Just returned from a 2 week long holiday to North America! So this trip was planned around two main events - the women's ice hockey world championships in Brampton and Prima Facie, a one-woman play by Jodie Comer on Broadway. I spent 9 days in Canada (3 nights in Toronto, 2 nights in Quebec City, 3 nights in Montreal), as well as 2 full days in NYC.
Day 1
I booked separate flights from Singapore to LAX on SQ and LAX to Toronto on AirCanada as it was the cheapest option (about $1.2k for both). I was quite worried about making the connection since they were separate tickets and I only had 3.5h in between, but ended up having plenty of time because the counter staff at Changi managed to tag my luggage for the second leg, and I could check in online and get my mobile boarding pass for the second leg. Which means that when I arrived in LAX, I had to pick up my luggage at the belt but could drop it off at the connection area instead of lugging it all the way from Terminal B to Terminal 6. I still had to walk to Terminal 6, but I could go straight to customs since I had my boarding pass, and just had to do some quick document verification at the gate, so it was all pretty painless, contrary to my fear. That said, my 15h SQ flight was rather torturous because I was on an aisle seat and the people sitting inside kept trying to come out at inopportune times (like when our meal trays were not cleared yet!), and I slept very poorly. Also, SQ standards have really fallen and the food served was honestly rather pathetic with just the main, a measly bread roll, and a sad looking packet of crackers.
Anyway, I landed in Toronto at Pearson International Airport around 7am, managed to go through customs, pick up my luggage, transfer stuff between my carry-on and luggage, and get onto the UP express by about 8am. It's a 25min ride to Union Station, and I bought the PRESTO card at the airport, so I took the subway to Queen station. From there, Pantages Hotel is a 5min walk. It was too early for check-in but the hotel provides luggage storage.
Headed to St Lawrence Market first to try the famous peameal bacon sandwich from Carousel bakery which was nice but had wayyy too much bacon for me. I also tried the vanilla latte from Everyday Gourmet Coffee Roasters and it was really good. Otherwise the market is like...most markets haha.
I quickly headed back to Union Station to catch the GO train to Bramalea (I purchased a $15 weekend pass for all GO trains and buses beforehand and just had to activate it 5min prior to the first departure), which is somewhere in Brampton, and then managed to take 2 buses to end up at CAA center and went to the box office to pick up my tickets. I had to buy the entire ticket package for 31 games to secure my tickets for the gold medal match, but I could only make it for the last 2 days of the competition, so it was kind of a waste. But I managed to get front row tickets so I guess it was worth it! Since I arrived an hour early, I had plenty of time to walk around the rink, look at all the exhibits and buy souvenirs before the warmup for the first game started.
The first semi-final game was US vs Czechia which was a slaughter of 9-1. It was actually kind of close for the first 1.5 periods then US just started piling on the goals. One of the highlights of watching a match live is seeing the warmups and I was lucky as the US warmup was at my side of the rink!
Second semi-final game was Canada vs Swiss which was a tight game in the first period but became 5-1 after. The Canada warmup was also at my side! Finally getting to watch MPP play!! (See my 2019 trip to Finland where she got injured and Canada got a bronze, their worst ever result.) Also, I was really impressed by the Swiss goalie!
With all the breaks, delays and awards, each match is super long at about 2.5h. It was about 7pm when I exited the rink plus there was a terrible jam since hordes of people were trying to exit, which meant I would miss the GO train that only comes every hour. So I took a Lyft to the Bramalea station and then a bus to another station in North Toronto, followed by a subway back to Dundas. Walked around Eaton Center which is a humongous shopping mall as well as the Yonge Dundas plaza which was super
lively on a Saturday night.
And finally checked in to my huge hotel room at 9pm!
