Day 2: The Happiest Place on Earth

Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy - naks naman!

Hong Kong Disneyland. Disneyland will open at 10 AM, and we wanted to be the first person to be there. We decided to leave around 9 in the morning. So, to go to Hong Kong Disneyland from Ramada Hong Kong Hotel, we had to:

1. Ride free hotel shuttle to Hong Kong MTR.

The free shuttle at our hotel had been very useful to us. :) The shuttle leaves every 30 minutes. All you have to do is inform the concierge and they will tell you when the shuttle is ready. The driver dropped us at International Finance Centre (IFC). The Hong Kong MTR and the Airport Express Hong Kong Station are just beneath IFC, while the Star Ferry Terminal is just within walking distance. The MTR in Hong Kong is just like MRT to us Filipinos - only it is more extensive. While the Star Ferry Terminal is the terminal for ferries from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon (vice versa). Our driver stopped at Shun Tak Centre (Macau Ferry Terminal) and the couple in the shuttle got off thinking it was the Star Ferry Terminal. I felt bad for them. We weren't able to help them cuz we only figured what they were talking about the next day. But I am sure they were fine. We didn't drop them in the middle of a desert or something.

2. Ride the Hong Kong MTR to Sunny Bay MTR Station.

Once we get off the shuttle, we went inside IFC. We had to go to the MTR Station beneath the building so we took the fastest escalator I've ever seen. The Hong Kong MTR Station is spacious and clean. The people were always in a hurry. It's almost 10 in the morning and they were still in a hurry! I was wondering if they just walk fast or they were running late.

Their escalators are twice as fast as the escalators here in Manila - as in ang bilis!

We bought our Disneyland tickets at the Hong Kong MTR Station. The Disneyland ticket express didn't have a long line. We figured the ticket counter at Disneyland Entrance might get crowded, so we might as well buy our tickets there. :)

Tip: Hong Kong Disneyland tickets are cheaper on Regular Days. Regular Days (HK$295) are on weekdays. While the Peak Days (H$350) are on weekends and holidays. :) These tickets pretty much cover everything, except food and souvenirs, of course. :) The guy at the ticket counter for MTR tickets was so nice. He told us to buy the HK$ 50 ticket, which we can use for the whole day, compared to buying one way tickets. It's cheaper if you add the 2 one way MTR tickets - it costs more than HK$ 50. :)

Note: There are some changes with the MTR fare now. It seems the 2 one way fares are now cheaper than HK$ 50. Maybe they now offer cheaper all day tickets. :)

3. From Sunny Bay MTR Station, change train to Disneyland Resort.

Once we arrived at the Sunny Bay MTR Station, the Disneyland Resort train was already waiting for us at the other side of the platform. It appeared that all passengers who got off the Sunny Bay station were going to Disneyland. :)

Disneyland Resort Train - the cutest train ever!

The windows and handles in the train were Mickey Mouse inspired. Actually, Disney characters were everywhere! The vibe inside the train was infectious. It was just happiness all around. I am starting to believe that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth. ;)

When we got off the train...btw, the train station was the best! It was just a different world! As I was saying, once we got off the train, there were lots of people! :) It was kinda long walk to the entrance of the park and Disney music were blasting from the speakers. This added to the "happy" atmosphere.

At Hong Kong Disneyland entrance. The Mickey Mouse head is made of flowers.

Hong Kong Disneyland is divided into 4 sections: Adventureland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and the Main Street.

Adventureland. We first headed to Adventureland. Adventureland is at the left side of the park. If you love Tarzan and Lion King - this place is for you. :) We spent most of our time at Jungle Cruise, Tarzan's Treehouse, and looking for souvenirs. We also had our pictures taken with Timon (Lion King) and at the Liki Tikis.

We had so much fun at Jungle Cruise! The line for this ride was a little bit long but we get to ride the riverboat easily. There's a different line for English, Mandarin, and Cantonese speaking guide. Luckily, the line for English speaking guide was way shorter. :P The guide was really funny! Everybody was laughing. Most of the passengers on our boat were Koreans. They're so much fun! :) They actively participated with the guide and they kept on waving to other people we passed by.

Our boat with our funny guide. :)

We passed through several major rivers in the world with different animatronic jungle animals, like monkeys and elephants. My favorite part of the cruise was the one with volcanoes. Fires exploded coming from nowhere!!

The elephants look so real

After Jungle Cruise, we look around for souvenirs. There were many stalls selling ballpens, fans, shirts, and hats. Then, we went looking for the Festival of the Lion King show. The woman in front of the theater told us to wait until 12.30 pm. It was kinda long wait. So, we decided to skip the show and do something else.

Across the theater was the raft to the Tarzan's Treehouse. We boarded the raft among the twenty plus people. :) It was just a raft - you stand on it and you are on your way to Tarzan's Treehouse, which is on an island.

A walk-through attraction centered around a giant treehouse where children can hear and see various scenes based on the Disney movie Tarzan.

There's nothing much to see on this island. It was all about Tarzan. :) But it was kinda impressive cuz it felt so real. It's like you are in this Disney Tarzan movie. In the treehouse, there's this room about Tarzan's life and there was also this hanging bridge up in the tree. The rest room in this island was kinda great, too. It was hidden behind a rock or a cave - something like that. :)

After the treehouse and our visit to the ladies room, we boarded the raft and we went back to Adventureland. While we were looking around, we saw the Liki Tikis. There were Tikis around and it should have water spurting upwards but we didn't experience that. No water. :(

It's time to go to Fantasyland.

