It was an early morning today as it was off to New York City - the return. A teary farewell from my relos followed by some preliminary sightseeing in New York City. Oh - also saw a Broadway show! Truthfully not terribly much was done in a holiday sense - which is a bit of a shame. But that's what happens sometimes. It all wasn't a waste so don't worry about that. I did come to terms with the general layout of the area though.
Train, Pennsylvania, New York City - Penn Station. Time to check into the hostel. Unfortunately there were no real stations nearby (subway stations). So anyway - off to 59th street on the Yellow (N/R/W) line. A couple of blocks to walk and there I was at the Vanderbilt YMCA. Tiny, tiny rooms! But a clean bed is all that's really needed - so all good. (Map for the entire New York City subway)
As I checked in at 12:00 pm (midday) there really wasn't that much time to sightsee - as days are short and I was yet to eat lunch. So step one was to find lunch. Wandering around the Vanderbilt resulted in finding a nice little food shop. A hot dog shop near the United Nations complex. I ordered a Pacific Hot Dog, and it was very nice indeed. Probably not the healthiest thing to have, but oh well.
So in the afternoon I wandered around the Midtown East area of Manhattan. Just browsing as it were. It's quite a feeling just walking through the streets of NYC. I ended up getting a look at the United Nations Secretariat building, the Chrysler Building and Grand Central Station.
Both Carmen and I decided that it was a good idea to go and see a show - so that is what we ended up doing. We headed up to Times Square and bought discounted tickets to the Phantom of the Opera (50% discount, as it's off-season).
The show was to commence at 8:00pm just off Broadway. Ate some Japanese food and then headed off to the show. I ate some special sushi named Spider Sushi, it wasn't made up of spiders but was made up of shrimp and cost US$20. The show was quite impressive - I quite liked it.
I'm not too sure where i've heard portions of the Phantom of the Opera music before but i've definitely heard some aspects of the show before. Fantastic. When the orchestra started belting out the "main theme" I was impressed, hooked from the start. Both the performers and orchestra were fantastic.
The performance wasn't without its flaws. Flaws due to obnoxious audience members. One bloke a couple of seats down kept shuffling in his chair - he was obviously brought along by his wife (= dragged), he eventually fell asleep. That wasn't the worst of it. A group of young American chicks kept giggling and making quiet comments throughout the show. Seriously... just because some of them are attractive doesn't give them the right to disrupt a show.
After the show - went back to the hostel and watched an interesting new American show (or maybe it isn't quite new). The Comedy Channel there is something that I would very much like to see much more of. The show titled The Colbert Report was hillarious. Americans are known for covering primarily American stories and not too much else. In this show they provide 17 seconds of world news, and it was one of the funniest little skits i've seen in a while.
UN Secretariat Building, New York
Chrysler Building
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