Day One: Adventures in Hong Kong!

Man oh man, did we have an interesting day!!

We decided to start it off with a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland!  Tickets to it are way cheaper than tickets in the US, so off we went!

 

We were shocked how quiet the park was, since last time we visited it was smack dab in the middle of summer and the place was a madhouse!  The off season crowd was pretty small!  Great news for us!

 

Less than 5 minutes wait for Space Mountain, so we rode it twice!!  It's a great version of it too, complete with music. :)

 

 

And Oh Man!!!  This is gonna be awesome!! Wonder if they'll be building one in the US Parks??

And NO Disney trip is complete without a boat ride through It's A Small World!!  And yes, when you have an adopted child from across the world and you are on the way to another one, the words of this song take on significant meaning. :)

These pictures are for Kate & Chengbin- Daddy & I were missing you guys so much seeing the Three Cabelleros and Aladdin, Jasmine, & Abu!!

 

Instead of a Haunted Mansion, Disneyland Hong Kong has Mystic Manor.  Where this cute little monkey opens the box & releases the Magic inside.  It is SO cool!!

And after riding Grizzly Gulch two times in a row & having some lunch, we decided to watch the parade and head out of the park for a little exploration of Hong Kong!

The floats at this parade were outstanding!  Seriously, I'm not a Disney parade person, but both times we've went the Hong Kong Disneyland parades were great!

And the last float of the parade had me almost teary missing the kids!!! Stitch is their favorite.  Kate has been in love with Lilo & Stitch for years, and while I had stocked up on Lilo, Stitch, & Scrump souveniers for them, I SOOOOO wish they could have seen this float.  Pictures do NOT do it justice!  It was amazing!

After the last float we headed off to grab a taxi back to the hotel.  We decided to drop off our souvenirs, do a little research on where the Bruce Lee statue is, and head out on an adventure into Hong Kong...

But first I tripped on the curb, sent my bag flying, & opened it to find a punctured iphone inside.  Seriously, the bottom left hand side of the screen is punctured all the way through leaving me with a dead spot on the bottom of my screen.  My phone is no longer a phone, since I can't actually hit the phone button to make a call... Good thing I put the international plan on my phone!! (sigh)

So we dropped off stuff at the hotel, broke my phone, and then headed out for our next adventure of the day...

Another blog post to follow!

Thanks for stopping by!
Fannie & Matt

Day Two: Hong Kong Disneyland

Well, our day began at 2:30 in the morning when Kate woke up and decided there was no way she could sleep anymore.  I told her to be quiet and find her DS to play because Daddy and I were going to keep sleeping.  Approximately 12 interruptions to my sleep later, I gave up and got up at around 4:45.  So we decided to order room service breakfast and head over to HK Disneyland at opening time.  In all of our time at Disney parks we have NEVER been there at opening time! LOL

We took a taxi from our hotel near the airport over to Disney.  Both are on Lantau Island, so it was a gorgeous 20 minute ride.  This island is very lush and tropical.  It isn't as developed as I thought it would be either.  It is beautiful!  Disneyland was very nice!  We liked it much better than Disneyland Paris.  It was just beautiful and well kept.  We found out very quickly that even in Hong Kong, our little blond haired, blue eyed daughter is quite the novelty!  She, of course, didn't mind the attention at all.  She happily smiled for pictures and allowed people to pose with her.  It was very funny!!

The second we stepped into the shops on Main St we knew Kate was gonna have a great day!  She found that the Asian people share in her love of Stitch, Angel, & Scrump!  We grabbed a water bottle, knowing she would need it to combat the stifling humidity and head out into the park. 

 

 

 

The rides were all a little different!  Space Mountain was my favorite!  Matt's favorite was Mystic Manor.  Kate's favorite was Grizzly Gulch. :)

The standout moment of the day was courtesy of this hilarious English speaking tour guide on the Jungle Cruise!  She was hilarious without trying to be.  She was speaking into the microphone way too loud so that everything was distorted and difficult to understand until she said the name of the animal. It would be mumble, mumble, something else indistinct CROCODILE!!! mumble, mumble, something else indistinct ELEPHANTS!!!  So funny!  Pretty sure we were the only ones on the boat that actually did speak English as she asked if we had a good time and we were yelling YEAH while everyone else turned to look at why these crazy Americans were yellling!  Such a great jungle cruise! :)

 

We ended our day at the park with the VERY fun water parade.  Disney should do this one in Florida, every character came through trying to soak us as much as possible.  In this heat & humidity it was welcomed.  Everyone had umbrellas out for it, so almost every shot has a bit of umbrella, but you get the basic idea!

 

After we did our final shopping, we headed to the Disneyland Hotel for dinner.  I was sad that they did not have character styled dim sum, but it was still delicious and the view was outstanding.  It sits right on the banks of the China Sea with views of Hong Kong.  Absolutely beautiful!  Kate's 2:30 am wakeup finally caught up with her and she was a total brat during dinner.  She broke into tears 3 times as we kept scolding her for having terrible manners!  NOT FUN!!  Hopefully as her little sleep cycle gets better we won't have another meal like that one.  It was truly embarrassing.  After dinner we went for a quick walk through the maze and along the waterfront before heading back to the hotel for an 8:30 bedtime.

 

How I wish I had brought my zoom lens to get a better shot of Hong Kong in the distance!!!

 

Well, we had a great day!  We were sad that Ben missed out on this experience, and thought about him all day.  Can't wait to make him a part of our family so that he never misses out on another day of family fun again!!

 

Next stop: Guangzhou China!!

 

Thanks for stopping by,

Fannie, Matt, & Katie