After stumbling home last night and being woken up by pounding and drilling (seems to be common around here) we decided today was Disneyland day. As soon as we walked outside it started pouring and I don't mean some little drizzle. It was a full on monsoon. But with Disneyland on the horizon our spirits were not dampened and with our trusty rain jackets neither were our clothes. We loaded up for the hour ride out to the park on the metro system. We changed trains for the Disney Resort Line and waited for it arrive. The smiles started when the train with Mickey shaped windows rolled up. Inside was Mickey shaped handrails, cushioned benches and little statues of Disney characters behind glass. It was the nicest damn metro car I have ever been in. Once out to the park we started the slow walk down to the ticket counter. Along the way they pump in music to get you excited, have banners and flags and in the middle have a huge fountain with Mickey surfing on the water from a whales blow hole. It was go time.
The rain had stopped at this point and the park was pretty empty. We headed over to Tomorrowland first just to check out what the rides looked like. After seeing that there was no wait for Space Mountain in the singles line, we jumped in. Apparently single riders have a separate line, which was news to me, so we pretended to both be single riders, jumped in the line and cut in front of about 100 people. We literally walked to the front of the line, the attendant boarded us both in different rows of the same car. But with no one sitting next to me Justin just switched and hopped in the back. Now I vaguely remember Space Mountain the last time I rode it but this was a lot better. It was total darkness, twisting, turning, with stars displayed all around you. It really did feel like you were in space and after I got off the ride it took me a few minutes to get my senses all back. Either the ride was good or I am getting pretty old.
As the rain started to fall we headed for the next closest ride - Small World. This one was much better than the Tokyo Disney one because they incorporated the Disney characters in at different points rather than just the creepy little Lego looking models. It is sad that I have been to enough Disney parks that I can start to contrast and compare the rides. Hopefully I am not turning into Justin. After small world we grabbed lunch as the rains started to come down again. After lunch and with it still raining we headed over to Philhar Magic and this is where it got crazy.
At this point Hong Kong Disney was proving to be much less dramatic than Tokyo Disney. No massive crowds, no people running every which way and nothing was being ripped off the shelves. Then we got into Philhar Magic. I had never seen it before so I had no idea what to expect, except that is was in 3D because they gave us glasses to in line. When the doors opened people did the typically Chinese thing and bum rushed the doors to squeeze in, even though the theatre could fit twice as many people as are in line. The premise for the ride/show is that Mickey is going to give a symphony with his magical hat and instruments but Donald screws it all up. The rest of the show is Donald falling through the different scenes from the different movies with the characters all singing familiar songs. As I said the whole show was in 3D and people went ape shit. They were screaming anytime it looked like something was coming at them. The seats are rigged with water and air cannons to make it a full sensory experience. And they squealed every time a puff of wind came. At one point it looked like jewels were being thrown out into the crowd and I saw tons of people, old and young, standing and reaching out to grab them, screaming like they were being poked with hot irons. I really have never seen anything like it before in my life. We were laughing our asses off the whole time.
After that crazy experience we wondered around to the Jungle Cruise. Nothing to exciting except our guide "Jack" speaking so fast and screaming in Chingrish to make the otherwise boring ride exciting. The best part of the ride was waiting in line and having some old Chinese guy push past us and the 4 French girls in front of us to get onto the ride. I guess even when they are forced to be in a line some people just don't bother.
As we made our last few rounds I made Justin stop into every gift store to find pins for his sister. While I don't quite see the fascination with the collector pins I know Jackie likes them so I wanted to make sure Justin got her the good ones. We stopped into probably 10 stores and even more kiosk and I even started eye balling the Cast Members to see which pins we could maybe trade off of them (that's part of how this thing works apparently). Eventually he settled on the limited edition anniversary pin and some regular Hong Kong Disney ones. On the way out of the park we were in time to catch the Water Parade. But right before it started they announced that since it was raining it had been canceled and the Rainy Day Express Parade would be coming instead. Not sure why rain would stop a Water Parade but we were treated to a train of dancing characters all wearing rain jackets. The best part was the song playing in the background, something like "make the rain stop" or other crazy mumbo jumbo. I got a video of it where you can hear most of the sound.
After leaving the park we headed back to the hostel to pick up our laundry. We decided to have it professionally done this time by the hostel staff rather than using our tiny bathroom. After that it was back out to the internet cafe to upload pictures, check email and try to finalize some more plans for the rest of the trip. Tomorrow is off to Thailand, ending our 2 weeks in China. It was a fun 2 weeks although a bit tiring at times. Hopefully the next month will go as smoothly as the first month has gone.
