New York City. Feb 15-19, 2019.

We booked this trip for a visa run to go to Europe. Technically, we were supposed to apply for my Slovak Schengen visa, but it didn’t happen. In fact, we didn’t need to fly anymore – we found out we could just mail the documents to the DC embassy instead!

With a winter storm just finishing, and with our friends out of town (our other reason for flying up there), we had to come up with an impromptu itinerary which was literally just booked and finalized on a Thursday after we checked in to our flight.

We have been to New York City so many times. This is the 7th time I’ve been up there, and one of our New York itineraries has been posted on this humble blog.

Manhattan is huge, but our biggest worry was boredom. Since we have been up there more than 7 times, what else was there to do? Should we venture out to Brooklyn or Queens or stay within the island and find something new to do?

Here’s what ended up happening:

Three Day New York City itinerary:

Day One

Friday, Feb 15th

Arrived late at night at our friend’s place on the Upper West side. Caught a flight after work so no missed days there. Accommodation cost: $0.

Of course if you don’t have a friend’s place to crash in at one of the most expensive places in the world to live in, then expect to pay a lot more in accommodation. You can either rent a room or an entire place through AirBnB or you can travel hack your hotel rooms there using points and miles.

Day Two

Saturday, Feb 16th

After applying to multiple Broadway lotteries and them all coming back saying ‘try again’, we headed out.

It was supposed to be a National Park Service day. A few hours in General Grant’s Mausoleum (the second biggest in the US, after President Garfield), and a couple hours in Hamilton Grange (yes, that Hamilton, which we shall see next week).

But the Mausoleum just took 20 minutes for us to explore, the Uber to Hamilton Grange was only 15 minutes, and the guided tour and exhibits only took 1 1/2 hours.

It was lunchtime, so we headed back and ate in Thai Market, our favorite Thai place on the upper west. Then we had to reconvene and decide what to do.

We walked down and wandered aimlessly in Central Park and by then I was getting bored. I needed something ‘new’ to do. So, what to do?

Peter to the rescue. He found out his company donates a lot of money to museums in New York, and in turn, these museums give him and a buddy (or few), free entrance to the museums.

There was a number of them but we chose to go to The Metropolitan Museum (aka The Met).

Now, I’ve heard about the Met, but I didn’t know how humongous it was nor which paintings it held in it’s precious interior.

Holy crap, there’s a lot. Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Rubens, I could go on and on. Oh, and hey, you can take photos of them too.

So, that’s another post: Maximizing your time at the Met (which may or may not be live by the time you read this, but check back), which is part of our whole New York series.

Day Three

Sunday, Feb 17th

Headed out of the apartment early to try and grab discounted tickets from TKTS after another unsuccessful day at the lottery. But as soon as we arrived in Times Square, forget it. The line was going round and round and it seemed like it was gonna take forever.

Tried to see if there are rush tickets to Frozen or Aladdin. Good luck with that: there are none. So OK, what else can we buy rush tickets of? We could go watch To Kill a Mockingbird or Anastasia, but the line for To Kill a Mockingbird was almost a block long (in the cold), and the theater won’t open until noon.

We had bought Groupon tickets to National Geographic’s Ocean Odyssey at 1130AM ($30 each!!!) But I’m telling you now to skip it and do something else cheaper. You’ll learn more actually watching Finding Dory.

Oh and did I mention I shopped at the Rilakkuma New York store and the LINE Friends NY store? Darn these kawaii Asian characters. They sure know how to attract an Asian person’s hard earned money. Not to mention it was a holiday weekend so the LINE store had crazy sales going on.

Lunch was at Jongro’s – a Korean BBQ place in Koreatown. This lunch cost us $70+ but heck was it great. Hey, I am Asian and we don’t get this quality food back in Jacksonville. I highly recommend eating here.

Dessert was a pearl milk tea at Gong Cha – a Taiwanese milk tea place (that we had in the Philippines) so plus points for satisfying a craving I had from back home.

Then I let Peter loose in Tours Les Jours. Despite the French name, it is a bakery that originated from Korea. I had the pleasure of discovering this when I toured South Korea in 2012, and they went and branched in the Philippines as well. He bought so much bread and desserts for the duration of our trip. ($50+?)

My turn. I shopped at The Face Shop – a Korean cosmetics chain that of course, we also had back home. ($38+?)

Then we walked. We walked, and walked downtown. We saw the Flatiron Building, the Empire State Building, so many plazas and posh apartments, as we headed down to The Strand Bookstore.

The Strand is our book mecca and we go there every single time we are in New York. It is literally one of the very few places we can get rare and out of print books about Czechoslovakia or the history of Slovakia in general. We always head out with our wallets lighter ($40+)

Then we took a Subway back and went to eat dinner at the Halal Guys.

This day was relatively early for us. We got back to our friend’s apartment at 7pm. It is still around 8+ hours of walking around and my tired feet were complaining.

We then watched 2 episodes of the TV show Departures, and went to bed early.

Day Four

It was a holiday (Presidents Day), so there were many festivities in the national parks like actors reenacting President Grant and his wife, and Theodore Roosevelt’s Birthplace is open to the public (rare for then to open on a Monday)

But we did none of that. We instead met with Peter’s friend for lunch at Joe’s Shanghai for my Xiao long bao (soup noodles) fix, and did a little bit of 5th Avenue shopping (Uniqlo).

We then went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka The Met). Free as well thanks to Peter’s company perk!

Now, I really don’t like modern art, but I do like the 5th floor of the Met, which houses more modern art (late 1800s) from the classical painters (Money, van Gogh, Kahlo). If you only have time to see one exhibit, this is the floor to go to.

After we were done with MoMa, we went to FAO Schwartz to see the famous piano replica that Tom Hanks played in the movie, Big. Then off to the Nintendo Store just to play some video games.

Dinner was at Obao – another Thai place we loved but discovered by accident the last time we were in New York.

After dinner, we finally got tickets to a show! It was Off-Broadway week so got 2 for 1 tickets to Drunk Shakespeare, a 21+ only play where the actors improvise funny stuff while performing Shakespeare’s plays. At the time we were there, they were performing Macbeth.

Day Five

Day five is boring. We just stayed in the apartment and worked from home. We gotta pay the bills!

We then headed out to JFK airport where we had dinner at Shake Shack.

Week One Summary & Next Week’s Preview

So, that was it! Not every week will be as fun or exciting or as long as some of our travel posts but I will try to keep our weeks interesting! Next week should be pretty fun: we are off to Tampa to watch Hamilton!

Then we are going to see the little baby monster, Rosie, before heading back home.

Until then, keep your week interesting!

If you’re in the mood to read more New York posts, here’s some more for your trip planning:

A budget trip to New York City

Sights and Sounds of Upstate New York

2017 New York Times Travel Show Recap

5 Best Road Trips from New York City

Planning A Family Winter Trip To New York City