Travel NYC like Young-Jae of GOT7
Going into 2020 we were determined to find some of the places we thought were impossible to locate. And GOT7 seriously has the hardest NYC spots to find. (click here to see where Jin-young chose to spend his time) And our girl Emi at @prince.sanie on Instagram sent us some of the truly tricky ones.
In our last article, we mentioned our love of rooftop bars and how they are a totally cool way to see the city. Well even Young-Jae enjoyed the sights of New York City from one of our favorite spots. Now when we looked at the photo he posted we were definitely perplexed as to where he was. We had only been to a few roof top bars and none of the buildings around it looked familiar.
Then one day, we were going to meet up with Sammie’s mom and we just took a cool picture down the street our office is on. When we went to look at the picture to edit it, we noticed something. The big blue building and its odd shaped top. Zooming in we noticed some other similar buildings.
We found it! Right outside Time Square, is a slightly hidden, very bougie, and a seriously amazing smelling hotel called Knickerbocker. And guess what they have? A garden oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle, perched on the 18th floor, aptly named St Cloud Bar. Look out onto the tourists a huddled together to watch street performers, enjoy a slightly expensive drink (if you’re 21+ obviously), and look up to see that you too can travel NYC like Young-Ja
ANIMENYC. That’s it. That’s the title.
Anime. A Japanese animated film or tv show. Not something you would expect to be discussed on a site dedicated to Korea and everything Korean. We hear you.
So then why did we go to AnimeNYC powered by Crunchyroll?
Solid question.
We’ve discussed many times, mostly via our Instagram, our love of otome games. These visual, choose your path, romance novels make our hearts go pitter patter on the daily. We aren’t exaggerating. We read them daily. Between the romantic prose and the pretty, sexy, dreamy art we are constantly inspired for our own stories for this site.
They’re predominantly made in Japan.
Are you starting to put together how we ended up at AnimeNYC?
Lindsay, who helps us out with the site, is the biggest Anime fan we know. When we received information that the Javits Center was hosting this year’s AnimeNYC we applied for the press simply to have an awesome birthday gift for our girl. (Which everyone go follow @fashioningcosplay on insta to show her some happy birthday love!)
Lindsay and Sammie celebrating Lindsay’s bday! But, when we got the extremely long list of exhibitioners, we noticed two names that had us squealing like the crazy fangirls we are. Voltage Inc. and Cheritz had their licensed sellers with booths at the exhibition area.
D-E-A-D. DEAD.
Cheritz is actually the one Korean otome game we know of and have played. Jumin being our major bias and Seven as the bias wrecker. We played and have spent a pretty penny on the game. And hearing the sultry voices when our ‘phone’ rang in the game? OOF! (If there are more Korean otome games, PLEASE send them our way! We love spending money on hot 2D boys)
Now to get back on track. We packed our bags, saved our paychecks and headed to the Big Apple for a convention that we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into.
K-Con NY, take notes.
AnimeNYC is, by far, the best convention/expo we have ever been to. Besides having the large anime, game, and toy company booths, including the ones dedicated to our favorite otome games, they had hundreds of stand alone artists who took the characters we know and love and turned them into whatever they wanted. Whether it was simply drawing them in more modern clothing, or giving them cute little cat ears, or going the extreme route and making art for the 18 and older crowd, they created posters, keychains, postcards, and so much more. What impressed us the most was the artists that created anime characters out of K-pop groups we all admire. BTS, MonstaX, EXO, you name it.
All the Multi love at this booth 
Mystic Messenger 
BTS art 
BTS inspired Jewelry 
More BTS fan art 
A massive booth of kpop albums and posters 
Sammie’s glass case of joy. 
Go Go Curry with Jumin Bae 
There is apparently a Idol anime…Lindsay and I plan on enjoying fully.
These artists were, at least to us, the highlight of the event, because they were just like us. Fans showing their love and appreciation through their creative outlet.
Our second favorite aspect was the street clothes. Next to Sammie blowing her money on her otome game merch, she blew the other half of her paycheck on the clothing. Brands we had never heard of, but are glad we do now, came with clothes that we could see anyone rocking. But most importantly we could see K-pop idols performing in, showing up to the airport in, and even just wearing in their day to day lives filming a live insta or Vlive video. Or K-drama actors wearing them to press events, or in the dramas, or similarly at the airport or on a live insta video.
Crazy thing was, several of the brands had Korean influence. 소주 bottles on shorts and t-shirts, 메론바 (maelonba – melon bar) on hats, even a fashion line with a bag quoting BTS’s famous “Mic Drop” line, “Did you see my bag?” These brands mixed the many amazing Asian street clothes cultures and we were, and still are, here for it.
