More Money for the Mouse! A day at Hong Kong Disney.

We know we went to Disneyworld 4 weeks ago, but we just couldn't resist a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland. It's probably the effective use of branding Disney enjoys in China--everyone here wears Disney stuff. Adult women who otherwise look solemn are often be found wearing Mickey shirts and sandals or carrying a stylish Pooh bear backpack. It's really insane.

Anyhow, we got there entirely by subway. Disney bought an ENORMOUS chunk of property (think bigger than Disneyland California but much smaller than Disneyworld) and made its own little city complete with it's own little MTR subway line that connects with the public lines. The MTR trains had Mickey shaped windows and handles, plush seats, and miniature character statues in every car. While normally, we're a bit subdued in public, the Disney-ness of it all was so familiar and comfortable and American that we shamelessly took pictures and sang the Mickey Mouse Club song. Cute little Chinese children giggled at us in their Ariel t-shirts.

Though it was small I can't remember having a more enchanting time at a Disney park. Logan decided that it was because the Chinese audience was so incredibly receptive to the magic and fun. Unlike Americans and Europeans who seem to want to be unimpressed, everyone at the park was a kid at heart. And even though there weren't many rides, the shows at the park were incredible. We loved the Philharmagic 3-d show, and were even more delighted when at the first 3-d effect the entire audience gasped and giggled as if they had never seen anything like it before. It was a blast. We also saw the Lion King which had some of the best choreography and dance I have ever seen.

We had such a good time, it won't even do it justice to describe. Finally, when the park was about to close, everyone gathered in front of the castle for the fireworks show. Two minutes before they started, the gorgeous weather turned to rain and then heavy rain. Everyone got out their umbrellas and buckled down. Even us, because we're used to the surprise monsoons by now. My tennis shoes were soaked through, but the fireworks seemed unaffected by the downpour.

We hung around for almost an hour after closing time, picking out pins in the Main Street USA shops, and being generally silly as one can only be at Disney. We stayed until the loudspeaker kicked us out in three languages--but we pretended not to know what was going on until it spoke English. But at that point we were hopeless. We decided to check out the Disney hotels.


On our walk to the hotel, we were the only people in the entire promenade. Disney ballads were piped in and the trees were shedding these amazingly fragrant flowers, and the fountains were going "blurble" and the crickets were going "squeak" and we were singing along to "So This is Love" from Cinderella. It was horribly and sickeningly romantic. It was a bit of a long walk, but well worth it when we reached the end of the road and realized we were at a sparkling harbor and looking at Hong Kong from its backside. You just can't have an evening like that in Utah...