Wise Woman Travel

It’s my pleasure to introduce you to a new Magpie Learner guest blogger, Joshua Singh. I have been Joshua’s academic mentor since January. He enjoys playing hockey and soccer, the 11th Dr. Who and Spiderman. Recently we discovered that we were both heading to New York City this spring. Of course, Joshua saw a very different Big Apple than I did, so here is his perspective. I’m sure he’d appreciate your feedback if you’d like to offer it. 

Last fall when things got a bit wild in our house, my mom said “That’s it!! We need to get out of here.” Right away, she started arranging a trip to New York for spring break. Since this was my second time there (the first time was 3 years ago when I was 9), I started to make a list of all the cool places I saw the last time and researched more places to visit .

Spring break finally arrived and I was on my way to the “Big Apple.” During our short but action packed 5 days, we saw many places, shopped- mostly for me- and I ate so many hotdogs that I started to dream about them. Hot dogs- an absolute MUST HAVE when you’re in New York.

I’m not sure how many of you have visited NYC, but here are some highlights of mine which you might want to try. These include Mid Town Comics; FAO Schwarz, a toy store; the Broadway theatre district; Stardust, a restaurant; and the Rock, the New Jersey Devils arena.
Mid-Town Comics
As soon as you walk in, you see comic books all around you, featuring every superhero and villain. It’s comic book heaven!!!!!! There is a huge selection of great quality  action figures like Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Hulk, Ironman,and Captain America .Even adults would buy these as collector items. The price range is from $20-$200. You could spend about 1-2 hours looking around. On the second floor the store has super heroes dangling from the roof everywhere you look. Even my dad didn’t  want to leave the store!

FAO Schwarz

You should really visit FAO Schwarz. It has a colossal selection of stuffed animals, toys and candy. It also has areas dedicated to such items as action figures and Lego, and others for building and customizing your very own puppet and remote control car.  You should take more than $50 with you because the store is a little bit on the pricey side, but the toys are good quality so they’re worth it. The store is mostly meant for kids but it contains a couple of unbelievably detailed and expensive models of  people like the Beatles and the characters from  Avatar.

Broadway

You’ve got to check out Broadway! There are many  theatres. The one we went to is an old fashioned styled theatre that has nice chandeliers but no elevators. Get ready to take a hike up and down the stairs packed with a ton of people.  The play we went to see was A Raisin In the Sun starring Denzel Washington. I thought it was a great play: I learned that even if the colour of your skin is different than other people’s, you can still capture your dreams.

Stardust

Stardust is an old style restaurant in Times Square. Part of the waiters’ and waitresses’ jobs is to sing songs while people are eating. The food there is ok but Stardust is really known for the amazing singing. Some of the people who work at Stardust get noticed by agents and move on to musicals on Broadway. The restaurant also has an upstairs that is meant for eating but only a couple of people were sitting up there. Sometimes while the servers are singing they will sit beside you and let you sing. This happened to me but I only danced because I didn’t know the song that the waiter was singing.

The Rock- the New Jersey Devils’ arena

One of the reasons the Rock is so nice is because it is a new arena that has very few walls and is wide open. Inside the Rock there was a place called the Devils’ Den that sold a lot of really fancy Devils’ team merchandise. During the warm-up, fans went up to the glass to catch the pucks that the New Jersey Devils would sometimes throw to the fans. My cousin Christopher and I went down to the glass but we didn’t catch any pucks.

Since the Devils were on a five game losing streak, the building wasn’t packed with people, so that meant that there was a better chance to get on the Jumbotron. I was able to get on it, but since I was wearing my Edmonton Oilers jersey, I got booed off. You got to eat free food till the end of the second period (with certain tickets). In Edmonton you have to pay for all the food you eat. After the game the staff handed out free posters of players. I got one of Martin Brodeur.

I had an awesome trip to New York and New Jersey. If you ever visit, I encourage you to go check  out the places I went to. You won’t be sorry.