Day 2
There were 3 games being played but I decided to skip the morning placement match for 5th and 6th and do some touring of Toronto. I took the subway to Bloor Yonge and had breakfast at Cafe Landwer which serves Mediterranean food. Ordered the Landwer famous breakfast which comes with challah bread, eggs, a bunch of mediterranean sauces/dips AND yoghurt. It was super nice! Also ordered turkish coffee and didn't realise it was so thick haha.
Then walked down Mink Mile street which is the high-end shopping street and had a lot of cute decorations with these birds.
Spent more than 2 hours in ROM, then headed to Rooster Coffee House and got a cinnamon roll for the rest of the day since I wasn't intending to have a proper lunch or dinner. And then I headed to the rink for the bronze medal match between Swiss and Czechia. Congrats to Czechia for winning their second bronze!
And then, the gold medal game. US warmups on my side of the rink, and soon the game was underway. The energy was palpable and really infectious.
I caught the first goal on camera, which was a 5-on-3 scored by Poulin! It happened so fast I didn't even see the puck. I just saw Brianne Jenner raising her arms and I thought she scored haha but no, it was Poulin who shot it from the further side of the rink. A few minutes later, USA scored to tie it up! In the second period, Jenner scores, and then Hilary Knight answers back for USA! But Jenner scores again! 3-2 at the end of second period. In the third period, USA ties it up again! 3-3. With 5min left in this gold medal match, the terrible referees call a super soft penalty on Jenner. 5v4 with Canada on penalty kill, and then.....the puck gets sent into the crowd and another penalty for delay of game gets called. At 5v3 against Canada, it's hard for US to not score and Knight buries the puck. Now the score is 4-3, the first penalty ends, and we are back to 5v4. Then the US scores ANOTHER goal to end the second penalty and the score is 5-3 to US. A 2 goal deficit with 2min left is not impossible to come back from (see Sochi 2014), but by now Canadian fans are leaving the stadium. Canada pulls their goalie for an extra attacker, and US scores an empty netter, 6-3. A 3 goal deficit with like a minute left? Almost impossible to come back from. The clock winds down and USA are back on top. so that makes it 2/2 women's worlds finals I've watched in person that US has won haha.
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| Front row action! |
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| MPP falling down, as always |
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| MPP in the faceoff circle |
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| Tried to capture the handshake between the 2 capts (USA #21 and Canada #29) and legends |
So even though I was rooting for Canada, I'm still really happy I flew all the way and saw what I wanted and so much more. 1) a US-CAN gold medal match 2) watching Poulin play, and on top of that, a Poulin goal! 3) 2 Jenner goals 4) a Knight HAT TRICK IN GMG.
It was super exhausting but super fun and worth it. The level of skill and speed these players have is just incredible. A true privilege to watch them, especially those 3 players above. They once again prove why they're the vets and why they've been on the team for so long. After more than a decade, its STILL them scoring the big goals.
I also chatted a little with the people sitting next to me since they were curious about a new face who flew all the way from Singapore! Next year's championships will be held in New York so I doubt I'll be going (since I've just been to NA twice in less than a year), but we'll see!
Since Canada lost, the celebrations were pretty muted in the stands but I stayed for the festivities until all of them left the ice.
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| US lifting the trophy |
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| I think they were trying to form some letters while lying on the ground? |
It was pouring after the game so I ended up taking Lyft all the way
back to my hotel which cost about 40CAD. And that's the end of the first main event of my trip!
Day 3
Started the day by taking the streetcar to Kensington Market
which was kinda dead in the morning. But my goal was to visit a cafe called Moonbean Roasters. I tried the caramel latte and a pastry called boreka which was
really good but humongous. And also got a chocolate rugelach because it was only 60cents!
Then headed to Graffiti Alley which was a 10min walk away, followed by Le Gourmand bakery to get their famous cookie for my snack at the Falls. It was really superb, dare I say better than Levain.
