Anniversary trip to NYC II

We started Thursday morning relatively early (considering we were one time zone ahead, on vacation, and kid-less). We walked to the end of our block and enjoyed coffee and a muffin from Starbucks for breakfast. Then we walked past our hotel to the other end of the block (yeah, our location was that great!) and boarded the subway. In planning our trip, we both wanted to see most of the city and actually know what we were seeing and decided the best way to accomplish this might be through the Grey Line Sightseeing Tour, aka the red double decker buses. This turned out to be a great investment. We were able to get on and off the bus at our leisure, stopping where it was important to us, all while hearing cool facts about NYC: where events take/took place, names of cool buildings, where people live, where shows are taped, etc. We saw the building used in Gotham City for the Batman movie, the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, Carnegie Hall, NYU, and where Marilyn Monroe sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. Presdient" to name a few. If we had ridden the subway the entire time we would have missed experiencing so much of the city!

We decided to let our first stop off point be Soho. We did some walking and looking - mainly taking it all in and then walked our way to Chinatown. We were in search of a good Chinese restaurant and chose Ping's on Mott Street.

Kris and I are fans of Chinese food. (When we traveled to Taiwan and the Phillippines on a mission trip with the BSU in 1998, we were introduced to the delicious dim sum - Ping's made a name for itself with its dim sum.) We were not disappointed! Our favorites were the chicken and shrimp dim sum.


We then took to the streets. I, in search of a purse/bag or two and Kris, in search of a sweet pork roll (a Chinese bakery treat). While Kris found exactly what he was wanting, I got more and more confused! So, we decided to call it a day in the Chinatown area. When we bought our sight-seeing tickets, we received free tickets to ride the water taxi. We decided to get back on the bus and make our way to South Street Seaport. We hoped to ride the water taxi but they were sold out for the day and told us to return in the morning. We got some Haggendaz ice cream and enjoyed the sights of the port. There were lots of people browsing the shops and kiosks and being entertained by the street performers. We were pretty tired and a good distance from our hotel, so we decided to make our way back. Since we were not wanting to sight-see, we took the subway. After resting a little and getting ready we were on our way to see Jersey Boys on Broadway!


The show was phenomenal! We sat through the entire performance clapping, cheering, singing along, and even tearing up (Presley, that is). We left the theatre so excited. They sang many of the songs that The Four Seasons are famous for. A few of our favorites: Sherry, Walk Like A Man, Big Girls Don't Cry, Rag Doll, and Can't Take My Eyes Off of You. The talent can not be beat! In one of our favorite scenes they set up huge stage lights at the back of the stage and facing the audience. They had the actors with their backs to us and singing toward the back of the stage...making us (the audience) feel like we were backstage at one of their concerts! Incredible! Kris had never seen a Broadway show, nor is he a "theatre" person...but this one had him hooked! We highly recommend it (just know that the language is strong a times)!


Do we look like tourists? I think the backpack gives us a way :)

While walking to the subway after the show, we stopped at a local diner and enjoyed some pancakes. We were ready for bed and headed that way, but missed our stop on the subway and ended up delaying our getting home by an hour or two! Our NYC traveling skills were not up to par that night :)

Stay tuned for day three of our anniversary trip!