This post is a June 2026 transcription of this video. The text has been heavily edited for readability & I added needed context that was worth including while preserving my original sentiment.

I was very fortunate enough to be invited by the HoYo Creators, which is the content creator team at Hoyoverse to help celebrate and be apart of their Astral Express Global Tour in New York. This trip was fully paid by me & I was not required to make content about it. The invite was honestly meant for folks local to New York to come to a private mixer to meet other HoYo Creators. However, I used this invite as an excuse to take a flight to New York for the very first time!

Shout out to HoYo Creators’ team because this event was really cool! I did spend a lot of my time visiting all the tourist attractions at New York. I’ve always seen New York in movies. I’ve seen New York in video games. I played Spider-Man and swung around New York before, but never been here in real life.

My first stop was the Empire State Building. It’s one of the tallest buildings in New York and the picture above is apart of the Empire State Building tour. As King Kong has been shown climbing the Empire State Building since his first movie.

The view from the Empire State Building is also such a gorgeous view! I love seeing all the bright colorful lights, which I think I can see Times Square from this viewpoint. I’m still getting used to locations. I only was here for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I left on Monday. I would love to come back here again, but it was an expensive trip so maybe this is a once in a lifetime kind of trip! I think I was on the 102nd floor in a floor called the observatory.

You can’t see the glare of the window, but there is a window between myself & the skyline. I feel like Batman perching on here, ready to leap out and save, and save some crime.

I also got to visit other places in New York. Grand Central station was incredible, there was even a Luffy statue in it. I visited a Uniqlo, which was currently running their Attack on Titan collab, which looked so dope! My Uniqlo never looks this incredible! I was able to explore Central Park, very beautiful especially during the rain! A nice peaceful location in such a busy city! I didn’t take many pictures of birds, but a lot of beautiful birds over in New York. So 10 out of 10 birds in New York. Loved it.

Also there were just so many cool buildings too like a giant old school Cathedral in the middle of these modern skyscrapers. Very cool seeing all the Taxi cabs because it definitely felt like I was in a movie. Even the subway was so easy to use even from someone who this is my first time! And I got to visit the Nintendo Store, how cool is that! It was such a charming store! I took pictures of all the statues, Link, Mario on a flag pole, Bowser, and even the Luigi one that was shoved into a corner. So cool!

During the HoYoverse event, which is all outdoor activities, it was a bit rainy unfortunately. The event took place on the 29th of April. It was funny image to see a giant American Flag directly behind the Astral Express! I spoke to someone who was traveling here on a business trip & was curious why people are celebrating the American flag. I let her know that it was for a game called Honkai: Star Rail, but it was just hilarious that she thought this was some American pride thing.

There was a huge line to get into the event. It really is just a series of small tents which you can see in the image above, but for HoYoverse’s first US event. I can understand why so many people showed up, hundreds of people in line waiting to participate in an event that maybe holds less than 20 people at a time. There was a tent with some official cosplayers so I’m guessing that was the most popular of the tent activities!

It was great seeing the Astral Express in physical form! This was their first stop as this event is a Global Tour so I’m sure people around the world will get to experience this! In future events, I hope they expand out the activates as you can get through all of this in less than 10 minutes.

I was lucky enough to skip the line because of being a HoYocreator and participate in a group photo. I was able to quickly grab some pins of Himeko & Kafka, a postcard, and 50 Stellar Gems for sharing a picture of the event on social media. 50 Stellar Gems was for everyone who attended. This was not a HoYo Creator incentive for creating content. There were photographers at the event & my dumb face was in front of that camera a lot and not intentionally so maybe I’ll show up on social media videos about this event.

There was also a Genshin pop-up cafe that I completely forgot about, but seeing the line for this Star Rail event, I don’t even want to know how difficult it would have been to even see the Genshin cafe.

Someone did recognize me! They stopped to ask me if I was PostTimeskipSam & let me know that they liked my videos! I wish I asked for their name, but I just wasn’t expecting someone to recognize me, but that really made me smile. So thank you to that person!

I am so socially awkward that I tend to rehearse a lot of potential social interactions so that I don’t feel like a mess. I just didn’t expect someone to recognize me so I think I just said, thank you so much.

