Saturday, April 19, 2014

Day 1 - Hong Kong Disneyland

Ni Hao, Y'all!  (Ni Hao is "Hello" in Chinese.)

Today has been a great day!  We started the day off bright and early with a walk around the property.  It is amazing how quiet and peaceful it is here.  As is typical of Disney, their grounds are immaculately manicured with beautiful landscaping.  We even found a little bit of Tennessee here!  (The iris is the Tennessee state flower.)








We enjoyed a nice breakfast at the hotel in the Chef Mickey Restaurant.  Similar to the Chef Mickey's Character Meal at Disney World in FL, it is a huge buffet, and Mickey himself makes an appearance and takes pictures with all the children.  Slightly different is what they serve on the buffet.  There are Western and Eastern choices.  Western choices included eggs, bacon, Mickey shaped waffles, cereal, breads & pastries, and juices.  I can't even describe the Eastern choices, so I took some pictures.







After breakfast, we headed to Disneyland Hong Kong.  It is a smaller park than Disney World, but just what we needed to help ease our way into such a different culture.  Most of the cast members speak English, so that was helpful, and they have both Western (or they try to be as Western as possible) and Eastern restaurants.  They have many of the same rides (It's a Small World, Space Mountain, Tea Cups, Winnie the Pooh, and Dumbo, just to name a few), characters, and princesses.  And, the castle is Sleeping Beauty's instead of Cinderella's.  The best part about the park is the Toy Story area that they created and the parade.  The parade is a mixture of all of the parades at Disney World at each park.  The floats were great, as well as the dancing.  All of the music in the park is in English, and the announcements are in both English and Mandarin.  All in all, the crowds were not terrible.  And, it was hot, but there is a nice breeze here.  



















Ansley's favorite thing today was meeting Cinderella and Belle.




We also learned a few things today:
1.  The people are mesmerized by Ansley and her red hair.  They mostly stare, but we had some people that wanted to have their pictures taken with her.  One of the children actually walked up and touched her hair.  


2.  They don't know anything about personal space.  They get right up in your space, and it is uncomfortable in some situations.
3.  They are sticklers for the rules (park cast members), particularly not touching the ropes/barriers they set up in the park; however, I don't think these rules apply to their parenting.  Many parents let their children run around without much supervision.
4.  They will cut line at any time and for any reason.  There is even a statement about not doing that in the Disney brochure when you go in the park, but it didn't work.
5.  Their fashion is interesting.  We saw everything from mismatched patterns to several people in their Sunday best with heels.

6.  Many parents with small children had these neck/back bibs around the children's necks.  At first, I thought it was a bib turned backwards, but actually it was a bib with a towel attached that they had in the back of their shirts.



7.  At one of the Western restaurants where we had lunch, they provided plastic gloves  with your meal.    We finally figured out that those were for eating your french fries, or anything you needed to eat by hand.  (They did have forks if you asked.)

It is interesting being such the minority and not hearing much English spoken.  99.9% of the people we saw today were Asian.   We stand out like a sore thumb.  But again, it was a fantastic day, and one we will never forget.  Tomorrow afternoon we fly to Changsha, China.  It is the capital of the Hunan province.  That is where we will be for several days. When we get to Changsha, there will be a local guide to assist us with transportation, translation, getting us checked into the hotel, and hopefully further details about exactly when and where we will get to meet Miss Olivia.

Until next time,
Jill





1 comment:

Jen said...

Loving the updates!!! Sending hugs and prayers every day. Ansley looks like she's loving every second of this. Xoxo, J, S & A