Now I shall cut the drama and vagueness and tell you why and how I had fun in the Big Apple :P I've only been to New York for a few hours everytime I came in the last few years, but this time we had two whole days at our disposal. To make our NY experience even more authentic, Tai and I didn't take the car in. As a result, we walked unbelievable distances! Even if you use the subway, you end up walking a lot in New York. At the end of both days, our feet were going to fall off. On Saturday, we first got tickets for....wait for it...Broadway!! More on that later :) After that, we found our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. In my opinion, it is the most beautiful bridge in New York. Constructed all the way back in 1883, it took a whole lot of great engineering and determination to get it up and running. After dodging the large number of tourists, runners and cyclists there, we walked to Wall Street where there were a thousand people. Seriously. The Bull, which is quite massive, was obscured by a number of people. We saw NYSE (not the most pleasant of places right now), 1 wall street, Trinity Church (apparently famous for the movie National Treasure), and the JP Morgan. So, JP Morgan was this fancy industrial millionare. His son decided to be even fancier, and in a show of super ego, built the Morgan building, which is just three storeys tall. Apparently they have so much money that they don't need to build any more floors. On Wall Street.
From there we went to Strand, which is a fantastic bookstore. The sheer number of books there is overwhelming. If I was ever let loose with money there, I'd buy half the place! The place does not end. Crossword and Landmark may have good ambience, but Strand outstrips everything because of the number of books.
And then it was approaching 8 o clock. We made our way to Times Square. In the true sense of the word, Times Square amazes me. The large volume of people is only eclipsed by the glitziness of the electronic billboards. There's not much more I can say about it, just look at my pictures in the Picasa album. One unusual thing we saw were Conversation Bowls. They were literally huge bowls of wood in which people could sit and chat. Very curious but quite cool.
A bagel filled with tomato and herb cream cheese later, the Majestic. Enter the theatre for possibly the greatest musical of all time- Phantom of the Opera!! Tai and I could hardly believe that we were about to watch Phantom. It was my first Broadway musical and there was no better first. Phantom is brilliant on so many levels- the costumes and sets are grand, the lighting is excellent and the music, the music was on a different level altogether. It is easy to forget all the music is live because the talent of all the singers is phenomenal. Actually phenomenal is a word I'd use to describe the show completely. The music had such an effect on me that everytime I heard the organ (the huge church wala organ) play the first few notes, I get chills down my spine. The Phantom himself has been portrayed so well- the perfect mix of darkness, evil, hurt, love and power. As you can see, I'm still completely enamored. Just hear the Nightwish version of the Phantom of the Opera song. And then imagine it live.
That night's performance was also the last for two long-serving members of the cast. By long-serving, I mean 17 and 23 years each :D So at the end of the show, there were speeches, flowers, a few tears and never-ending applause. We were probably two people in the audience who didn't know this beforehand, so it was a surprise :)
Still absorbed in the world of the Phantom, Tai and I came out, with Brooke Shields just getting out of the other theatre. The Addams Family now stars her, so we got a good glimpse. Apparently New York is star studded, but she is the only one we saw. :D Times Square was even busier, and it continued to be so till about 12 30, when we left. We were dead tired, and when we got to our room at two, we simply crashed. End of day one. I like this city :)
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