Just a "quick" update before we head out for the morning.
Our first night in Manhattan was a success. We finally arrived at the hotel and got checked in around 8PM, dangerously close to hangry. After finding our room and freshening up briefly we took off to find a place to get some food.
My partner had found a Korean BBQ place using Google maps that wasn't too far away from us and we gave it a shot. The food was fantastic. I forget the name of it at present, but I'll retcon this eventually with it. I also plan on finding a decent place to put photos so they can be linked to from here, but don't want to take a hit to my bandwidth allocation for this site on them.
Following food I casually remarked that tonight would be the best time to go see Times Square. It was dark by then, but nice out, and we weren't too exhausted thanks to a day of travel. We also really wanted to walk off some of the meal we just dove into. So off we went.
Holy fuck.
Really, all I have are cultural points of reference for a lot of this city, so it gave me a sense of what it might look like, but hardly what it would be like to experience. It's really something. Getting caught in the wave of similarly curious onlookers as we drift through the sidewalks (mostly) with our attention under constant bombardment from billboards and the sounds of thousands of conversations similar to our own is something I think you have to be a part of. It was almost too busy to be problematic, because there was just too much taking place at any one time.
We did a pretty big loop around it all and made our way back down to the direction we came (we walked up 6th/Broadway and back down 7th) to our hotel on 25th.
The walk was mostly uneventful until we crossed a place called Weed World where it looked like someone was being ejected for reasons we couldn't understand, and exclaiming loudly that he would “stab the mother fucker”, “cap the mother fucker”, and a handful of other strong assertions that didn't come to pass, thankfully, as we were literally right beside it. At this very moment my partner pointed out a famous NYC rat, running scared away from the commotion, its garbage bag meal no longer the dining experience it was hoping for. It was cute and has come up several times since then. So I think it's safe to say that is her highlight thus far. (She just confirmed that his chubby cheeks and cuteness have been a great highlight).
Then we slept. In bed at the Wordle hour, and have arisen this morning. Time to find breakfast, wander, then reconvene here for an outfit change before heading to The Book of Mormon this afternoon.
<3 flurp