This was only the second Christmas that I hadn't spent with my parents and siblings (not counting the Christmas' where I had no siblings). Since we couldn't be with our family, we decided to do something special for the kids and visit Disneyland on Christmas day. In fact, the desire to take the kids to Disney was the driving force behind our reason for visiting Hong Kong.
Going to Disneyland from Discovery Bay is very easy. Take the DB03 bus to the MRT station and take the Disney MRT line and you are there.
Hong Kong Disneyland on Christmas day was fun, but very crowded. We did the usual Disneyland things, rode rides, saw shows and posed for pictures with characters. The lines were pretty long until about 8:00 or 9:00. I made pretty good use of the Fastpass system to maximize our rides.
Fortunately we do not engage in the character autograph insanity. I don't get it, and if I am fortunate, never will have to wait in line for 45 minutes to collect an obscure autograph from Donald Duck's bastard son. I will say, it is extremely "satisfying" to stand in line so your young children can have their picture taken with Winnie the Pooh while you are waiting for a couple of twenty-somethings (sans kids) getting autographs of their favorite characters.
Another thing that puzzled me was when I saw teenage boys posing for pictures with Winnie the Pooh. Okay, I get it if you were there with your girlfriend and posed with her and Winnie to endear yourself to her. It wasn't just that. I saw four sixteen year old Chinese boys posing for pictures together with the big yellow stuffed animal. I thought "Wow, I guess what's 'cool' in China is a lot different than what's cool in the U.S."
The parade was packed, and I had to fight off Chinese park guests trying to push their way in front of me. We found our place about twenty minutes before it started. I was standing, and the kids were sitting down in front of me waiting. A number of people would try to squeeze by me, and if they had been successful, they would have stepped on the kids. I'll write more in another entry about Thai and Chinese sense of standing in lines and pushing their way to the front, but let's just say that many would not pass the first grade in the U.S. where most of us learn these skills.
I think I've written before how Thai people are very kind and accommodating around children. Even in the U.S., places are really pretty accommodating towards kids. Even if other people's kids drive people crazy, U.S. businesses recognize the enormous market for kids and families. In China, there seems little deference for kids. A lot of Chinese seem perfectly content with pushing kids out of the way to get where they want to go a few seconds earlier. I'll blog on the concept of queues in Thailand and China in a separate post.
Its funny, but just when I began thinking that maybe the Chinese government policy of one child should be made retroactive, a person did something very nice. We were standing in line for the Merry-go-round when Nalin saw a person wearing a ring that flashed different colors. Nalin and Aleena both wanted one, so Tim asked the young woman wearing it where she had bought it. She told Tim that she had bought it outside the park, and then gave it to Nalin and Aleena. It was a very sweet gesture, and the girls really liked it.
The firework show was nice. As we didn't arrive early, we found a place that had a largely unobstructed view a bit away from the fireworks. We were standing next to a waist high wrought iron fence. I was standing in front, and the kids behind me. We left a little bit of space so they could see. As they started, some woman came over and tried to step between the kids and I. She was not successful. Then she puts her camera between them and the fireworks so she could take pictures. I asked Tim if the lady was blocking the kids view, and it turns out she was. So I put my face in front of her camera and smiled. Apparently she did not find my visage angelic, because she moved on.
My family gave us money for the kids Christmas presents. Toy shopping in Bangkok is only mediocre, so we decided to let the kids buy their own presents while in Hong Kong. We let them spend some of their money in Disney, and the rest at Toys-r-us later in the trip.
As the park grew less crowded later in the night, we stayed until the park closed at 11:00 p.m.
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