I'm very grouchy because i hardly slept A WINK the night before, partly because of the thin walls of the room so i can actually hear our neighbours going in and out, and everything that's happening on the busy street outside, but mostly because of the incessant loud noise that was coming from the bed 20cm away from mine (the room was that small, and i think due to the small room, each snore get reverberated a few times across all four walls like those physics questions liddat). It got sooo bad that if there was smth conveniently placed beside me, i would have hurled it at the source without a second thought, JUST to stop the noise even for a short moment.
And therefore, very understandably, i had alot of trouble waking up in the morning. In fact, after we went for a quick breakfast at a quaint little cafe down the street, it was already 9am.
An old-school cafe
CheeCheongFun, Pork chop noodles, Soyabean, Yuan yang for breakfast
We noticed a strange phenomenon when we were going for breakfast. We were walking down a very wide road (the famous Nathan Road of hongkong) down the slope towards the restaurants and we noticed a mass exodus of people walking in that same direction. Imagine a road 4 lanes wide and every inch of it it occupied by some smartly dressed person, and as far as i could see there are people walking down the slope. I had to keep fighting the urge to look behind me cos i tot there was a giant avalanche rolling down the slope at us.
Anyway, we hurriedly went to take the hk subway which was much like ours, just slightly more complicated. So it wasn't much of a kick. [I remember fondly the London subway experience with Sm, where there are a multitude of ways to get from A to B, and many interchange stations before you can reach your destination. Hmmm come to think of it, I simply must finish blogging abt Europe... hee]
And here's the train you take to Disneyland, I'm so amused with it. Catechol was rather impressed, and started talking abt concept packaging and some other cheem terms that i forgot.
Mickey Mouse train and Victorian Subway station ad many many people
The interior of the train at 11.50pm. There are actually little bronze statues of Disney characters!
Disneyland for fun and it brought out the kid in me. (ok ok, it even MORE brought out the kid in me) I got a kick out of seeing the famous Disney trademark everywhere, like on dustbins (like quite degrading to Mickey Mouse leh, to have his face on a dustbin)
We decided to head to our hotel first. We booked the cheapest of rooms in the cheaper of the hotels and it still came up to $245/room. When we reached the lobby, i felt the full force of the China Golden Week. There were so many many many (PRC) people i felt rather scared. And because of the crowd, we can't even check in until 3pm.
So we headed back to Disneyland, and wheeeeeee!! I just loved the whole atmosphere and the prettily fake houses on Main Street and the Cinderella castle and the Magic of Disneyland... [I even took to saying that phrase at various moments, must say with grand tones] *ahem cough I think I may have gone overboard abit.* But well, one just can't help but feel happy there. [Catechol said it would be a genius idea to send all depressed pple on a trip to Disneyland. "Huh? But then after they return to reality, confirm mass suicide one", I said. In fact, if I were to go there in houseman year I think I will develop depression when I get back lor.]
The Magic of Disneyland
Along Main Street
Hmmm I remember I didn't feel as strongly when I went to the Tokyo Disneyland (15yo) and Disneysea (21yo). Maybe I'm still in the "I-think-I'm too-cool-for-Disneyland" age at 15 and the company I went with to Disneysea kinda made me enjoy the experience less, and also there were just so many things to do and not enough time, that we ended up running from one FastPAss machine to the next and then scrambling to go back to the rides at the designated times that I actually felt quite stressed.
This time, because there weren't many rides, we just strolled around and went on EVERY SINGLE ride. So we could experience the complete Magic of Disneyland (sorry, couldn't help it).
Bird's eye view of Adventureland
And to my great surprise, Catechol actually quite liked all the what I like to call 'la-la-la' rides more than the adventure rides like Space Mountain (for the technical effects, or so he says)
I even dragged him to take photos with the Disney characters, and he reluctantly agreed even though we had to wait close to an hour. They have a designated area where 5 of the characters gather, and we form queues at each little hut. So pple like Mickey and Minnie have 20minute queues, while poor Goofy have no queue. I think this is the only part i didn't like cos i much prefer the Japan system whereby the characters just stroll around freely and randomly, and when you spot a pair of mickey ears in the distance, everybody will run to Mickey and the kawaii Japanese girls will go, “Mickey-chan! Kawaaaii!!!” And forming a circle around Mickey, girls will just take turns to run to Mickey and while their (extremely goodlooking) bfs quickly snap their photo.
There is no way they can implement this system in hk, due to the rather errr.. impatient crowd. I shall not go into details as to how Catechol and I have to hold hands while standing far apart to detract the many cut-queue-ers.
Anyway, for some strange reason, Catechol got rather high after taking one of his favourite rides. I think it's from listening to the Winnie-the-Pooh song for the whole 10minutes ride. [dear, if you're reading this, dun be angry i let out all your secrets hor]
(Warning: If you are a fan of Mickey or Minnie, or believe that they are very much alive and real, please skip the next paragraph altogether)
We noticed that after every 5 minutes or so, Minnie Mouse (we were queuing for her) and the other characters will all go off somewhere and be back after 5minutes. I said, “maybe it's for toilet break” and Catechol suddenly burst into laughter and mumbled something abt incontinence and yellow instead of white polka dots and just laughed uncontrollably to himself for 5minutes. Meanwhile, I imagined all the characters hiding in some bushes and removing their 'heads' and fanning themselves and complaining abt us enthusiastic tourists. Minnie: “TaMaDe (or its equivalent in Cantonese) that fat man just now so sweaty my costume is drenched in his sweat!” Pooh: “Eew!! Bleh!! Pui!!”
(Don't tell Catechol but I think this is possibly my fav photo of the whole trip. Don't you think Winne the Pooh would make a great hubby? He's so huggable, and just one look at his silly face will cheer u up after a bad day.)
10minutes into the wait, we got so bored we started to wonder how the person “under” Minnie looks like. She is so chao teh2 and act cute that she made quite a good Minnie, but if you take away the costume, it's simply revolting. And just to freak Catechol out, I said that she could very well be a 'he'. And pointed at Minnie's thick, muscular calves for evidence. Catechol was very duly freaked...
Scandalous photo of goofy.
The wet weather parade. And my favourite Pluto.
So anway, after the parade, we went back to the hotel to dry Catechol's shoes (it was raining the whole day, and we found a hole in his shoe, so it was very soaked). And the hotel room was fantastic! It's the nicest room I have ever been in! With LCD screen, and non-stop screening of Pirates 1 and 2 some more.. And the bed is so high i need to actually jump to get onto it.
We then headed back to Kowloon for dinner and shopping at Temple Street night market, which wasnt very special, much like those ubiquitous night markets you see everywhere.
But it was already very late when we made our way back to the hotel and after a mad dash, we made it to the last shuttle bus at 12mn by the very skin of our teeth.
Oh and I didn't hear a single snore that night, because the room is so big it probably dissipated all the sound waves.
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