I was introduced to the world of anime when I was in high school. As I watched more, I became more and more interested in Japanese culture and lifestyle. It was at that time I decided that someday I was going to travel to Japan and check it out first hand. Over the years of college and such I started to save money for the trip and waited for one of my friends to save his share up to go as well. This past year it finally happened and I was able to make my first trip to Japan and also overseas.

We booked our trip through an awesome agency Pacset that planned our trip perfectly. The flight over the ocean from LA to Tokyo was just under 11 hours which felt surprisingly short after I slept for most of the flight. We got to know some of out other travelers when we got to Tokyo as we waited for the trains to start running. Our fellow group members were awesome people that I enjoyed getting to know as our tour went on.

The weather in Tokyo was surprisingly humid, even compared to the standards of a midwestern summer. After dropping off our luggage, we headed to a shrine in Harajuku and also checked out the fashion of the area as well. This was one of the top 3 things I wanted to do in Japan, check out the fashion of Harajuku. As the morning grew on, the fashion district starting filling up with all sorts of fashionistas and shoppers. It was here that we were able to discover the Neon Genesis Evangelion store. If you don’t know of the show, check it out. It is one of the most popular if not the most popular series of all time.
The store boasted all sorts of Evangelion merchandise. As you will see over the duration of the trip, Evangelion was especially big right now because the 3rd remake movie is set to be released this fall.

For lunch we found an awesome restaurant that had a drink bar. The drink bar had over 40 kinds of drinks; coffee, lattes, soda, juice, etc. and you could have as much as you wanted. Post lunch activities included some more shopping and finding some toy stores as well.

That night we went to a sushi bar in Shibuya that had the sushi on a rotating belt and you could just grab what you wanted off of it and paid for it by the color of the plate. I had sweet egg, salted mackerel and salt water eel for the first time at this sushi bar. Everyone was pretty tired since we traveled that day so we went to the hotel after dinner and got some much needed rest for the second day of our adventure.

(Pictures include; Harajuku’s main fashion street in the morning, the Evangelion Store sign and Shibuya at night)