Blogs from Lantau Island, Hong Kong, Asia - page 19

Today is Nicoles birthday and we spent it at Hong Kong Disney. Once again, it was bloody hot early (yesterday got to 35 deg and today was no different). The sun here is a bit different to home through. You don't seem to burn anywhere near as quick and the sun itself doesn't seem to have the bite in it. It just gets hot. Don't know if that has anything to do with the pollution haze stopping some of the UV?? Anyway, back to Disney. The bus took us to Lantau Island where Disney is. It was about a half hour trip. The bus parking area would ahve to be the biggest car park I have seen. It was huge. Heading to the entrance, there was a big water fountain and a statsue of Goofy rising ... read more

Once we had done everything we wanted to in Hong Kong, it was off to Disneyland to finish the holiday on a high – well for our son and daughter at least. We took the train, but it wasn’t direct and coping with all our luggage was not an experience that would want to repeat. The actual train to Disneyland was an experience in itself as it was very ‘themed’, with Mickey Mouse windows, handrails and the like. We had our evening meal in the hotel and many of the Disney characters turned up. The hotel restaurant wasn’t very busy so we had loads of time with them. The characters also seemed to immerse themselves in their roles a lot more than they did in Disneyland Paris, where we had been previously. Knowing the French, that ... read more

Another interesting weekend with visits to various villages which constitute a part of Hong Kong. Once again, I think when I say Hong Kong, people initially have this idea of these emmaculate high rises, glass and steel gleaming in the sunlight, built on solid concrete foundations. I think people think of the best place where east meets west, I think people think that Hong Kong is this tiny island with a huge population. I think that people think this way, because I myself, thought this way too. Until I came here, I believed what was portrayed on the television shows, in books, in travel magazines, but now I'm here and experiencing the many different faces of Hong Kong and it's more diverse than I would have imagined (although it's still pretty westernized). I visited the tiny ... read more

A day of quiet contemplation at the Po Lin Monastery & what did we do yesterday?!! Yesterday was very quiet because it was the Special Administrative Region Establishment Day and as such was a public holiday (bear in mind that even though it was a public holiday almost all the shops were open and it did not affect transportation systems!) We decided there was no rush to hurry out of bed so we very lazily got up, checked out our options, went down the road for breakfast and decided to head off a-wandering. We got across the Chatham Road South when the rain started. Not very heavy but enough to be a problem. We wandered around and found this Aussie pub owned and run by a Brit in Chatham Road South called Aussie Down-under. Very good ... read more

Dreams of Disneyland! With the threat of the Typhoon looming we decided last night to get up early and make our way over to the Disneyland on Lantau Island just in case the rest of the week was rained in. So by 8.30am we were on our way out the front door of the Hotel and heading towards the Subway through Tsim Sha Tsui East and onto Tsim Sha Tsui MTR Station. Zooming over to Central and then making our way to Hong Kong Station (which can be accessed also through the subway) and then onto to Sunny Bay to catch the special Disneyland train. One small problem was that we used our normal Octopus cards to get on and then remembered our special Disneyland tickets and went to use them. Uh uh! But thanks to ... read more