More from New York

A little light on photos today I'm afraid, I have been a bit slack about taking my camera out with me the last couple of days.

On Tuesday I went to Coney Island, an old neighborhood on the south coast of Brooklyn consisting of semi-abandoned amusement parks and a large beach. It appears in my favorite playstation game GTA 4 so I had to go see it. There were more hawkers than people for them to sell to, and only a couple of the rides still work, but amusement park equipment dating back to the early 20th century dot the landscape.



Tuesday night I went on a pub crawl around the hostel with about 30 other travellers. Met some interesting people from all over the world. Only went to 4 bars which isn't really a pubcrawl as I remember it from my Vic days. Through the pubcrawl I finally met someone who wanted to go to a Broadway show with me, which became the traffic for yesterdays stage...

The TKTS box office on Times Square which offers discount tickets to the shows opened at 3pm. We (myself and Tina from Germany) had to line up for about an hour. We managed to get tickets to the Phantom of the Opera 8pm show at the Majestic theater. With the tickets secured we did some more exploring of the city, Chinatown, the MoMA, the Paley Center for Media, and the Staten Island Ferry (again, this time in the daylight).

The show was absolutely amazing. One of the premiere experiences of my life. I remembered my days growing up at the Hutt City Musical Theater and how Broadway was looked towards as a kind of mecca of that kind of entertainment. As the curtains went up it was hard to believe I was finally there and getting to see a show. The Phantom is the longest running show in Broadway history, it has been going for 21 years. Last night was a sell-out, and after all those years they still got a standing ovation.

Not quite sure whats on the agenda today. I'm meeting Joe and Tina at the hostel at 10.30 and we will go from there. Possibly will be the Ellis Island immigration museum first up. Theres also something on the the Paley Center for Media I want to go back and see later in the day, and I still must get to the old ale house Mike and Raych recommended. I need to do all of that and anything else I can fit in today because tomorrow I'm making my way to Philadelphia.

I'll be sure to take my camera with me today so the next blog post will be better I promise.