So the weather is kind of crazy and it was really warm the previous two days so I wore my thinner jacket this day, but it was freaking cold! Didn't help that I was already ill. I attempted to go back to my hotel to get my thicker jacket and gloves but the streetcar I was waiting for didn't arrive and it was nearly 10am so I decided to just go straight to Union Station to catch my bus which was at 10.45am since it was a 25min walk there. Managed to locate the platform for Megabus at the bus terminal, and we were on our way. The journey took about 1.5h and we were dropped off at the Niagara bus terminal, which is pretty far from the main falls. The White Water Walk was a 7min walk away so I headed there first and got one of the passes which was 90CAD after tax, and it gives me access to most of the attractions plus transport. For White Water Walk, I took an elevator down to get a close up view of the rapids, which were indeed very rapid lol. It was also supremely cold!!
Next, I took the Wego bus to the Whirlpool Aerocar, which goes over the whirlpool and crosses the US-Canada border multiple times.
Then took the Wego southwards to Clifton Hill
where the ferris wheel, amusement attractions like haunted house and tons of souvenir shops are located, near Rainbow Bridge. The wind was super strong so I kept going into souvenir stores
to hide and they all sell different stuff so I ended up buying many things.
I spent about an hour shopping, then took the southbound Wego bus again to Table Rock where the main falls called Horseshoe falls is located and spent some time taking pics.
Headed to the Power Station to take shelter again. It was pretty interesting, and includes the tunnel walk all the way to a spot super near the falls.
Finally, headed back to Table Rock
to do Journey behind the Falls, which was nice since there weren't many
people there and I could appreciate it from the two tiny viewing
portals, but probably not fun if you have to wait in line for a long
time for a 2s chance to take a pic with a tiny pocket view of the
falls. Also it was really windy and misty so you can't really see much in a photo but the video captures the energy of the falls.
I bought more souvenirs at Table Rock, then went out to take more pics of the Horseshoe Falls. By now, it was 6pm and the main area is shuttered but there's an area within the complex with benches and it leads to the Incline Railway which brings people to the hotels, and my Flixbus pick-up area is a 2min walk away from there.
I was sitting on the bench waiting for time to pass
when a guy walked past and asked if I used a Samsung phone and if I had a
charger as his phone was out of battery but his bus ticket back to Toronto was on the phone. I did have my power bank so I
lent it to him, and we found out we were taking the same bus back to Toronto so
we started chatting while waiting for the bus and on the ride back! Really nice serendipitous encounter.
We got dropped off at Union, then I took the subway to Queen station. Since it was my last night in Toronto, I decided to try one of the best restaurants called Richmond Station which is just a 5min walk from my hotel. I managed to get a table without reservation but was surprised at how crowded it was at 9pm on a Monday night. I ordered a cup of tea (since I was freezing) with a main of pork with brussel sprouts, potato rosti and caramelised apple. The food was superb and the price wasn't too bad because its a gratuity-included restaurant which means tips are not expected. I think the food prices in Toronto are on par with Sg, but the 13% tax and 18-20% tips makes things expensive. So this capped off a wonderful 3 days spent in Toronto.
Day 4
Time to move on to the next leg of my trip! I overslept but still headed to Dineen Coffee Co which was a 10min walk away from my hotel to grab a banana choco bread and a vanilla latte for breakfast.
Checked out and got a Lyft to Billy Bishop Airport, which is on a different island so I had to walk through a tunnel to reach the check-in area. Successfully made it in time and met up with my friend at the boarding area! Also had a final view of Toronto (with CN Tower) when we took off.
We took Porter Airlines and the flight was really empty and comfortable. We landed around 1 plus at Quebec City and realised we had to download the RTC app to buy bus tickets. Managed to take 2 buses to a bus-stop near our hotel, then had to do a highly challenging uphill hike with my luggage to Hotel Manoir Victoria. The hotel has a massive flight of stairs at the entrance so beware for people with mobility issues. It was past 3pm by then and we could check in directly to a nice room.