Wooji used this soju bottle print as both this shirt and shorts 
Is this not a bag you would see an idol wearing to hold their passport at the airport? Four Eyes clothing came to kill! 
Not only was Moonstruck’s owner sweet, peep that bag at the bottom left of the photo 
Bought the jacket and hoodie got the bag and beanie free from Valeza 
Bibi Sama astro boy bomber jacket. 
Saju threw an alcohol party on a shirt and soju was invited 
Kinfold had hats with korean food and frink
There is so much to talk about and not enough reader attention span to fit it all in. To sum up the rest of the three day, yes THREE DAY, event, there was a lot of yaoi to keep our BL hearts thoroughly satisfied, new anime releases we are set to actually watch and learn more about, new games being released, and amazing cosplay everywhere we turned that blew our minds with how much work these people put into the outfits. We were so happy to be a part of this amazing event and it opened our eyes to what conventions should be. Now all we have to do is wait until AnimeNYC 2020!
Travel NYC like Jin-Young of GOT7
Do you ever have one of those moments where you look at something and say, “Wait. This looks familiar.”?
After starting this “Travel NYC like _____” series, we realized we say that A LOT. Most of the time, while the buildings look similar, they are in fact, not the same. Which can be disheartening, but it hasn’t stopped us yet. And this is a tale of one of those times.
We will say, this picture was a challenge. Our lovely friend over at @starlightseungmin sent us this insta post of Jin-Young from GOT7.
brb just letting Sammie know she’ll never find me. -Jin-Young Gorgeous right? We’re talking about the waterfall obviously…*clears throat* anyway…
We wanted to find the place just for sheer amazement that there was a location like it in NYC. But Sammie had her own reasons.
When she was in High School, her and a friend skipped prom to roam around NYC. While on the adventure they stumbled upon an amazing waterfall tunnel. And to this day, almost 15 years later (omg we’re old), they still have not been able to find the mysterious passageway. Seeing another waterfall triggered Sammie and she became even more determined to find this one.
But even with our combined group of eyes, including Sammie’s mother, none of us had a clue where this place could be. We pushed it to the side for a lot of the other locations we knew where to find, and in time it had become forgotten.
Sammie had gotten out of work early one day, and was meeting her mother for their monthly mother/daughter date (a location The Boyz visited as well! Look forward to that in an upcoming post). They chose to kill some time and walk around to find a few locations they knew were near each other.
As they walked Sammie paused, smelling the fresh scent of misting water. If you’ve ever sprayed a hose, you know the smell of that scattered water as it nourishes the ground beneath your feet. The smell stopped her dead in her tracks. Water misting in NYC? How? WATERFALL!! She looked around frantically trying to find the source of the smell. Did she find the tunnel she had been always searching for since her high school days? Was it where Jin-Young chose to sit and relax and scroll through his phone?
She pulled her mom along the streets to follow the scent and she finally found its location. She ran over, seeing a restaurant where couples were out to a late lunch, a mother with her kid fresh out of school, some coworkers out for drinks, sitting by the side of a waterfall. It was at that moment she said, “Wait. This is familiar.”
The chairs were exactly the same as those in Jin-Young’s photo, the color of the marble/granite behind the waterfall was identical. But when she looked from the photo to where she stood, it wasn’t the same. So as that familiarity and hope subsided, she realized she had not found the spot she thought would never find in the first place.
She snapped a few photos as it was gorgeous either way, and she was resigned to keep a small hope alive to find the real scene.
Come on! They looked so similar! Walking away to move on to another location she saw her mom, a few steps ahead, stopped, looking off to what seemed like a small alleyway. Her face unreadable, Sammie ran up concerned her mom had stumbled upon a not so pleasant sight, but when she followed her mom’s line of sight and her jaw hit the floor.
A small waterfall with red marble/granite stairs, modern white metal chairs, flowers surrounding large trees, and the kicker? A building with a turret like structure with windows on each side.
Her mother had found where Jin-Young sat and enjoyed a nice spring day in New York.
Queen of the awkward poses? Our loving leader Sammie. Sammie wanted to cry. It was a gorgeous little hidden gem that she was shocked existed in Manhattan. Brooklyn? Sure. Queens? Maybe. But in the center of New York City? For real?! And yet, there it was. This gorgeous secluded, serene, majestic spot, that she had searched months for that her mother and her had simply stumbled on.
And so we get to share the location with you guys! This hidden spot is in an area not normally frequented by most tourists. The block (53rd st) is nestled in between the large office buildings, housing massive corporations (between Madison Ave & 5th) and a few blocks away from the MoMA. If you make your way into the city, this is definitely a chill place to relax after all your Traveling NYC like Jin-Young of GOT7.
