see.

Overall, good shit, would again. Both solo travel and AnimeNYC. Good trip.