a christmas carol

yesterday, my family went to new york to watch "a christmas carol" at the madison square garden. the show was supposed to start at 11am, but the first bus to NY left at 9:30 and arrived at 10:40 and we had to walk all the way from the NY&NJ port authority (8th avenue) all the way to madison square garden (7th avenue & 33rd street). entered the theater at around 10:55 am and it took so long to get ourselves hotdogs and popcorn. so when we finally got inside, it was already starting. our souvenir from the musical was the soda container with "a christmas carol" design.

oh, it was a spectacular musical. the best aspect of it all was their set. it was like a giant, magical pop-up story book come to life with props and backgrounds that easily morph into another scene, aided by dramatic lighting. it wasn't your traditional revolving set. they designed it in such a way that it extends to both sides of the stage, so that you can't see everything in your direct line of vision but you'll have to look on either side every once in a while to catch what's going on there while someone's singing in the middle. so much detail in the set design and costumes. got a little misty-eyed with tiny tim's singing, how he's still so optimistic about his humble christmas feast with his poor family despite his physical disability. the ghost of christmas yet-to-come turned into a red ballerina who danced her story about scrooge's grim future. at the last part of the show, the actors who played villagers went up to the audience and threw gold coin chocolates to kids. then their last song was sung with fake snow falling upon the audience.

the musical ended at about 12:40pm, after which we went inside macy's at herald square so my sis can buy a souvenir. she's into water globes right now, and she got the macy's water globe which also plays music. then she got our cousin irene a macy's thanksgiving day mug as a promised souvenir. you can tell macy's NY is really old, because they have these ancient-looking wooden steps in their escalators, and the building itself smells old. each floor is as big as the entire macy's in our local mall. oh, and we got to take a picture with garfield the mascot. he's macy's star character at this year's thanksgiving day parade.

walking towards rockefeller center felt like walking through divisoria with all those crowds, only the people aren't stinky and the weather is very cold and windy. we literally had to squeeze our way through the throng of holiday people. i wore three layers of clothing beneath my thick down jacket. so many people from different races all converging in the city that never sleeps. i have taken to training my ears to catch tagalog-speakers amongst the medley of foreign tongues. we overhead two girls debating over NY directions in cebuano, and then a group of friends posing for a picture near the rockefeller skating rink talking in tagalog.

we heard mass at st. patrick's cathedral. after that, we walked past this lady who was making a scene looking for his 8-year old boy named henry. she was standing on top of a police car describing to everyone what her kid was wearing. and she was shouting his name to the crowd. poor mom...i hope she found her kid. NY is a scary place for a kid to get lost.

times square was dazzling as always. we checked out the stuff inside the mtv store, got some coffee at dunkin donuts which tasted much too strong, and then i posed near josh groban's huge billboard. hehehe. interesting restaurant we passed by was this bubba gump shrimp co. it really does exist! hehe.

we boarded the bus back to NJ at 8:35 and got home around past ten in the evening. there was this suspicious guy inside the bus station at the port authority who claimed that he just got out of the hospital and needed some money to buy a ticket. i didn't trust his looks, as he was carrying this big folder with a lot of erasures on it. my father did shell him out a dollar, but it was funny how he ignored my sister when she said she only had a quarter to spare. another funny thing was how he went outside just when a cop walked towards us. if you really needed help going home, wouldn't you go to a cop? ah well. god knows if he was lying.