I spent the day in New York City for a Broadway show.

I go to New York City at least ten times a year for work. It’s something inevitable for me, as someone working at a theater in the city and also as an entertainment journalist.

I also live in Maryland, near a bus stop, so I can get $1 tickets if I know ahead of time what I need to go and do, and I went to college in NYC and have people I can stay with for free in exchange for a nice meal or two. I’m living the life when it comes to the city, although I’m quite sick of it by this point. It loses its magic after a certain moment, that’s for sure.

Anyways, I bought a $15 roundtrip Megabus ticket to go see Merrily We Roll Along on Broadway. It was a long day for me, as I left my house at 6 AM and got back home to Maryland at 10 PM.

However, it was so worth it! There are always so many core memories that I create when coming to New York City, and this is just another one them. Here’s what I did and ate during my twelve hours in the city.

I ate two meals that left me stuffed by the end of the day!

Let’s be real, as someone who spends too much time in New York, I’ve done all the tourist based things. When I come to the city, I’m on the hunt for the best food in town, and now that I actually have an income and am no longer a student, I aspire to eat at places I wouldn’t eat at as a student.

Basically, anywhere that’s a sit down. I was very budget conscious when I was a student because I was deeply aware of how expensive this city was.

This time, I started out by walking from the dropoff at Hudson Yards to Friedman’s in Hell’s Kitchen. It was near where I needed to be next, so I got a seat at the bar. I first ordered a hot chocolate, which was just okay and honestly it was a little bit cold. I was expecting something hot, as I’d just been walking in the freezing temperatures, but I drank it anyways.

Not worth $6. I ordered the lemon ricotta pancakes for my breakfast ($20), and I couldn’t finish the portion. They were very big and not too sweet. I was afraid they would be a bit too lemon flavored, but they were just right to me. I didn’t think this breakfast was worth $32 after tip though.

After my Broadway show, I went to Silky’s Kitchen, which is two blocks from the Hudson Theater. I hadn’t been here before but wanted to check it out, as I saw the food and thought it looked pretty solid.

I ordered S2 on the menu, which was labeled in English as Chairman Mao’s Braised Pork, or, as I heard the guy say in Mandarin, hong shao rou. My reading Mandarin skills are rusty, so I had missed that. I ordered it to be mild spicy as a dry noodle mix, and it came out to $17.

My food there came quickly. Be warned if you can’t handle spicy food—I thought the mild had a bit of a kick. I could’ve gone for medium spice, but I can see how a lot of people can’t even handle the mild. I’d go back there, although the pork was a bit fatty. The cashier warned me about that, but I was hungry and fine with it.

Merrily We Roll Along was an absolutely divine Broadway show.

I’d been wanting to see Merrily We Roll Along ever since it was announced at the New York Theatre Workshop, and grabbed a cheap ticket as soon as I could far out in advance. I planned the entire day coming around to see this 1 PM, matinee, hence why I had even got an early bus to get here.

Even before the reviews came out I knew that this was a must-see of the season, and I was going to drag myself all the way to the city to see it.

And man, this show was fantastic. I saw Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe that day, as the usual female lead was out, and I thought that these two blew the house down.

The audience was absolutely eating this story up. It’s a sad one, but I had no idea how funny it was going into it, so there were plenty of moments throughout that had everyone cracking up, including the boy playing Frank’s kid. Go see this show if you can snag a cheap ticket, have the time, or can afford it!

Caught up at the workplace and with friends.

This is what I did after the breakfast at Friedman’s. My work is right near there, so I stopped by and spent an hour just chatting with my boss and other coworker/friend. I don’t get to see them often in real life, and she gave me some of her Christmas fudge.

They were both about to go away for the holidays, so it was like a nice little Christmas gathering without the expectations of getting any real work done. I also had met a fabulous Brazilian theatre artist while I was in there who recently did a solo show over at The Tank. I always love meeting these incredible humans at work!

Took an hour long walk to and from Hudson Yards.

This was over the course of the day, but one of my favorite activities in general when I’m in New York is to just roam around and see what the city has to offer.

Sometimes I take these really long walks just around Times Square, so whenever I’m in the city, I know exactly where everything is (unless they close) because I spend a ridiculous amount of time just wandering to kill the time.

It’s how to get a know a city, really. So instead of taking the subway today, I just walked everywhere. Despite spending eight hours sitting at a show and on buses, I still got my 10,000 steps in because even after I ate my food at Silky and needed to get back to Hudson Yards, I decided to make the thirty minute trek.

I also walked around the Hudson Yards mall since I had some extra time. They have really nice Christmas decor, and, best of all, free bathrooms that are decent. I always pee in there if I’m in the area, but pee on the upper floors. The second floor usually is most crowded and this time they had no toilet paper in those stalls. After that I headed to the Megabus, got on, and took a hot nap before arriving back home. It was a nice day overall!

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