Blogs from Lantau Island, Hong Kong, Asia - page 20

Hong Kong Disneyland was cute and small. Maybe a little too small, but I was expecting that so I wasn’t disappointed or anything. It was Marty, Silo, Mommy, Daddy, Uncle Wing, his wife, my little cousin, and I. There’s a subway line straight to Disneyland so we just had to change a few stations to get there. The subway train was pretty neat looking. Very clean with blue velvet seats. All of the windows were Mickey-shaped. Between every other booth was a statue of a Disney character such as Snow White or Jiminy Cricket or Minnie, etc. My favorite part was the rings that hung from the ceiling for those who stood. They were Mickey-shaped as well. :D The walkway to Disneyland was decorated nicely and there was one spot with a giant fountain of a ... read more

Lantau is one of the Outlying Islands which used to be accessible by ferry only; now they have the new airport there and a Disneyland theme park and a new bridge to connect both islands. Lantau lies 7.5km away from HK Island, it’s twice as big and its peak is double the height of Victoria Peak on HK Island. Another reason for visiting Lantau is to see the Tian Tan Buddha - a massive bronze representation of Lord Gautama; he sits on a hill overlooking the monastery at Po Lin in the village of Ngong Ping. His head disappears into the clouds most days but we were very lucky to get clear sunny skies. The Tian Tan Buddha is the biggest seated outdoor bronze Buddha in the world (apparently), he weighs 202 tonnes. We’ve seen loads ... read more

Day 2 ~ “All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them!” Walt Disney. It’s tough to write on my Disney journey if I were to include too many “technical” details. This explained the delay in posting this page. Anyway, I will give my best shot. Please bear with me. The beautiful landscaping + the cheery music within the resort kept everybody’s spirits at bay this morning. The only drawback was the scorching summer heat. We learned later from the weather reports that today (8th May 2006 has the highest temperature recorded in HK this year.) Taking photos with the various Disney characters were the highlight this morning. Their differing popularity was soon evident from the queues that formed. Mickey and Minnie and Pooh and Tigger had the longest ... read more

Well, here was Michael's big day, the chance to see all his famous friends of Disney. We took the shuttle to the park about 10am after having a quick feed at the hotel cafe where we discovered we could get beers (takeaways) for 25 HKD instead of the 50 HKD they charged at the other bars. A trap for young players. We arrive at Disneyland and while we were marvelling at all the wonderment, a young man approached me and asked if we would like to be in the parade, we were a bit unsure as they did not really let on what exactly we had to do but decided to give it a ago. Meet him at 3pm he says. In the meantime we checked out the magical places as they call them. First was ... read more

Disembarking from the plane the covered tunnelway has windows, showing off the spectacular backdrop to Hong Kong’s new airport. We approach over the sea, which neatly resolves the issue of people living below the flight path and, although the approach to the runway is somewhat less dramatic since the airport ‘moved’ to Chek Lap Kok, the mountain backdrop from the terminal building is surprising and breathtaking. From the airconditioned plane, through tunnels to Norman Foster’s modernist terminal building (which does all it should, I’m pleased to say) and straight on to an air-conditioned express train, I still have no idea of the temperature outside. The view from the train is no less spectacular than the airport, when I can see it. I’m sad to report that the concrete channel which carries the railway below the road ... read more