Hong Kong!

By a stroke of unbelievable luck my darling sister-in-law was sent to Hong Kong for business ON MY BIRTHDAY!  When I came to China I made a mini-bucket list of all the things I wanted to do while I was here and one of those things was travel to HK! I was so lucky that I got to experience it with one of my favorite people on the planet.

 

The day I traveled to Hong Kong I started at 4:15am where I hailed a taxi to the Suzhou station, then took a slow train to Shanghai where I caught another cab to take me to the airport and then a 25 minute tram when I was delivered to the wrong terminal.  On the way I negotiated with at least five people who didn't speak any English, was accosted by a SUPER creepy Chinese man, stared at a lot, and watched as a worker on the train swept through the center aisle collecting a two foot high pile of rubbish that people had thrown on the floor.  Delightful.   

I've become used to everything in China being an ordeal but I don't think I realized just normal it's become for me until I arrived in Hong Kong.

Which is apparently nothing like mainland China!

I got into a cab, told the driver where I wanted to go IN ENGLISH and he took me directly there with no problem. WHAT?? Where am I??   

 When I arrived at the hotel I found that Karla's company had put her up at a super swanky hotel at HK's version of Rodeo Drive!  The first two days I was there, Karla had to work.  She asked me if I wanted her to book me a tour to see HK's famous sites (a temple, a water village, etc.) but to my shame and satisfaction I said,  "No. I see a lot of that in China, you know what I really want to do? Go shopping." So I spent my time wandering the endless Western stores, eating delicious Western food and feeling almost like I was home again.  I found a French bakery that, unlike the French bakeries on the Mainland, actually sold French pastries! No hidden hotdogs and no pork floss!

 I treated myself to some makeup and beauty products and got a birthday manicure!  I spent A LOT of money in Hong Kong, but I have no regrets.

 

After Karla got off work we went out to some fantastic restaurants and bars.  She took me to this incredible place at the top of a high tower. All of the walls were glass and it overlooked the breathtaking harbor and city skyline.  It was here that she talked them into making this birthday desert for me!  My favorite thing was just sitting and talking with my dear sister.  She's known me since I was nine years old and her friendship is so precious to me.

On the third day we took advantage of my Disney Cast Member discount and went to Hong Kong Disneyland for free!!

 This day was one long string of photo ops, starting outside our hotel with the infamous Hong Kong Duck.  A blow up figure that was everyday swarming with tourists!  I'm still not 100% sure WHY there was a giant blow up duck outside our expensive hotel but it was pretty cool looking.

As closet Disney freaks, Karla and I  were thrilled to be there together.  We are perfect Disney park buddies, fascinated by every detail that was different from the park back home and awed by all of the Disney Magic :)

 I'm happy to report that park was filled with Chinese food. Even the food carts had delightful treats like Fish balls in original and curry flavor, Korean squid, mango pudding, and soft serve ice cream covered in tapioca balls.

 The landscaping in the park was gorgeous and unlike in Aneheim, which is surrounded by city buildings, HK Disneyland was surrounded by trees!  Living in a concrete jungle makes me starved for green, I got my fill of it here.

 We saw an awesome mini-musical of The Lion King! Complete with pyrotechnics!  It really made me miss musical theatre.

It was a sunny day so of course the park was a sea of umbrellas. Heaven forbid the sun should touch our skin and accidentally tan us! Oh China and it's obsession with white skin.

Everything in the park was bilingual so I was really curious how they would operate The Jungle Cruise.  They had a line for tours in English and a line for tours in Mandarin.  But of course HK Disneyland draws tourists from all over Asia so we're pretty sure we were the only native speakers on that boat.

Our sweet boat driver, Sunny.  Everyone sat in stoney silence while Karla and I cracked up at her silly jokes made more entertaining by her adorable accent.


“Look at the spider! It’s so…big.”

(Approaching the part where the monkeys are ransacking the camp.)

“Do you hear the gun shot? We are coming on the gorillas! Shh! Don’t be making any sound like a banana.”

“Thank you for coming, thank you for laughing. If you not laughing, thank you for leaving!”

Traveling abroad? I always say, "When in doubt switch to British English."

 Home sweet home! Arizona makes a fine showing in the America display in Small World!

One of my favorite things about Hong Kong Disney was all the amazing Chinese cast members.  Here Merlin is trying to talk kids into pulling the sword from the stone...all in Mandrin of course!

We saw every single show and parade that they had running that day and we agreed that they were actually better than the ones at the California park!  They were all bi-lingual and only feature a handful of foreigners playing specific Disney characters.

 

You may have seen pictures on my blog of men doing water calligraphy. In Disneyland there was a man doing the same kind of thing, drawing Disney characters on the ground.

It's a very small park, you can easily do all of the rides in one day. But I feel like this park has a lot of opportunities for quality picture taking.  Karla made fun of me the whole time for my constant posing.

 

We missed most of the firework show because we were doing mad-dash shopping with my 35% cast member discount!

 

 We stayed until the park closed and then, while we were on the subway on the way home we realized that we'd left our backpack in the park lockers!  I was devastated because I had left two raincoats in that back pack and clothes are very important to me in China. Those coats are basically irreplaceable!  So we decided to go all the way back and ended up banging on the metal gates and then begging security to help us.

 

 That, my friends, is how Karla and I ended up walking down a deserted Main Street well after the park had closed and making friends with an adorable security guard.  Karla even exchanged email addresses with her, she makes friends everywhere.

Overall an amazing trip!