It was a pretty cloudy and windy day. We mostly just walked around the old town, visiting the famous Chateau Frontenac which is a big fancy hotel, walking along the Dufferin Terrace which is pretty and has nice views, then all the way to the end and back to the main street, followed by Rue Petit Champlain which is an extra pretty and quaint street in a town full of pretty and quaint streets.
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| La Chateau Frontenac | |
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| St Louis Gate |
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| Rue Petit de Champlain |
We ended up at Chez Rioux et Pettigrew for dinner, sharing a
smoked salmon entree, followed by an arctic char main for myself which was super good.
and then a maple tart for dessert, followed by amuse bouche.
The food was super yummy and worth it! Highly recommended.
Day 5
Started the second day in QC with breakfast at a cafe serving crepes. I got a sweet one while my friend got a savoury. Plus my usual vanilla latte.
Our first itinerary of the day was Montmorency Falls, so we headed to the train station Gare Du Palais to take bus 800 which took approximately 30min to reach. The Falls was more impressive than I expected haha. It was SUPER windy and cold though and I was so fearful that I would drop my phone. We saw the falls from every angle and walked down these super steep stairs located very near the falls that felt like death stairs.
We arrived back in QC ahead of schedule, which was good because we planned to visit La Citadelle next but we walked around for an hour trying to find the entrance but somehow everything just led to the glacis. Finally, we found the entrance tucked next to some construction. Very effective citadelle haha.
And then we sat down
to enjoy our viennoiseries from the pastry store Chez Boulay located in our
hotel. I got this chocolatine which was actually filled with berries but
it was AMAZING. The crust was still crispy and the filling was really
good.
We got tickets for the citadelle and museum, and were just in time to catch the one hour guided tour of the compound which was pretty interesting. Also, gorgeous views of QC from the citadelle! Then visited the museum of the 22nd regiment, the first French-Canadian regiment. The museum was small but had so much info that we spent a good two hours inside.
Went back to Dufferin Terrace to take pics since it was a lovely day and visited the inside of La Chateau Frontenac.
We walked around
the town more to find Place Royale and Rue Cul de Sac which was really a
tiny
outpouching just below Petit Champlain, and decided to take the
funiculaire back up to the main street to head for dinner.
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| Riding the funiculaire! |
Headed for dinner
at La Buche which serves traditional Quebecoise fare. There was
complimentary pork rinds, and I ordered 2 entrees - a salad and a dish with
scallop and pork belly.
Day 6
Travelling day again! We woke up super early to head to Cafe La Maison Smith which was just a 1min walk away from our hotel for a quick breakfast. Tried the pain au chocolat and hot chocolate, which were pretty average, but I can't tell if this was because I started losing my taste by then.
I then dragged my luggage down
the hotel steps and the hill to Gare Du Palais for our VIARail train to
Montreal. The journey was about 3h but it was very comfortable and I
chatted the whole way with my friend.
We arrived at Gare Centrale in Montreal and took an Uber to our hotel,
Hotel10, but our rooms weren't ready so we left
our luggage and headed out to explore. So it seems like St Laurent
Boulevard and Rue St Catherine are essentially the 2 main streets of
Montreal haha everywhere seemed to lead back to these two streets. We went into several humongous shopping malls, which
were
spacious but didn't actually have that many stores. Also visited
souvenir stores like typical tourists, and Tim Hortons just because it's a Canadian thing. And we took tons of pics because it was an absolutely gorgeous day.
Chanced upon this building with the Olympic rings and found out there's an engraving of all the names of winners, so we had a lot of fun hunting for the names of the Canadian ice hockey women's team :)
Then walked to Chinatown where we were very tickled by the Chinese + French signs haha. And there were also nice Chinese-themed murals. My friend told me that Montreal is mural city
and it's really true! Every other building or street is covered with
murals.
We headed back to our hotel to check-in to this nice spacious room.
Then went back out towards
McGill university, which is at
the base of Mont Royal. We also realised that Rue St Catherine was
half of downtown Montreal, but we decided to just finish it off. And took more pics of the numerous murals.
