Back to Disneyland!

Back to our favorite place on earth, right? Before any grandparents or aunts and uncles get mad that we snuck back to the US and didn't visit them, let me clarify. We went to Disneyland Hong Kong! Hong Kong is a short 3 hour flight from Penang, and a great place to spend our 10th wedding anniversary together! We took this trip in March, and I'm just posting it now. With so much to do and see in our neck of the woods, it's hard to post everything!If you know our family very well, then you know how much we LOVE Disneyland (or any Disney park, really). Before moving to Malaysia we had annual passes to Disneyland and tried to squeeze every last penny out of them, driving 5 hours to the park as often as we could. When we moved here, I knew we'd be missing our Disney parks so I planned a trip to the closest Disney park to us, Hong Kong! We were able to sneak away for a quick weekend to enjoy a familiar place (it really looked exactly like Disneyland in California all the way down the main street) and also enjoy a new city. If you remember, Craig was Mickey Mouse this past Halloween (click here for our Halloween in Malaysia post). Because Hong Kong is a bit north of Penang it is also a bit cooler (meaning high 70's in April) and shockingly enough we have no clothes for cooler weather!! Craig decided to keep warm he'd wear his Mickey Mouse costume to keep warm. I told him he'd be a photo-op for people if he wore his costume and he responded by saying, "I'm a photo-op for people everyday." Which is true, he does get a lot of attention in South East Asia with his blonde hair and blue eyes - and also because he's darling! He was given a very royal welcome, with the sign at the Jungle River Cruise made up in his honor!

We weren't expecting quite so much attention, though. At times he became surrounded by photographers! Here he is, right before he led the day's parade down Main Street.He was also stopped throughout the park, here is a shot of people getting their shots of him.
Mickey Mouse himself was very excited to see his little protege!  I think it was because Craig was one of the very few children in the very long line to meet Mickey Mouse.

The morning of our anniversary we had a very special Disney Breakfast and got to see all the characters!  Craig was in heaven, it felt just like home to him!

There were lots of familiar rides, too!  Here are Brent and Craig on Buzz Lightyear's astroblasters!  It was really exactly the same as the ride in California, which Craig thought was fantastic!

Here are my two happy boys on Dumbo!

And of course, no trip to any Disney park would be complete without a wonderful firework display right before closing!  This is Tinkerbell's castle all lit up!

I will admit, you are seeing way more of Disneyland than Hong Kong.  We did plan the trip to see Disneyland. I thought Craig (and Frankly, Brent and I) would be ready for a taste of home, and we were definitely happy to be walking around familiar territory.  The park, minus a few rides,felt almost identical to Disneyland in CA.  But we did make our way into Hong Kong during our weekend!  Here we are in front of the Hong Kong Temple!  It was so beautiful!  Hong Kong has one of the world's nicest, cleanest public transportation systems.  We used this to run around both the Kowloon side of the city as well as the Hong Kong side.

Here is the famous Clock tower, on the Kowloon side at the ferry port.

We used the ferry to take us from Kowloon to Hong Kong, here is the famous skyline of Hong Kong.  We really have tried to tell Craig the peace sign is not obligatory in photos, but his classmates have told him otherwise and he keeps sneaking it in!!  I wonder if he'll still do that when he goes to college?

Here is the famous area of Soho in Hong Kong.  This is an enourmous travelator, that takes people up the hill of the city.  There are various stopping points that you can get off the travelator and get out onto the street to shop or eat.  It's great going up, but you have to walk back down, the travelator only goes one direction.  It goes up the hill in the evening and down the hill in the morning for the commuters.

Here is one the the streets you can get off the travelator and walk down.  I told Brent it all looked like one giant Chinatown, and he reminded me that we were in China.  This was a very fun area, and I wish I'd had a week to explore it all.

At the end of the day in Hong Kong we hopped back on the subway to make our way back to our Disneyland hotel.  They had a special subway car to get there - check out our window!

We had a great time on our weekend getaway to Hong Kong!  We got a little bit of a familiar feeling with Disneyland and the chance to explore a beautiful new city!  As always, we'd love to go back!