There are two ways to plan a Japan trip:
Outsource the stress…or become the stress.
Or, if you want to sound more professional about it:
Book a tour and let someone else plan everything…Or become a full-time project manager of your own vacation.
Naturally, I chose chaos. Not reckless chaos, but the kind where you’ve got multiple tabs open, a running notes app, and just enough structure to convince yourself everything is under control.But I didn’t start there.
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Japan.
The land of the rising sun, ancient temples, neon-lit cities, and the birthplace of anime. For a lot of us otaku, it’s less of a vacation and more of a pilgrimage — the kind you spend years saying you’ll take someday.
And after more than 20 years of saying “someday,” it finally looks like that someday might actually be happening this year, which means, naturally, I’ve decided to plan the entire trip myself.
Because apparently I enjoy stress.
Continue Reading →I’ve only casually mentioned it before, but it’s actually happening — the pieces are falling into place for the Japan trip I’ve been talking about for what feels like a lifetime. Dates aren’t locked down in permanent ink yet, but the blueprint is there: three weeks, late October into mid-November, Tokyo as the main focus with equal parts cultural deep dive and full-on anime pilgrimage mode (yes, Love Live is absolutely on the list). And then, because the universe apparently thrives on chaos, and impeccable timing, the 15th Anniversary live in Nagoya gets announced…and just like that, my carefully structured plan immediately pivoted.
To be fair, the dates shifting doesn’t actually derail anything I’ve been building — it just means extending the trip a few extra nights and carving out time for Nagoya. The Tokyo-heavy plan would remain intact. The cultural stuff? Still happening. The pilgrimages? Obviously still happening. This is just… adding one more layer.
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