Finally, we made our way via metro to La Banquise for poutine! It's a popular place so we decided to go early and we only had to queue for about 10minutes. Always be strategic and go really early or really late for popular places! My friend and I shared a grande size poutine with guacamole and sour cream which was nicer than expected as the guacamole balanced out the heaviness of the poutine.
Our hotel is really conveniently located so we decided to take a 20min walk back, passing by Parc La Fontaine.
Day 7
Full day to explore Old Montreal and Mont Royal! We went for breakfast at Olive et Gourmando which is a famous place, and we reached 10min after opening and barely managed to get a seat. I had the eggs on your face sandwich which was SO good and the mocha was superb as well. Note that my taste buds were not quite there by this point. The viennoiseries looked so good too so we each got 2 to-go as well.
Visited the Notre Dame basilica which was pretty impressive.
Then walked to the old port which has a ferris wheel and a zipline. The port itself wasn't particularly impressive but it was a beautiful day. We sat at some benches to have our first pastry from O+G, mine was a blueberry financier which was SO good. We also visited the Bonsecours market and some of the other shops around as well as a supermarket to buy all the maple syrup!
Next stop, Mont Royal. We had stopped by our hotel first to drop off our shopping before taking the metro to a stop near Mont Royal. We decided to buy the 3 day transport pass (~$21), which would be worth it if you take at least 6 trips since a single trip is $3.50 (though in the end we didn't because we kept walking everywhere), and it allows unlimited train and bus rides within Zone A for 3 days (not 72h!). Note that the airport is outside Zone A so a separate ticket has to be purchased for that.
I think we went up by a wrong route which was
cordoned off where it met
the main road but we just went past the barricade. And then we had a
super nice relaxing walk and even saw a cute little raccoon on our way to the
grand staircase. It was quite a climb up but finally we reached the
Belvedere Kondiaronk with a gorgeous view of the city! And then we
settled on some benches to have our second pastry - I had a massive cinnamon
brioche which was also wonderful.
To get down, we took the sloped pavement instead of the stairs as my knees were
hurting haha. Then we took the bus to head for our dinner at Au Pied de
Cochon, which seemed very highly recommended. I liked the starter salad
and
dessert which was bread pudding SOAKED in maple syrup. My main of pork chop was a humongous portion but nothing special in my opinion. I was also slightly annoyed when we were given the check
without having asked for it, and they didn't split the check either, so
this was not as fantastic as our other experiences.
Day 8
Started the day at Le Toasteur Villeray which serves unique eggs benedicts, but I got a french toast because I was in the mood for something sweet and it was great! All mains also come with roasted potatoes and salad, though the potatoes were a bit TOO much for me. I also ordered a cup of mocha which was humongous.
From there, we walked to Marche Jean Talon which has the usual market stuff of fruits, vegetables, bread etc. I wanted to try something so I got a box of huge strawberries. They were not bad, and pretty cheap at only 5CAD!
It was a short walk to Little Italy, which was mostly
Italian restaurants, and then a further walk to Mile End, which is full of
quirky stores and hipster clothes stores. Tried
the highly recommended St Viateur bagel which was just okay. We ended up
at a cafe called Eclair and it turned out to be a very lovely quaint place with a
barista who couldn't stop dancing haha. I got a mint-flavoured tea which
was very refreshing while my friend got a coffee which she said was
really good. We also ended up seeing a protest/parade? There were people shouting, but the vibe was a bit too happy for a protest haha.
Then we walked more to Le Plateau which is the area between Mont Royal and Parc La Fontaine, and was also where we had dinner the previous 2 nights. Did more shopping until it was 5plus and stores were closing. Since we had walked the entire day, we decided to return to our hotel to rest before dinner. We had reserved an 8pm dinner at Cadet which was just 5min from our hotel and serves tapas style food. I got a broccoli dish with spaetzle, and risotto with prawn which were really good!
