Night in NYC

This past weekend Christopher came down to visit and planned a surprise trip to New York City for my birthday. He made arrangements for Tyson to go to Doggie Daycare for the night and we took the Metro-North train into Grand Central Station. It is fairly reasonable to visit New York at this time of year and Christopher was able to book us into the Millennium Hilton (where we have stayed in before and I really like) on Priceline.

That night we had tickets for Translations - a show that just opened on Broadway a few weeks ago that received good reviews from the New York Times. Now, one thing we have yet to master is the subway system in New York. Christopher is excellent at reading the map and figuring out which line we need to take and where we need to get off. But one thing we haven't quite figured out is how much time to budget when taking the subway. Since we're often in the city on the weekend, when we take the subway we run into some lines being closed, stations being closed, and infrequent trains.

After waiting awhile to take the subway to Times Square for our 8pm show, we came to the realization that we wouldn't make the show if we continued to wait for this subway that didn't seem to be making an appearance anytime soon. So even though we had already paid our fare, we decided to head above ground to catch a cab to have any chance of getting to the theatre on time.

Unfortunately, it being a Saturday night, it was tough to find a cab. On every street corner we saw other people struggling to catch a cab as well. With a little bit of luck, we managed to flag one down after not too long and were surprised to find out that we had snagged the best cab driver we've ever had in the city. Once we told him where we were going, he knew we were trying to catch a show and drove like a madman. He was honking his horn at cars that were lingering in intersections and drivers that weren't doing the right thing. I never felt that our driving was being a jerk to other drivers with his driving or his horn.

Since there was a bit of traffic closer to the theatre, we decided to get out a few blocks away and run the rest of the way. Christopher ran up ahead to go pick up the tickets, while I paid the cabbie and gave him a big tip. We managed to make it to our seats with minutes to spare!

After the show we had reservations at Tao for dinner, so we walked uptown to the restaurant. When we got there the place was packed. Even though we had a reservation we still waited for quite awhile in the bar area. After awhile we were quite hungry and I had a craving for some galbi, so we decided to leave and head to 5th Ave. & W. 32nd St. where there are many Korean restaurants that stay open late into the night.

The next day we had lunch in the East Village before heading home. It was great to just go for one night - we each packed a small bag that we could easily carry with us on the subway and around town. This way we didn't have to worry about checking our bags with the bell desk and then going back to the hotel to pick them up. Plus, going for one night keeps the expensive hotel costs down - this is something we should definitely do again!

Thanks Christopher for planning such a fun weekend!