30 Dec, Sat - Times Square and Broadway

We decided to catch a Broadway musical at Times Square today. Times Square is a very hip, cool and happneing place! Every junction had colourful billboards and the place enamates a very lively feel to it.

Times Square feels like the orchard road of Singapore but much bigger and better. Though I commented to Becky that we now know why US is not that environmentally friendly. So much power is used to light up the billboards. Advertising costs must be very high and that is why our products are also much more expensive.

We passed by the M&M shop and the bill board was so captivating to watch. Also passed by the Hershey store. We made a mental note to come back to these stores once we find the TKTS booth which sells same day discounted broadway musical tickets.

At the booth, there is a big screen which shows all the musicals available that day and their respective discount. Big name musicals such as Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera were all sold out. However, there were still quite a number of musicals available.We had a hard time deciding which musical to watch. In the end we settled for Hairspray because we overheard many people in the queue saying that it was good. The line for the tickets was pretty long but it moved fast cos there were 12 booths opened. The ticket cost US$58 each after a 50% discount. As it was a discounted ticket, the seats were not prime location. Our seats were at the end of the 2nd row. Quite near to the stage.


As the musical only starts at 2pm, we still had about 2 hours to burn. We visited Charmin Restrooms as we passed by there earlier and we also learnt from Charlene that it is place with many toilets. Actually, it is a marketing gimmick by Charmin for people to try their new toilet paper. There was a long line of people queuing to use the toilets. Everyone was probably curious and decided to take a look too. We actually queued 1/2 hour to use the toilet.

The irritating part was that we had to endure the music that was playing in the background. It was definitely a marketing tool to brainwash people on Charmin toilet rolls. There was even a bunch of people they hire to dance along the tune. But we have to admit that their new toilet roll is soft and nice.

After that, we had pizza at Sbarro. It was hot & fresh from the oven so it was really yummy. Then we visited the M&M store which had 2 storeys selling all kinds of M&M souvenirs and all colours of M&M.

We had a great time taking pictures and marvelling at the store's ingenuity to sell their stuff. There were even sweaters which had the M&M's emblazoned over them. We also popped into the Hershey's store and drooled over all the chocolates again.


By then, it was time to head towards Neil Simon Theatre for our musically. Broadway shows actually refers to the musicals shown in theatres on Broadway Avenue. There are actually many theatres, each having 1 or 2 performance on a permanent fixture. For instance, Winter Garden Theatre was showing the musical Cats for several year before but has now replaced it with the musical Mamma Mia!

We spent some time taking pictures of the theatre. The seats were not that bad although the corner of the stage was not that visible. Luckily, it was only a couple of short scenes that were blocked but the music and speech was already good. The show was approximately 2 hours 40 minutes long, with a 15 minute intermission.


Hairspray is a really nice musical to go for. It is set in the 60s and it's about how Baltimore's Tracy Turnblad, a big girl with big hair and an even bigger heart, has only one passion--to dance. She wins a spot on the local TV dance program, "The Corny Collins Show" and, overnight, is transformed from outsider to irrepressible teen celebrity. The dancers were fantastic as they could dance perfectly with the fast beat. I was so amazed by the dancers' energy as the musical is very fast paced. Not that many slow scenes. The first musical I watched was in London as I was on a school trip with my secondary ECA mates. It was a pity that I didn't appreciate that as I felt asleep, apparently tired out by the activities in the morning and afternoon.

Hopefully, I can get a chance to watch more musicals in the future. However, I will have to consider if my budget can take it as the prices are still expensive to me.

After the musical, we took the subway and headed to Central Park. The plan was to go ice-skating at the open-air rink there but the queue was so long. We decided to walk around the vicinity and went into a shopping mall to marvel at litted ornaments hanging in the mall. It was very pretty as the ornaments sparkled and change colours in tune to the music. We strolled to the supermart area and ended up idling our time in Borders. I managed to read my manga as the comics were not shrinkwrapped.


After that we took the subway back to hostel and headed over to a nearby eatery called BBQ. We both ordered bbq baby ribs and chicken combo for dinner. The meal was just normal but portion was super filling.

Seems like nothing much was really done today. In fact, it felt like a super lazy day as we took our own sweet time.