Day 3: Hong Kong Disneyland...

~ 16th March 2014, Sunday ~

Pinky has booked for us our Hong Kong Disneyland tickets when she was in Melbourne. Tickets were printed in mainland China while we were still in Penang, Malaysia. The wonders of Internet connection and the beauty of having international friends.

We were two adventurous duo. The blind leading the blind. We were so daring that we did not even take the MTR, instead we took the public bus. It was just our third day there. Instructions have been briefed to us on where to take the bus and what bus to take. The loaded Octopus Cards were of great use.

Take the A11 bus heading towards the airport. After passing through two bridges which look like Penang Bridge, get down. If you're afraid of getting down at the wrong stop, just get the driver to holler for you when the bus has reached the stop. I get ALL bus drivers to holler for us to get down when we're suppose to get down. 

At the change, the R8 bus is the shuttle to Disneyland via Inspiration Lake. It's free. Totally free. If you want to walk to Disneyland from the bus stop, think twice. It will take you a few hours before you reach the main gate. So, don't miss this bus or you will have to wait for a couple of hours. It will be a mighty long wait at the bridge. You can neither go back home. It's impossible to cross the bridge to the other side.

As the blind is leading the blind, we went off at the first stop where almost everyone on the bus went down. The blind followed the crowd blindly. The bus went off and then we saw the Mickey head on the railings surrounding the park. Then, we walked a few steps and saw ourselves at the Inspiration Lake. There was obviously a big lake and there were so many people. There's a church gathering for the golden generation and then there were more old people and children walking and running around. Okay, confirm we were at the wrong place. So, I started opening my mouth and asking where on earth was Disneyland. We had to wait for the next R8 to come and take us to the main entrance of the Disneyland. But, it's no longer free. We had to pay for it. 

HOHOHOHO.... Finally... finally.... the kid in me was immediately released. We took the maps. My first thought was to be a lazy tourist, not planning to look at the time, not even planning to look at the map but to walk blindly wherever the legs were taking us. That was a grave mistake for the first hour and one should never ignore a theme park's map no matter what and it was for utmost importance to check the time for shows so as not to miss anything. All of a sudden, the planner in me was awaken. I started reading the map and went back to where we started to ensure that we didn't miss anything along the way.

Finally, I got to take a photo with Mickey Mouse. I love Mickey Mouse... love the Walt Disney characters. Again, I do not like the crowd. I never like crowded places but thank God, the crowd wasn't that scary. The queue for photo taking wasn't that long compared to the Pooh's ride. I wonder what was at Pooh's ride that we were joining the queue as well for more than 1.5 hour. Such a waste of time. The weather at that point of time was still cooling. Imagine if it's in Malaysia, I would have fainted in the long queue and went home straight without turning back. 

The show at Disneyland was as good as Broadway's musical. I really enjoyed such form of entertainment. This must have taken them hours, days, weeks and months to practice to perfect it. Thank you for being such creative team. Deeply appreciated.

After the last show, which we almost miss due to the long queue, it's time to assemble at the Disney Princess' Palace to watch the fireworks display. It was really good. I don't have any other adjectives to describe the fireworks except for good. Unless you will prefer.... wwhoooaaa.... ooohhhh.... aaahhhh.... the whole crowd were actually doing that. It's good to join the crowd once in awhile. The crowd consisted of mainly Indonesians, hey I could understand their language and of course the Chinese. We met a Malaysian family as well, like meeting our own people. The burning of money firework lasted for at least 7 minutes. I wonder how much has been spent on that. It's okay la.... once in awhile watching this. I love you Disneyland....

Thank you for making this trip a memorable one. Next will be either Disney World in Florida or Disney SEA in Japan.... but I have to overcome my fear of crowd first. In this holiday, I've come across too many big crowds that almost make me flip my marbles. I have 700++ photos from Disneyland.... not gonna release them here... will be released in my Facebook albums.... hehehehhee.....