And the fact that I have been thoroughly enjoying my winter break, sort of like this dog is thoroughly enjoying his life in this picture.
But nonetheless, it has come time to document Christmas break. Usually when people go home for break they go to one place...probably the place where they grew up or went to high school. Probably a place where their family and family pets live. Probably a place where they see old friends and go for long nostalgic winter wonderland walks.
This, however, is not entirely the case for me.
If home is where the heart is, then I have several homes...and given everyone's holiday plans this year I was only in the town of my childhood for about 24 hours. this break I will have traveled to no less than five cities to be "homes" for the holidays, and I will document each (although I will warn you that they are out of order).
Since I am currently laying on a hotel bed on the island of Manhattan, I might as well start with my "New York" home. My Mom's gift to my sister and I this Christmas was a trip to NYC, to indulge in the best thing (in my opinion) that this city has to offer - phenomenal theater. This year's broadway spree was especially special due to a familiar face on the stage!
This is a picture of my mom and my friend Ryan (and old friend from high school). He's on broadway now! They're posing next to the stage door, which apparently doubles as an advertisement for the show. Annie took place at the Palace theater, and was a remarkable production complete with a trained stage dog and a host of adorable and extremely talented tap dancing orphans. It was a huge thrill to sit so close to the stage (our seats were great! - thanks mom-), hang around for a little while, and then get to take a quick backstage tour.
Here we are on the STAGE of the Palace theater! This is the closest I will ever get to being on a broadway stage, but don't worry, I made sure to do a quick dance while I was up there so in all technicality, I've "danced on broadway" (I wasn't about to pass that one up!)
When we go to NYC for theater, we stay in Korea town (due partly to it's proximity to times square and the theater district). This is because we stay in hotels with nice and helpful staff and continental breakfast, and because the food there is amazing. If you've never had Korean food, I highly recommend that you try it (and try everything) because what you like might surprise you...Caroline for instance, definitely ordered Ox intestine - which to be fair, I thought was awful - but she likes it.
I had bibimbap - a Korean dish with mixed veggies, egg, and rice served in a stone bowl so hot that it actually burns the outer layer of rice!
Here we are at our favorite place, Wonjo (pre ox-intestine and crackling hot rice dish).
Another reason we love New York is the shopping!
My sister and mom and I spent several hours hunting down the elusive pair of black, flat-bottom riding boots...no luck (even in the largest shoe department in the world. I'm starting to think that I have unrealistic expectations of shoes). But we did find some good after Christmas deals on other stuff we needed.
While shopping, we even found ourselves by Rockefeller Center.
The Christmas tree is so big it can't stand up by itself! It's actually held up by a number of cables affixed to surrounding city structures.
Another great thing about being in New York is the spontaneous plans you can make at the last second.
Thanks to our unplanned evening, we were able to spend the last night of our New York trip hunting for discounted theater tickets. Luckily we found great seats at the last minute to "War Horse".
While the tickets were a good deal, we weren't totally excited about walking 30 blocks uptown to the Lincoln Center plaza where the production was taking place. We were also hungry! So braving the New York Subway, we started exploring dinner options. The first place we found was apparently the only restaurant in a five block radius where it was possible to sit down. The only seating option was at the bar, and even a seat at the bar took 15 minutes - but the hosts were so intent on keeping us there that they poured glasses of complementary champagne for all the people waiting for a place to sit!
Below is a picture of the delicious and very authentic Italian pizza we had there.
Overall, our trip to NYC was a huge success! And soon we'll be "home" for New Years Eve (in my case, GR). I will hopefully be updating soon. In the meantime hope you are enjoying your holiday!
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