Alex-Cheryl: New York: Day 4

New Jersey Outlet Shopping – Stomp – Times Square at night

Before I begin the post for our 4th day, here are some pictures of the New York subway.

57th St station

Train coming in

Passengers on the platform

On one of the newer trains

On our 4th day, we decided to be adventurous and head out of New York for some factory outlet shopping. We did some research and found out that Jersey Gardens had a big shopping outlet and to get there all we had to do was to head over to Port Authority Bus Terminal, buy our bus tickets and head to New Jersey!

Excuse this blurry shot of Jersey Gardens Mall. It was taken from a bus.

It took us about 40 minutes to get there by bus. New Jersey looked like an industrial area with heavy machinery and smoke stacks dotting the scenery. We did quite a bit of shopping here and I got myself 2 pairs of shoes! Hehe.... Bargain!

Shopping concourse

We left the place at 4pm but only got back into the city at 5.30pm. Rush hour traffic! All I have to say is, the bus system in New York is no better than Penang. The wait to get into Port Authority was by itself 20 minutes! It was 3 lanes of buses from all directions squeezing into one teeny flyover lane. One! I was a bit concerned that the flyover wouldn’t be able to hold up the weight of all the buses on it. It was quite ridiculous.

We then rushed over to TKTS – where we bought STOMP tickets at 50% discount for a show at 8pm that night. STOMP was showing at the Orpheum Theatre at Astor Place which is a subway stop very close to New York University.

I initially thought, STOMP.... bah, what’s new? I already knew their concept and some bits of their performance. Knocking on things, making rhythmic noise...etc. But boy, was I surprised. I guess with low expectations came a greater sense of fulfilment. We were not allowed to take any pictures (which was a shame) but I suppose it’s to maintain copyright. I made a couple of observations that night and will list them down below.

1. Stage set up – real cool.
As we walked down to our seats, all around us were day to day things hanging off the walls and off the ceiling. Objects like bicycles, sinks, toilet bowls, hub cabs, rubbish cans, road signs, pipes, pans, pots, buckets, broken chairs, tables..etc - All very visually stimulating items. I was a little concerned about having a toilet bowl drop on my head though. It would not have made for very pleasant headlines in the New York Post :)

2. The Show

The show began with a single guy on stage sweeping the floor, tapping to his own rhythm. He was joined then by one, then two, then three and eventually the entire cast. As each one came on stage, they added on to the rhythm. I could keep count with the different tapping rhythm of every cast member up to the 4th person. After that, I lost count because there was just too many of them. It was a cast of 8 in total. I was really awed at this point. It would take a lot of practice and concentration just to keep to one rhythm, getting the tempo right to not mess up the entire performance because there were 7 other performers to consider. Also I didn’t think there could be a lot of variety to rhythm but I was very wrong. So yes, I was very pleasantly surprised. Low expectations = greater satisfaction.

3. Not the best for asthma sufferers
The stage was elevated from the crowd. At the first few rows, the stage level would be just slightly lower than eye level. During the sweeping scene, a lot of dust was flying around and that could not have been good for folks suffering from asthma or sinus. We were seated at row 6 and I was slightly bothered by the dust. At one point in the show they poured extra sand on the wooden platform to provide a different sort of sound- sand against wood. That increased the dust. My word of advice, sit from row 5 onwards to avoid from being completely overwhelmed by dust.

4. Audience involvement.
To keep the show interesting (after a while, constant rhythm tends to send people off to sleep) they introduced parts of the show that requires audience participation. Everyone claps in unison to the directions of the single performer on stage. And of course, we the audience could not get it right. But it did provide some variety to the show.

5. Loved the comedic character in the show.
In another effort to keep the show interesting, there was a ‘Dopey’ in the show. Remember Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Well this guy looked just like Dopey and together with the other cast members kept the audience amused with his silly attempts to fit into the cool, tough looking cast.

6. Muscles

All the cast members had very toned bodies.I felt tired for the cast, watching them knocking things together, tapping, dancing, jumping, flipping to a constant rhythm the whole time. I can totally understand the muscle fatigue caused by their repetitive actions, 2 hours a night, 6 days a week. And I am not surprised that they all have muscles on their upper and lower arms and a very toned abdomen.

7. Need ear plugs

At certain points of the show, the noise got a little unbearable for me. Kinda wished I brought ear plugs. But I am known to be sensitive to excessive sounds. A loud single sourced sound I can tolerate. But when it comes as a myriad of objects making loud sounds with different rhythms, I feel like all my buttons are being pushed and my tolerance hits its limit.

All in all, I really enjoyed the show. More so than I thought I would. Do consider STOMP if you are in New York. Its fun and a refreshing performance. Although you may want to take my advice and sit further back from the stage and maybe bring ear plugs.

After the show, we headed back to Times Square for night shots. It was beautiful to be standing on a traffic island, surrounded by changing colours.

ABC Today Show Studio

Bubba Gump: Momma always said, "Life is like a box of chocolates.. you never know what you're gonna get."

There was a police post right in the middle of the road. I thought it was rather unusual. In fact, I noticed quite a number of police cars patrolling the area.