New York City, October 2025

5 years ago I turned 50, Chris and I were planning to spend it in New York City. I celebrated my 40^th in NYC, so we thought why not make it a tradition…well, does anyone remember October 2020, or any month in 2020? Needless to say, we didn’t make it 5 years ago…this year we made it!

see Central Park?

5 days of sights and sounds of the Big Apple. I think this is our 5^th visit. Nothing is all that different, except for the traffic. It seems to me that the city, that was always congested, is even more clogged with cars, vans, and busses.

Day 1

The journey by taxi to the Edison Hotel, in Midtown/Hells Kitchen, took well over an hour on a Sunday evening. We knew it would be a fixed rate, but there were a few add-ons one of which Chris ‘disputed’. In the end all was fine, but WOW!

melted cheese!

watching game 6

The Edison Hotel is in a great spot for Broadway shows, we had tickets for 3, ended up seeing 4. I don’t love this location as it so close to the craziness of Times Square, but that can kinda be avoided.

Tonight was game 6 of the World Series, so we figured we’d find a pub, watch the game and have a bite. We found a pub that was LOUD.

Day 2

The hotel has a unique approach to included breakfast. Each day, we have 2 coupons for a grab and go bagged breakfast in the hotel or pizza later in the day at a place down the street. We went with the grab and go – a fruit or croissant, egg/bacon/cheese sandwich, and a drink. All of this was bagged to go. We ate back in the room. I like this approach.

Chess

NYSE

We like to get a taste of a place we’re visiting through walking tours, especially food tours. We had a food tour of Hell’s Kitchen this afternoon. The guide gave our group of 5 info on Hell’s Kitchen as we wandered from eatery to eatery. We started with
Japanese BBQ, a cookie shop, a meatball joint, a Balkan place, and finished at a Georgian (the country) place where we tried Saparavi wine, and melted cheese in a bread boat – delish!

so good!

Leo, a friend of ours from Calgary was coincidentally in town also, so all 3 of us went on the tour. It wasn’t the best tour in the world, but it was fun. Drinks were an extra charge…along the way we bought ourselves a couple of glasses of wine.

911 Memorial

The 3 of us finished the afternoon at a bar that just happened to have Happy Hour on the go. We learned that NYC Happy Hours are looooong. One we visited twice was 11AM-8PM.

Back at the hotel for a break before tonight’s Broadway musical – Chess.Chess is a revival of a musical from the 80’s. Written by Tim Rice and Benny and Björn from ABBA. The story is of chess players during the Cold War and is where One Night in Bangkok is from. Michelle Lee from Glee was one of the 3 stars. True to the Cold War theme, the dancing while obviously very good as it’s Broadway after all, but was very rigid and stiff – good but wasn’t exactly my taste.

Chris getting a hot dog

Chris, Leo and me & the bridge

Day 3

Today was my actual birthday.

We took the subway to the bottom of Manhattan, saw the Statue of Liberty, the NY Stock Exchange, the 911 Memorial, and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. We found a cool outdoor place with a view of the bridge for a glass of wine – it was about 20 degrees.

Brooklyn Bridge

We took the subway back, Chris got a street vendor hotdog, chilled at the room and were out again for tonight’s show of the Buena Vista Social Club musical.

we were close!

Chris picked all of the other musicals we saw, but this was my pick. It was BY FAR the best of the 4 we ended up seeing. We had front row tickets, and it was everything I’d hoped for and more. The musicians are a big part of the show, and they were right on stage.

Front row was very interesting. We could see the facial expressions so clearly, and I’m pretty sure
caught a whiff of BO when the performers fist bumped us at the end of the show. Front row meant we were CLOSE. The one downside for me being that close was that we couldn’t quite see the dancers’ feet for the angle of the stage. I like looking at dancers’ feet.

outside the theatre

Day 4

We started with a walk by of Madison Square Garden. We have hockey tickets for tomorrow night, so want to know where we are going. Once we found MSG, we wandered a bit and saw a sign pointing to Happy Hour – it was noon, why not? We found Jayne’s Bar. A small narrow place with the bar in the front and a sunken restaurant in the back. It was decorated with faux red autumn leaves…very charming.

MSG

We had tickets to & Juliet. & Juliet is a jukebox musical – Britney Spears, Katy Perry, NSYNC, etc. We were front row again – good choice.

When we were done, we thought we’d check out the discounted tickets booth and see what there was for tonight. We found front row for Six, the musical of the story of the 6 wives of Henry the 8^th’. Again…good, but no Buena Vista Social Club.

Jayne's Bar

Day 5

Grand Central

Our hotel offered free walking tours each day of a different part of Manhattan, today we did the Midtown tour. We wandered behind our guide as he pointed out interesting bits of architecture. The tour started at the Iroquois New York, next to the New York Yacht Club and other old private clubs which are still operating. Then we visited Grand Central Station, the NY Public Library, Bryant Park and the Chrysler Building.

library

We were so close to Jayne’s Bar that we just couldn’t no stop in. A $7 glass of wine in NYC is a BARGAIN.

library

We couldn’t visit NYC without checking out at least one museum. We decided on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, probably our favourite in NYC.

& Juliet

Because Chris isn’t into breakfast, after the first day I’ve only gotten the grab and go so we have extra breakfast tickets. We used 2 this afternoon for 2 slices of pizza. I’m not sure we ever had NY pizza on previous trips, but I love it. The crust is thin, but not too thin, with any toppings you can think of. I think I had 3 slices on 3 different occasions on this trip.

Six

Tonight, we had tickets to The NY Rangers with Leo. The 3 of us met at a pub close to MSG. We didn’t get the most expensive tickets in the arena, but they were great for a bird’s eye view of the action. What was the most expensive was the beer. I think I paid 20USD for a beer. It was a big beer but still!

After we hit a bar on restaurant row in Hell’s Kitchen close to our hotel. It wasn’t easy finding a place

hockey game

open after the game.

Brooklyn Bridge

Day 6

We are going home today. We figured it would be just as fast and infinitely cheaper to take the subway back to JFK. As we figured, it was. Having only small rolling cases and backpacks make it easy.