The other event was a private mixer between HoYo Creators. This was an opportunity to make new friends! I was a nervous wreck, very shy, and made no friends. Luckily, I got to meet some TikTok creators, but I didn’t know the memes or TikTok so it was a bit difficult to talk with them also they knew each other so that just made me feel more self-conscious. However, it was still a fun time & they made these cute little cupcakes.

Huge props to Sun, Mauricio, and other members at HoYoverse for making this experience fun & manageable. The only reason I was able to be apart of that group picture was because I was texting Mauricio who was also managing the event live & I am sure he was messaging other creators at the same time. Just such a talented amazing person!

Sun was mostly managing the private mixer, which had a fun game where you had to collect the seven elements in Star Rail encouraging people to meet with each other. So despite my awkwardness, I got to meet people. In the food line, I met BTMC, which I didn’t realize how big of a creator he was. He makes a lot of OSU content, which truly blows my mind how talented he is at that game! Dan Heng’s voice actor was also here, but I didn’t get an opportunity to chat with him. I also met someone named Dreadhound who was also super dope! Very tall & kind!

To be honest, I am not much of a knower of HoYo creators. However, there were two people I recognized, Unreal Dreamer & Island XD. They are just as amazing in person as they are in their videos! I am fans of them so I certainly got cold feet despite me being much older in age, haha.

I embarrassed the hell out of myself in front of them. The thing I thought about so much since this trip was how poorly, in a goofy way, my interaction with them went. They were off on their own in another table chatting away with other creators. So I had to come up with a plan because why say “Hello” like a normal person. Instead, I devised a plan.

1. Since they were by the water, I was going to grab a water, but this is a RSVP event so I figured they probably didn’t have enough drinks for seconds. So scratch that.
2. Thanks to Sun, I had an icebreaker to ask for the other elements from them, but they were 20 people away so it would have been awkward to just gun it over to them. Also they were talking with the Tuonto who the biggest creator at this event, it seemed like everyone knew who he was. Even I knew his name despite not actually knowing his content. So I didn’t want to intrude.

Instead I waited until they moved over to the cupcake table. This table was less than 3 feet by 3 feet. Unreal Dreamer was on one end, Island XD was on the other end. Zyox was right in front of it.

This was the perfect opportunity to introduce myself so I walk up to the cupcake table. Unreal Dreamer wearing cool shades. He got the hair & the smile. So as I approach this table, I begin to panic. First, I didn’t remember Zyox’s name, so I would be unable to introduce myself to him. Second, I didn’t know how to introduce myself to Unreal & Island. However, I was already committed to walking up to the cupcake table so I freaked out & told Zyox, “Excuse me” & nervously forced my way passed him to get a cupcake. I DON’T EVEN WANT ANOTHER CUPCAKE!

Keep in mind, this table is small so these men are basically body blocking the table. There is no way to get a cupcake without having one of them physically move out of the way. So as I have Zyox move out of the way who probably now thinks I was being rude.

Unreal notices this & bends down to my level. As I am reaching for the cupcake and asks me if we met somewhere. Zyox leaves & I got an opportunity to chat with Unreal, but my next words were… I don’t know what is wrong with me. I said, “Oh wow you must be Unreal”. I am so dumb, but I was able that eventually I warmed up I got an opportunity to talk about content creation with Unreal & Island! However, it is funny that while talking to them, I had a cupcake held up as though i was going to eat it for the entire conversation so not all my bodily functions were working even after I warmed up to talking with them. I’m fairly sure that I left the conversation by telling them I had to eat this cupcake. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome so I said my goodbyes.

That’s it, I accomplished my goals of introducing myself to new people at this mixer. I am overall happy despite how awkward I was. I had set a goal for myself to meet 5 people & I did even if I don’t remember all their names.

I’m very grateful for the opportunity so huge thank you for HoYo Creators for allowing this socially awkward guy to kind of try and conquer his socially awkwardness. Once again, I paid for this entire trip & was not incentivized to create content about it.

Thank you for reading about my trip for Honkai: Star Rail’s Astral Express Global Tour in New York.