Day 9
Last day in Montreal. Had a light breakfast at Cafe Origine just next to our hotel. Ordered a pain au chocolat and vanilla latte
which were just okay.
It was a rainy day, and we spent the previous night deciding that we didn't actually want to visit the Olympic Park. We ended heading to The Village (i.e. Gay Village), though it was kind of dead on a cold rainy morning. But we saw the pride flags hanging everywhere and even the metro station was decorated in pride colours!
We planned to go back to Complex des Jardines for the supermarket and ended up walking through Place des Arts which reminded us of Esplanade in Singapore.
Went on to Pointe-a-Calliere, the Montreal Archaeology and History Complex which only opens at 11am on Sundays. It was surprisingly packed at opening, probably because it is the best activity for a rainy day. We really enjoyed the visit. It gave a good account on the history of Montreal instead of just countless artifacts. There was also a pirate exhibition which seemed mostly for kids but my friend and I had lots of fun playing the various interactive games haha.
Headed to Dandy for our last brunch and I had a mushroom toast and maple latte which were good! The decor of the place was really nice as well.
Finally headed back to our hotel and took an Uber to the airport for
our AirCanada flight to NYC, and we could pre-clear customs in Canada so that was convenient. The flight was super short - it felt
like we were preparing to land as soon as we took off and the stewardess
was still giving out food and drinks. We landed in Newark
before 930pm, but somehow took more than two hours to get to NYC Penn Station because we had to take a bus to another terminal, then take an airtrain, and then another airtrain before we could get to the station to take the NJ Transit to NYC Penn, and the NJ Transit was super delayed! An ordeal.
Day 10
So I had two quick days in NYC, and since I'd just visited less than a year ago, I focused on the stuff I didn't do previously. First was East Village which is full of hipster food places! I got a cardamom bun from La Cabra (after much difficulty trying to find the entrance lol) and a vanilla latte from Mudspot, then headed to Washington Sq Park to eat. The weather was perfect!
Decided to check
out Lafayette since it was nearby. It happened to be 11.50am and I saw a
short queue for the bakes which drop at 12noon, so I joined the queue like a
typical Singaporean and snagged a chocolate supreme!
Walked over to check out Strand bookstore and it was HUGE. The books are also really cheap but I didn't get anything since they are probably available at NLB and my bookshelf is already full.
Headed on to Union Square Park and the market which was
quite small.
It was past 1pm by now so I hurried on my way to the 9/11
museum which I missed in my previous trip. Took some pics of the WTC, then quickly bought my tickets for the museum. It's 33USD so a little pricey but I think it's quite worth it and I ended up spending close to
5h inside. There's the North and South tower exhibits, and the
South Tower has the Memoriam which has the image of every victim of the
tragedy as well as lots of arts pieces, while the North Tower Historical
Exhibiton goes into the meat of the story. No photos allowed for this
section. They had recordings of voice messages from passengers on the
hijacked
flights and it was really sad. And there were also pictures of people
jumping
out of the towers when it was burning. Incredibly harrowing and people
were tearing in the exhibit. The exhibit was also really long, with a
pre 9/11 and post 9/11 section too.
For dinner, ended up back at East Village to have dinner with my friends! We wanted to visit a Ukrainian restaurant but it was closed so ended up at Cafe Mogador which serves Moroccan food.
Day 11
Day 2 in NYC. Had a rare chill morning. We headed to Padoca bakery to try their brazilian cheese bread which was pretty good, then went to Target as my friend had to do grocery shopping. I also saw that 787 coffee served interesting lattes so I tried the Coquito latte which was indeed, very interesting! Then walked north to Orwashers bakery where my friend picked up some bread and I got a babka muffin for breakfast the next day.
Then I continued north to get ice cream at Anita's Gelato. A regular cup can have up to 2 flavours so I picked cookieman and salted chocolate which were really good! Humongous serving (that's practically 3 scoops) but it was pretty light so I managed to finish it.
