3 Days in New York City (5/22)
My sister and I spent three days in New York City.
This trip to New York City was sponsored by the fact that my sister is graduating from pharmacy school, so before her residency at Kaiser begins, she had three months off before heading to Germany.
We went to Hawaii in April with our family, but we decided at the beginning of March that we’d head up to New York City for up to a week and just live life. I contacted my boss, who is the one I usually stay with whenever I go up to the city, she agreed to let us stay, and we bought our tickets to go up for three days.
Neither of us are NYC people. My sister, when she last stayed, was in Times Square for an Air BnB, which isn’t the ideal place if you’re going to stay in New York. Manhattan often smells of trash, and she doesn’t like the fact you have to walk everywhere. But we overcame the struggles of the city and had a great time overall.
Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Ramen Danbo, Soho
On the first day, we had bought our bus tickets so that we would arrive in NYC at 9 am. I really recommend buying bus tickets that early—we both just passed out and woke up when we got there. We headed from the Megabus stop to the Skylight Diner on 34th Street, just because it’s right there.
We had some mediocre waffles at Skylight, then headed into Times Square so I could pick up the keys to my boss’s apartment. That, ladies and gentlemen, was the first time I managed to see a Broadway theatre office for the first time. They had free snacks. I recommend the free snacks.
We then took the subway from Times Square into Brooklyn, crashed at the apartment, and then walked to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when we felt rested enough to function as human beings. The Brooklyn Botanical Garden was a close walk so we decided to go there, since the last time I went was three years ago in March and everything was dead. Lo and behold, we show up and the cherry blossoms are in full bloom.
The entire garden was beautiful, but massive. You could spend an entire day just wandering there with a packed lunch. We kind of wished that we had a blanket to sit on under the cherry blossoms, as they were so pretty.
The blossoms fell and scattered with the breeze, so there were pink blossoms everywhere. We took some pictures taking fistful of petals off of the ground and throwing them into the air. All in all, we spent about two hours at the garden before heading out for some lunch.
We walked to Ramen Danbo, which was nearby. I love Ramen Danbo, it’s one of my favorite ramen joints in New York. My sister loved it too, so that’s a good sign! After that, took the subway to Soho and went to Mariebelle, which I had been wanting to go to for a long time.
They’re famous for their European-style hot chocolate, and man it did not disappoint. It was thick and rich, definitely one of the best hot chocolates around.
What I liked is that the waiter gave us shots of the other’s drink, so we got to try them without putting our lips on the other’s cup. He also started us off with a shot of the hot chocolate, which is why I decided to get a guava tea.
We ordered a raspberry tart to eat with it, which also was quite delicious. After that, we headed back to Washington Square Park for a bit—I forgot how bad the park was. The homeless population got worse there, and it was full of NYU students on drugs. We left pretty quickly.
Hadestown, Times Square, High Line, Chelsea Market
We started off our second day walking to La Bagel Delight at the bottom of Park Slope. New York City is very famous for its bagels, so I wanted to take my sister there. It was popping with locals and that bagel was everything I ever dreamed of. It was dripping butter, stuffed with cheese, egg, and bacon. I thought I’d have a heart attack after eating it, but it was totally worth it. After that we got on the subway to head to New Perspectives Theatre Company, where I work, so I could attend an in-person meeting.
After our time at NPTC, we walked to the Drama Bookshop for five minutes, then headed to the Walter Kerr Theatre. When we first decided to go to NYC in March, I bought us Broadway tickets for Hadestown (which I had already seen) because I knew my sister would love it, and she had never seen a Broadway show before.
I managed to snag the cheapest tickets ($49) because I bought them so early. André De Shields was also leaving the show at the end of the month, so I wanted to see him as Hermes one last time.
And, much to our luck, we got the entire original Broadway cast. We had balcony seats so you had to lean forward a little bit, but I found myself as captivated with the show as much as I was the first time.
I’ve seen eight Broadway shows now, and I will say Hadestown is the best show I’ve ever seen. The second best is probably a tie between Torch Song and The Waverly Gallery, but musical-wise the only close show is Jagged Little Pill. It’s just a incredible show.
We then headed to Times Square so she could go to the Nintendo store, where we geeked out over the figurines and Pokemon plushes. After hunting down a bathroom in a bodega near Penn Station, we headed through Hudson Yards so I could buy pens at Muji (they’re the best pens on Earth, I swear), then onto the High Line.
The High Line in Chelsea is an elevate bridge park that dumps you off near Chelsea Market, which was our next destination. There was a massive Victoria Secret exhibit on the High Line for their newest perfume, which was pretty entertaining.
At Chelsea Market we picked up dinner—I got dan dan mian at Very Fresh Noodles, while my sister picked up a grilled cheese and tomato soup. The dan dan mian was way too spicy for me, so I didn’t find it very enjoyable. She then got sick, so we headed back to the apartment to rest up and tuck it in for the evening.
Harry Potter Store, Times Square, Koreatown
We met up with my good friend Salam this day, as we were leaving at 6 pm. We headed back to NPTC to drop off our stuff before we headed to the bus station, then walked to the Fashion Institute. Salam needed coffee, so my sister and I ended up wandering the FIT museum.
The current exhibit was accessories throughout the eras, which wasn’t too exciting compared to their previous exhibits. Once we collected Salam from her coffee run, we headed to Koreatown to go to our old stomping grounds.
In college, we always ate at Woorijip. It’s a bento box sit-down place where you grab a ton of cheap bento boxes and stuff your face for a decent price. My sister absolutely loved the place.
I got Japanese fried chicken, japechae, and a peach drink, while she got an eel bento box and seaweed salad. After lunch, we moved across the street to Grace Street to each the Nutella mochi waffle and hoddeok. That was such a throwback from the past—I used to go to these two places a lot.
My sister wanted to go to the Harry Potter store, so we walked to Flatiron and managed to get in immediately. It was the nerdiest, most crowded store I’ve been in for awhile.
The merchandise was slightly overpriced when it comes to apparel, but we finished off with butterbeer ($12). That butterbeer was a mistake—it was thick, it didn’t taste that great, and we all felt like vomiting after.
The day was wrapped up going back to Times Square and just wandering in and out of stores, as we had a lot of time to burn and nowhere to go.
This was a really nice trip to NYC, and I think I’m going back in June, so it was definitely worth it. I was inspired to buy Hamilton tickets after seeing Hadestown again, so I finally am learning to live my life as well. All in all, we walked about 20,000 steps the first day, then 15,000 the other two. Exhausting, but a great time overall.
