The Happiest Place on Earth is in Asia?

So I took my first “mini-vacay” and spent a few days in Hong Kong and Macau.  As it turned out, I had basically one full day in Hong Kong, one at Hong Kong Disneyland, and one full day in Macau.  Some observations:

Travelling from Guangzhou, China to Hong Kong, China – although a scant 2-hour train ride - is still like travelling to another country: you must go through passport control upon leaving and arriving.  Ditto for traveling to Macau, China from Hong Kong, China, and from Macau, China to Guangzhou, China.  Yes, I keep emphasizing that all these cities are in China to highlight just how stupid it is, and how paranoid and restrictive the Chinese government remains. 

Worse yet, you cannot use Chinese Yuan in Hong Kong, you must use the Hong Kong Dollar – which, incredibly (in my mind, at least) is worth less against the U.S. Dollar than the Yuan.  In Macau, they still use pesos, although you CAN use the Hong Kong Dollar (which trades 1:1 with the Peso), but you still can NOT use the Chinese currency.  In China.  For real.

My friend Mindy came down from Beijing (she’s a Disney English teacher up there) to travel with me, and we had immediate “sticker shock” upon arrival in HK.  As we worked our way through the train station to the Metro, we came across a Mrs. Fields and both immediately screamed; I had just recently been bemoaning the lack of soft cookies here.  I can get Oreos and other hard cookies, but no soft.  Then, we screamed again when we saw the prices: $13 - $15 for one cookie.  Keep in mind, when you do the math/conversion, that works out to around $2 U.S., which is still very high for China, but poor Mindy just could NOT wrap her mind around the fact they used the dollar symbol/word.  As it turned out, we had a lot of “fun” throughout the rest of the rest of the trip shrieking about, for example, spending FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS on lunch, FIFTY DOLLARS for a cocktail, etc.  - and of course we did end up snatching up a cookie.  J

Another thing we were pleasantly surprised to discover was that Hong Kong did not have that “China smell.”  Kudos to Western infrastructure and sewer systems.  It was the same in Macau, thank Buddha.

Another weird thing: the children in HK and Macau (at least the ones we saw) aren’t NEARLY as cute as “our” kids in China.  There’s definitely more mixed races, naturally, which in my previous experience usually leads to MORE cuteness/beauty, but I think I can honestly say that we never saw more than 1-2 kids that were even as cute as any of the “least cute” kids either Mindy or myself have at Disney English.  Weird. 

What was also strange was that we actually had difficulties finding food in Hong Kong!  Granted, it was mostly the morning we headed to Victoria Peak, but we thought surely, SURELY, on the walk from our Hostel, which was quite conveniently located in Kowloon, to the Victoria Peak Tram, we would come across a place to get a bite to eat for breakfast.  No such luck.  Not only are the HK metro stops not tricked out with massive malls and multiple eating options like in Guangzhou, but even the not-quite-ten-minute walk from the Central Metro stop to the Victoria Peak Tram yielded nothing, and I mean NOTHING, in terms of street food, local holes in the wall, or even higher end stuff.  In Guangzhou, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a McDonald’s or street vendor, or mom and pop place, or quick Chinese food place.  This aspect had to be the most “surprising” of our trip to HK. 

On the flip side, when we did eat, I did a pretty good job of having a fair amount of seafood while there (something I promised myself I would do more of while in China).  I had seafood fried rice, calamari, fish & chips, etc.  Who’s a good boy?

Staying on the food theme, Disneyland discovered upon building the Hong Kong park, that while the Chinese REALLY like to eat, they also like to spend a REALLY. LONG. TIME. eating.  No inhaling a whole chicken and a couple pounds of potatoes before heading off to grope Mickey; no, they like to LINGER over their meals.  Accordingly, Disney had not planned for nearly enough dining seating in the park when it was first built.  Luckily, this mistake was corrected by the time we arrived (just after the 8^th anniversary on September 12^th).  As well, the food offerings are much more “eclectic” than in other Disney parks.

As most Disney freaks know, HK Disneyland is, fairly significantly, the smallest of the Disney parks worldwide – although, ironically, its Adventureland area is the biggest of all the parks.  The park is slowly expanding, however, and we got there just in time for the recently-opened Mystic Point area – which includes my new favorite attraction, Mystic Manor!  In a sense, it’s basically a sort of tricked out, higher-tech Haunted Mansion, but I still found it to be hella cool, and it’s the only thing Mindy & I did twice.  Enticement for friends who have threatened to come visit: Mystic Point is ONLY in the Hong Kong Disneyland park.  So there!  J

As is also well known amongst Disney aficionados, Sleeping Beauty’s castle here is shockingly small.  It is a pretty much virtual replica of the castle in Anaheim, and while it probably isn’t THAT much smaller, it sure as hell looks it when you see it.  Of course, the Cinderella castle in the Magic Kingdom at Disney World is bigger, as is the one in Disneyland Paris.

At the end of the day, as “small” as Disneyland HK is, we still weren’t able to do everything we wanted (or at least *I* wanted) in the day we were there, so now I have an excuse to go back – especially since we were there the day BEFORE they launched their Halloween Scream stuff.  Thank god I’m so close and can get in for free!  J

As for Macau, I would like to spend one more day there, as well – although, truth be told, unless you’re a gambler, it wouldn’t be difficult to really “do” Macau in a full day and evening with a little effort.  I’m more interested in the historical aspects, and there is definitely an interesting dichotomy there between the “Vegas style” glitz and the historic stuff.  But I also still have over $200 in Macau pesos I don’t want to exchange, so I figure one more day with a nice, comprehensive city tour will “finish it off” for me.

As it was, I did take a couple of nice walks while there – one to the Guia Fortress to see the lighthouse and chapel, and one to the town centre and along the pedestrian malls, where I saw some cool architecture.  I also did a mini-casino crawl, really just to look at the lobbies, the lights, and compare to Vegas.  The vibe isn’t as “intense” as Vegas in the Casinos, but the glitz is just as good – if not better.

Will hopefully plan a return trip before the month is out – at least to hit HK Disneyland again during their Halloween celebration.