The Big Apple

For our summer trip, my family went to New York for 3 weeks! Well, my mom was working there so it wasn't all vacation all of time. So in a way, we got a little taste of what it would be like to live there. I made a list of things to do and it had some of typical NYC stuff: museums, soho, times square, places to eat, and musicals. And of course, I had to go to the garment district! My brother had a different objective: to eat his way through New York. (His favorite spot was Ichiran for ramen.)The MetIf you couldn't tell, I love art and art museums (ever since I was little). The Met is so big that you could spend an entire afternoon on just one floor, which is what happened when we went there. We basically stayed on the second floor and I'm not sure we even finished it by the time we had to go. We went to the Comme de Garçons exhibit (see my post: "Rei Kawakubo - Comme de Garçons"), modern art, Age of the Empires, and paintings. Next time I go back, maybe I'll get to see another floor of The Met! Musicals-- I watched Wicked, and I was beyond amazed. This was my first experience watching a musical--and it was a good one to start off with. The costuming was playful and the performance was charming and funny. I knew "Defying Gravity" from Glee so I was able to sing along (in my head, not aloud) to that. We squeezed in another musical before we left: Chicago. It did not have the level of stage production as Wicked but the performance and storytelling was equally moving. We were excited because the lead was Asian, but that evening her understudy subbed in for her :/Subways--When I was in New York last year for just a few days I didn't experience much drama on the subway. But this summer, there was plenty to see. I saw couples breaking up. A girl was sobbing; she yelled at the dude to "stop laughing at me." I saw couples making up, or at least trying to. A guy kept trying to hug and kiss his girl and she kept pulling away (he must've messed up!).I saw subway dancers, no surprise there. Dancers that were not good and messing up and dropping their hats. Dancers that were really talented. I heard musicians and singing. One guy was singing so loud and out of tune on a quiet train... I could barely contain my laughter. I honestly thought it was a baby crying. When I turned to my brother to ask, "Where's the baby?" we noticed that it was some guy singing. He sounded worse than me and my friend Andrea's attempts at singing opera! I still laugh when I think about that guy.GuggenheimBeing in the Guggenheim, I felt like I was in Annie or Mr. Popper's Penguins. Before coming here, those were my own two references for the museum! It was my first time here. The design of the building made it very easy to go through. I loved that you really can't miss anything because it's all on the spiral path. They had a lot of modern abstract art and in at least one room that veered off the spiral path, there was artwork with more realism.Brooklyn FleaI love vintage clothing and Brooklyn Flea (which was not in Brooklyn but in SoHo) was the place to go! But sadly everything was over priced, at least for my budget. :( But I was able to get a orange vintage FILA shirt for $10 (I think she gave me a discount because we were both Filipino!) and a vintage yellow Nike dad hat for $20.Coney Island  While I loved going on the rides at Coney Island...the place was just was not for me. It was crowded and grungier than I thought it would be. But my brother loved it. There was a boardwalk that was very pretty with the sun setting.Times Square   Speaking of crowded places, we ended up here after watching Chicago. Only because we had to go through it on our way to the train station. This was my second time in Times Square, but I never really enjoy it because of all the noise and people.love,laur