Hong Kong Day 8: Disneyland

Today was Brenda's last day so I left it completely up to her to decide what we would do. We've pretty much hit all the must-see sites so she wavered between museums or Disneyland. Disneyland ended up winning out - how many people can say they have been to Hong Kong Disneyland? There is a special MTR to the Disneyland Resort. I got giddy as I saw it pull up to the station - so stinkin' cute! 

Leave it to Disney to get you feeling the magic right from the get-go. In addition to the windows being in the shape of Mickey Mouse, the handle bars were Mickey'd out, there were bronze characters on display in the cars, stars on the ceiling. Awesome!

I was surprised how similar Hong Kong Disneyland is to Anaheim. Mickey Mouse greets you atop a landscaped hill by the entrance, right below the railroad - you can enter Main Street to the left or right by going under the bridges. Main Street was nearly identical in design. The park itself is much smaller but is laid out in much the same way. 

Walking down Main Street toward Sleeping Beauty’s castle – notice all the umbrellas to help keep cool.

We headed to Tomorrowland first and, for Justin, hit up Astroblasters first. 

I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that the majority of Chinese flash peace signs when getting their picture taken.  We even saw a little one year old girl being coached to hold up her two fingers for a picture.  We just couldn’t resist.

We actually got to go twice because one of our guns was broken the first time - Brenda was so kind to give me her working gun so I could get warmed up. We also hit space mountain - going through the single rider line was much quicker than waiting in the regular line.

We decided to eat an early lunch to avoid the later lunch crowds. I got vegetable tempura that came with noodles and watermelon. Brenda tried the dum sum called Pork Piggy Buns - so cute. At the table next to us we noticed that the rice was molded into a Mickey shape, the sauces in Mickey shaped containers, etc.. it's all in the details! 

The last 3 times we’ve been to Disneyland “It’s a Small World” has been closed because they’ve been decorating it for the holidays.  So this was the first time I’d been on it since high school.

Toy Story Land is a similar concept as It’s a Bug’s Life in Anaheim – very cute! 

We knew that there was a possible typhoon somewhere out in the sea, but we didn't think it would affect our day. We were wrong. At 2pm, just as we arrived in Toy Story Land, they made an announcement that the typhoon warning had been raised to a level 3 and that all outdoor attractions would be closed. That's basically every ride except the three we'd already been on (Space Mountain, Astroblasters, and It's a Small World) The only other indoor ride is a Winnie the Pooh ride, but the wait was 80 minutes and our fastpass for it wasn't valid til 6:25pm. The most frustrating part is that the day was beautiful, blue skies, slight breeze... it just didn't make any sense. I can understand being cautious, but let's not shut down 90% of the park until a risk is within an hour of possibly occurring. We were surprised though that people stuck around - Disney raked it in because everyone was shopping and eating instead. We saw a neat Lion King show…

Walked around the park and then left at 6pm to meet Mom and Val for dinner. I don't regret going, but of course I'm disappointed we couldn't enjoy more of the rides.

We ate dinner at a Teppanaki restaurant in the mall near the airport. I ordered a chicken meal against my better judgment - the chicken was fatty and had the skin on it so I didn't eat much of the meat, but the veggies and rice were really good - I got out my camera to take a picture of them cooking it right in front of us, but was told no pictures were allowed.

We walked around the mall a bit and as we enjoyed Mom's treat of Haagan Dazs for dessert Val found out that the typhoon warning was being raised to a level 8 and that they were advising everyone to make their way home. It was sad to say good-bye to Brenda. She was a great traveling buddy and it wouldn't have been nearly as fun without her here to enjoy this experience with.

Note: nothing became of the typhoon - just a whole lot of hype for nothing. I gave Brenda a hard time cause she mentioned how neat it would be to be here during a typhoon, but I'm sure we'd both have preferred it not put in a wrench in our day at Disneyland.