NYC day 3

After another yummy cinnamon muffin from Fluffy's Bakery, we were off to do some shopping. So, we hopped onto the dd bus and we off to Chinatown where Julie especially wanted a "shady" purse shopping experience. I knew that I had not seen the men with the huge bags on 7th Ave. like I had experienced before, so I was glad when our tour guide told us that when we got off the bus there would probably be an Asian person there holding a card with pictures of purses on it asking if we wanted anything.

Sure enough, when we exited the bus, there she was.......our own personal purse concierge! LOL
She led us to a parking lot where we climbed into a van with purses galore, and the dickering began. That's actually the part that I like......trying to get the best price!

We left there and headed to South Street Seaport again to shop and hit the TCKTS booth. Again, no line and we got tickets to see one of the newer shows...Rock of Ages featuring Constantine Mouralis from American Idol fame. He was on the same season with Chris Daughtry and Carrie Underwood--actually the best season, in my opinion. ANYWAY, Julie was really excited! We headed back across the street for lunch and shopping in the "mall". SSS is a nice place to have a meal and just hang out. It's obviously right by the water and there are two ships there, street performers and street vendors--really nice atmosphere!

We headed from there back to our hotel to rest up and get ready for our show. Julie decided she was hungry and went in search of a Thai restaurant. It was on this journey that she found the area known as Hell's Kitchen. It was about two blocks up from our hotel and the food is reasonably priced and you can find almost any kind of restaurant you are searching. Val and I got ready and grabbed a cab down to the Marquis Theater for the show.

Rock of Ages is all 80's music and fashion. It's hilarious! Did we really look that stupid? We all three who had graduated from high school in the 80s had a fabulous time laughing at ourselves and being taken back to the days of leg warmers and shoulder pads (not to mention the big hair).

After the show, we headed up to Hell's Kitchen so that I could eat dinner and we encountered a little Puerto Rican restaurant that was yummo! I had a chicken sandwich with peppers and onions on it on bread that I am sure was freshly baked and REAL, hand cut french fries. The owner walked around and talked to the patrons, and when we left he said, "You must come earlier next time so you can hang out!" So sweet. Wish we had found this street two days earlier! Of course, we had to get cheesecake one more time and we headed to a little diner for that afterwards.

On our way back to the hotel (about 2 blocks from the diner), Julie saw a line for what she thought would be a little club where she could listen to some music. I looked over at the line and then back at Julie and said incredulously, "That's a gay bar!" She didn't believe me at first until the transvestite and his (or would it be her) friends walked by. We got a good laugh out of that especially since she was totally enthralled with them and their inability to get a cab (they actually got one and then the cabbie put them out). Also, on that same street corner, she got caught up in a conversation happening between some Jewish men who were arguing about whether or not there would be peace in the middle east. One thought that Obama would accomplish this and the others (with whom I agreed) said there would never be peace (read the Bible, people). Julie's added commentary to that scene was also pretty darn funny. So, here we stood at midnight on the street corner laughing our tails off at the people.......so fun! We finally finished up our night and made it back....oh, there were a ton of NYPD at Carnegie Hall all day on Friday so we finally asked when we got back in about it. The girl at the front desk said it probably had something to do with Obama being in town, but that because of homeland security the police presence was something they were use to.

So, check back later for that final day and pictures. I've decided to do pictures completely seperate from my posts so that I can add commentary about them. I'm also planning to do a post with tips on saving money while there.