New York City – Memorial Day Weekend (Saturday, Day 2 of 4) (Part 2)
Other posts in this series: Day 1, Day 2 (Part 1)
Saturday, May 24, 2025
“Alright, what do you guys feel like eating?" Dad asked excitedly.
"Dad, we're stuffed!" Lottie replied.
"We literally just ate," I said, frowning at him. "How are you still hungry? Eat the rest of these dumplings if you want food!" I pushed the remaining box of fifteen dumplings toward him.
"I'm not hungry, but we're in New York," he said with a grin. "If you're not eating or seeing shows, you're wasting time! And ... there's a great noodle place just a few blocks away, or another dumpling place that's just as good as Jin Mei, or ..."
I have to admit, I sort of tuned him out at that point. We finished our boba, then continued our tour of Chinatown under colorful banners splashed with red, past signs in both English and Chinese, through clouds of crisp musical notes played on a zither.
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| Chinatown © Jessica McKendry |
"Haircut! Ten minutes, ten dollars!" A woman outside a shop called into the river of people.
Dad's eyes snapped to the woman. "Oo, I need a haircut!" He exclaimed, then basically bolted into the barber shop.
Mom went inside with him, but it was a little crowded, so Lottie, Seth, Han, and I all waited outside under an awning. It began to drizzle, but it was peaceful and warm.
Han and I made small talk with Lottie and Seth while we waited, but it was a little awkward because neither of us knew Seth very well. She's been dating him for about a year, and he's a decent enough guy, but I think she could do better. Though, maybe that's just my Chronic Oldest Sister Syndrome acting up. Who's to say?
Dad came out of the barber shop almost exactly ten minutes after entering with a taper fade buzz cut and a big smile. "Just what I needed!”
Lottie nudged me and giggled. “He looks so Asian!”
My dad is half-Japanese, so he always looks Asian, but my sister was right. If his heritage wasn’t obvious before, it was obvious now, and it suited him!
After that, we made our way to OS NYC, a gaming café in Chinatown. Seth, Han, and I had never been there before, but Mom, Dad, and Lottie had gone the last time they were in NYC. They had stayed at the hotel next door.
I had never been to a gaming café before, but OS NYC was not what I expected. First, unlike most places in NYC, the café was huge. It had this dark, chic vibe, and stations with hundreds of computers, PlayStations, Nintendo Switches, Xboxs, and gaming consoles I couldn’t even name. The best part? It cost $25 a person for an all-day pass.
Dad rented two PlayStations, and for about three hours, we took turns playing Fortnite. Mom didn’t play; she had a bit of a headache. We didn't win a single game, but we still had fun and got a lot of XP. I didn’t play much Fortnite in the past, but they had a Star Wars-themed season all of May and part of June, so I obviously had to play.
Around 4:15 p.m., we took the subway back to the hotel to change our clothes and get ready for our next Broadway show, Hamilton. We got to the Richard Rodgers Theater around 6:30 p.m. and took our seats.
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| view from our seats © Jessica McKendry |
The show began at 7 p.m., and those first few staccato notes echoed through the theater in the dark. Aaron Burr walked on stage with such smooth confidence and said the opening line: "How does a bastard, orphan / Son of a whore and a Scotsman / Dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot / in the Caribbean by providence, / impoverished, in squalor / Grow up to be a hero and a scholar?"
My heart was racing.
I’ve seen Hamilton on Broadway twice before, so nothing about the show came as any sort of surprise. However, it never fails to transport me back through the ages, to the days of the American Revolution. This show feels like time travel.
Hamilton is one of my favorite shows that I’ve seen, second only to Hadestown. It isn’t one of Han’s favorites, though, and he started falling asleep in the first act. It didn’t help that we’d been very busy all day. I wouldn’t have cared too much if he didn’t snore like a roaring lion. I had to keep pinching him and nudging him to keep him awake, which was awful because it made it very difficult to concentrate on the entire first act. At the intermission, I made him buy a coffee. That helped a lot.
After the show, we went downstairs and met Thayne Jasperson, head of the Hamilton dance crew, and the only original Hamilton cast member left. Broadway World just published an article about him, and his decade-long career with Hamilton, which you can read here: Thayne Jasperson Celebrates a Decade With HAMILTON: Reflections From the Last Original Cast Member. Oh, and my parents are friends with him. Yeah, my parents might be a lot cooler than me. *Sigh.*
“Hi Kathy! Jesse!” Thayne said, greeting my parents. Then he looked over at the rest of us. “And it’s so nice to finally meet all of you! Come on, I want to take you guys backstage!”
We followed him behind the stage, through a very tiny corridor.
“Have I taken you guys on stage before?” Thayne asked my parents. “After we got lunch last time?”
“No, we were going to, but we never got around to it!” Dad replied.
“Well, come on then!” Thayne replied in a cheery voice.
And then we were walking on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theater.
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| on stage at the Richard Rodgers Theater © Jessica McKendry |
It was sort of shocking, because the stage looked much smaller than it does when viewing it from the audience!
Anyway, we talked to Thayne for a little bit, but he had rehearsals early the next morning and it was getting late, so he had to go. Still, he wouldn’t let us leave without getting a picture with him on stage! What an incredible experience!
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| left to right: Lottie, Seth, Dad, Thayne, Mom, me, Han © Jessica McKendry |
For dinner, we wandered to an Indian restaurant called Indigo. When we walked in, the waitress looked distressed.
“How many?” She asked politely.
“Six,” Dad replied.
The waitress looked around and sighed. “I’m sorry, we don’t have room.”
And sure enough, they did not. There was one two-person table open, and that was it.
“Ah okay,” Dad said, and started to turn around. “No worries!”
“We can move!” Called a voice from behind the waitress.
I glanced over at her. She was a middle-aged woman with dark hair and she was sitting at a six-person table with another woman. They were the only two people at the table.
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that!” Dad said. It isn’t hard to find good food in New York City, even later at night.
“It’s okay!” The woman insisted kindly, gathering her things and moving with her friend to the open two-person table.
We thanked them profusely, then the waitress got us settled at the six-person table. Don’t ever let anyone tell you New Yorkers can’t be nice.
The food was delicious. It was filling and spicy, warm and comforting, rich and buttery. They didn’t offer my favorite North Indian dish, paneer makhani, so I ordered a paneer tikka masala. It was very good, but in hindsight, I wish I had ordered their chicken biryani.
Over the scent of jasmine rice, garlic naan, and garam masala, we talked and laughed, discussing Hamilton and the artistic choices Lin-Manuel Miranda made in its creation.
We ended the night at Bar 54, the rooftop bar at our hotel, Hyatt Centric Times Square. There, we enjoyed nighttime views of the city from a comfortable booth as we sipped delicious drinks.
Stay tuned for Day 3 of this adventure next Friday!
Sounds like you had a great time. I have still not seen Hamilton. (Not even on video.) One of these days...
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