NYC Day 2

I knew the last entry was horrific so I'd quickly start with some background information for those who are very lost based on that no-sleep entry (yes it's my excuse).

1. I'm currently staying with Stanley, a friend of mine who studies at Columbia University and is unbelievably kind to be hosting me while he prepares for his finals. This guy is way too kind, man. Stan, if you're reading this, I owe you big time. Buy you dinner when I get my consulting/i-banking signing on bonus (more like, IF I get it).

2. Sean is a friend of Stanley, while Xing and Meghan (yes with a H) are housemates of Stanley. The casanova stays with three ladies. Incidentally Xing is his cousin - very very small world, I must say.

3. I passed Carnegie Hall on the way from LaGuardia to Stan's place. It's actually pretty exciting to be passing a landmark of sorts - that's the kind of thing that reminds you that you're in New York (yeah baby, yeah!)

Today began rather early in light of the lack of sleep the day before - NYC turned out to be surprisingly sunny so I managed to wake up before noon and procrastinate my way through a few hours, surfing frantically for a musical to watch and places to go. After much searching and more or less gaining understanding of NYC's Broadway ticket booking system, your correspondent decided on the hottest show of the season - Monty Python's Spamalot!



Spamalot is basically a pure rip-off of the Monty Python movie - and it's bloody brilliant. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to catch the movie so I can't pretend to know enough to compare. The cast is quite something though - it features Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce and Hank Azaria (with both Curry and Azaria being pretty damn amazing, I must admit). Miss it at your own peril...oh wait, you suckers aren't in New York? TOO BAD MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.



Seriously though I really enjoyed this performance even though I paid a bomb for it. It's exactly up the alley of irreverent humour, making fun of just about anything that matters (or not) and also tearing apart the notion of musicals in general. As their ad goes, the show's got "cows, coconuts, killer bunnies and french people (they struck out the word 'witches', on the basis of it being 'too expensive')". I'll leave a few quotes later to show you what I mean.

Other than that, wandering around Times Square was quite fun - I think. Damn camera died on me, don't have enough pictures to show. Met up with just about almost the whole gang of British exchange kids (most of them were caught offguard, thanks to Michelle's arrangement - hehehe) - we ate in Little Italy, right next to Chinatown. The place we ate at was Puglia and I need the pictures from them because my camera died (I need pix from the Greek restaurant too) but so far, food in NYC has been amazing. Amazingly expensive. And amazingly tasty.

On a totally random note, New York City uses a public transport system which is known to most people as hell. In all honesty, Manhattan being a "grid" actually makes it quite manageable and I don't really get it when people say the public transport system is chaotic and all that. It's definitely not the friendliest, agreed, but you don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, seriously. In fact, my only complaint would be that it's friggin' near impossible to get to the other side of Central Park short of walking, because the damn red and green lines run a million miles away from each other before meeting closer to Broadway. On the plus side, I got unlimited travel for a week for US$24 and the subway runs PAST midnight. Are people in Singapore listening to this?!?!?!

Okay, some pics and quotes to end off this entry. Catch Spamalot if you can!!!! Broadway's got me hooked.

King Arthur (Tim Curry): "I have a question. Why is it that our era is known as the Middle Ages when there's nothing after us?"

King Arthur: "Get to Broadway? That's great - I have to be somewhere which won't be founded until 1000 years later and in a country that's not been discovered yet."

Lancelot (Hank Azaria) (getting married to a prince - yes, prince, not princess): "Imagine, 1000 years later, this will still be controversial."


Times Square in the day.


Don't you love the neon lights?


Joining the military - now available at a place you wanna be spotted at (more than what we can say for Iraq...)


Dedicated to my dearest friend Swati Bhargava: Eat my shorts!

Okay, gotta queue for standby tickets for Saturday Night Live, so off to get a pass then bed!