Next, headed to Herald Square to do some shopping and was very productive! I love DSW and Nordstrom haha.
Took the subway up to meet my friend for dinner at Guantanamera, a Cuban restaurant. Ordered a shrimp dish and managed to change the rice in my shrimp dish for a salad, because greens are hard to get haha.
We purposely chose to have an early dinner at this place since it was a short 10min walk away from John Golden Theatre. There's a large Prima Facie billboard saying 'One of us' so it's unmissable. And there was already a queue forming outside the theater.
Around 720pm, the doors opened and we went in and I was slightly shocked there was no security check haha. Anyway, I entered and headed downstairs to the merch store first. I bought the OST vinyl, poster, script book and pin, which cost me 75USD in total, and 2USD for a bag.
Received my playbill then went to my seat in the middle of row K. The rows are packed reallyyyy tightly. I was very surprised by the demographics of the audience - so many middle aged to older couples, while I was expecting the Killing Eve fanbase demographic. Around 807pm, the show started. The curtains lifted and Jodie Comer was standing on the table and from there it was 120%, non-stop, for 100minutes. I had actually watched the NT Live screening of this play at Esplanade back in November, so I already knew the plot and was less dumbstruck this time. But this meant I could fully appreciate the rest of her performance.
-Spoilers for Prima Facie ahead- It's a one-woman show so in addition to her having to deliver the entire 100min play at rapid fire speech and playing multiple characters, she also had to move all the furniture in the set and do costume changes on stage. Like many people have said, I really don't know how she does this 6 days a week for 8 performances of such a physically and emotionally exhausting play. And the run just got extended from 10 to 12 weeks! Incredible stamina.
The first part is mostly comedic and sassy, and then it gets to the key scene where the sexual assault occurs and it was so silent you could really hear a pin drop. There's a dramatic scene where water pours on her, and we get a short pause as she leaves the stage and the number of days between the assault and the hearing (782 days) is shown and I could hear people breathing loudly / tearing? Saying this is emotionally heavy is an understatement. There's one part I really love where she back faces the audience but her face is shown on a screen via a camera pointed at her, depicting when she goes to the police station to report the sexual assault, and you can see all her expressions in detail. Of course, the subsequent courtroom scene and the final part where she kind of addresses the audience was also great. I agree with some reviewers that it does get a bit heavy handed at the end but I think its a message that needs to be told. Standing ovation, of course. I overheard a middle aged lady wiping her tears and saying that it's the fourth time she's seen it. Jodie is truly wonderful in this role and the tickets are pricey but there are now lottery and rush tickets so I'd definitely recommend to catch it if possible.
After it ended, I was a bit worried about getting to stage door since I was in the middle of the row, and I didn't even know where stage door is. But needn't have worried as there were already people
crowding along the barricades. I somehow managed to make my way to the second row and waited
uncomfortably for 30min before Jodie came out at around 1020pm. She started signing from the other
side so I managed to take a fancam (mostly the back of her and her green
cap lol), and then she came over and I can't multi task (plus it was chaos) so my fancam is a
mess here but I managed to stick my hand out enough and got my
Playbill signed!! And then my fancam was back up and caught the rest
of it. Here are some screenshots from my fancam.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting to be successful at getting the autograph haha so I was really pleasantly surprised. Took more pictures of the theater then headed to take the subway back to my friend's house.
I had to wake up early to catch the 10am flight from EWR back to Singapore, so that's the end of my adventure! I spent A LOT (the ticket package for hockey, Prima Facie ticket, numerous flights and Lyfts/Ubers and 4-star hotels in good locations) but it was all worth it for me. Really thankful the timing worked out (my module for my master's ended the same week I flew), the locations worked out (I was desperately hoping women's worlds would be on east Canada so that I could also go to NYC for Prima Facie), and that my friend managed to join me for most of the trip!