Before we reached Fantasyland, we passed through this open area, like a foodcourt and some restaurants. We first checked on the schedule of The Golden Mickeys. It is a live show. It will start within the next 45 minutes. We decided to wait for it since this and the Festival of Lion King (which we skipped) were the only live shows on that day. While waiting, we bought ice cream (head of mickey mouse), popcorn, and water. We sat on the bench near the entrance. We saw Belle, she walked in front of us and some kids were running after her. :) They couldn't catch up with her - she walked so fast!

Belle and her bodyguard. :)

The show started at 1.30 PM. Around 1 PM, we were asked to fall in line. We saw many people going out of the theater. There were lots of people, who are waiting to get in. It took us a while before we could get in. The theater is really big. It looks small from the outside but with the number of people getting out, you would wonder how they all fit in! The secret - the seats inside the theater were like benches - so people could squeeze in. :)

It was a great show. It was hosted by Bebe (she reminds me of Susan Enriquez from GMA-7) in Cantonese. But the film shown had English and Chinese subtitles. The show was filled with dancing, singing, acrobatics, and parades of Disney characters. Rallon Alonso was also there - he performed! :)

Sneak Peak:

Beauty and the Beast

The Golden Mickey show - Rallon is somewhere there.

After the show, we went to Cinderella's Castle and we saw this souvenir store of Winnie the Pooh nearby. It's called Pooh Corner and it's quite big! They don't just sell Winnie the Pooh stuff, there were also some Mickey and other Disney characters. We spent most of our time here. Actually, we went to this store just to kill time - we were waiting for the parade. But what happened was we don't want to leave the store anymore - actually, I don't want to leave the store. I'm not done shopping! Screw the parade. LOL! I remember my aunt telling us to leave the store to watch the parade and I pretended I didn't hear her. LOL There was so much to buy!! It drove me nuts!

Most of my pasalubongs were from this store

I'm done shopping.

Finally, it's time for the parade! :) There were lots of people forming in front of the castle and we were just in time! :) My sister was in front of me and she was holding the camera to get some pic and videos. I was standing beside her and being a short person that I am I couldn't see anything. Since she was holding the camera above the people's heads, I end up watching the parade from the screen of the camera. And there were times, I tried jumping. Imagine a woman jumping up and down at the back of a crowd. LOL!

Start of the Disney On Parade

Most of these guys are Pinoy! (or mukha lang Pinoy)

Characters from Toy Story

Alice in Wonderland - I wonder baket nde sha nahuhulog sa mushroom

After the parade, we went to Tomorrowland and had our pictures taken. We skipped the rides and it's only now that I realized the rides in Tomorrowland are so much fun! Too bad we missed it!

Welcome to Tomorrowland!

We went back to Fantasyland to get the FastPass for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This is one of the rides I enjoyed most! Make sure not to miss this. With the FastPass, we no longer had to fall in line. You just go to the machine for your FastPass and it indicates the time you should go to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh for the ride. Once we got to the The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, there was a loooong line. Those with FastPass had shorter line and we got to ride the train in less than 3 minutes! I saw a monk on one of the trains for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. :)

Here we are on the yellow train

In the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

While waiting for our ride in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the waiting time usually takes a while, we went to Fantasy Garden to have our picture taken with Goofy and Minnie Mouse. There were two assigned person to be Minnie Mouse cuz with the first batch of photos, Minnie Mouse was nice and accomodating. Then, she left. After few minutes, Minnie Mouse was back. But this time, Minnie Mouse was so hyper and flirty! LOL!

A girl having her pic taken with Goofy

Minnie Mouse at the Fantasy Garden

We no longer had anything to do so we decided to ride the Hong Kong Disneyland Railroad train. But once we got there, the train was already leaving and it was the last trip! So we went back to Main Street, USA to shop some more. We are now waiting for the fireworks at Cinderella's Castle. The fireworks was around 7.30 PM. We had a couple more hours to look around. :)

View from the Raildroad station

Garbage bin @ Main Street, USA

balloon vendor along Main Street

He smiled at us :)

Along Main Street, USA

It is only now that we realized we hadn't eaten anything aside from the ice cream and popcorn I mentioned above. Sobrang naexcite cguro kami kaya nde na kami ginutom. :) We found this man and we bought sandwiches, water, and corn. The best corn!! Easy to eat even if you have braces on! :)

where we bought the best corn! :)

While we were eating our food, we sat on a bench. It's starting to get dark and really cold!! :) But we were happy! Finally, the fireworks started and I wasn't done eating my corn. :) While we were watching, there was a family of Pinoy beside us. :)

After the Disney on Stars (fireworks), we went back to these stores at Main Street, USA and we had our pics taken in front of Mickey and the whale. :)

Cinderella's Castle before the Disney on Stars

Bye Mickey!

On our way to MTR, I went to the ATM while my other aunt was stuck at the entrance gate cuz her ticket wasn't working. From Disneyland, we changed train at Sunny Bay station and got off at Kowloon Station. We want to visit Dicksons Warehouse. It was around 8pm and the stores were closed. So we went back to the MTR station and we got off at Hong Kong station (station after Kowloon Station). We followed the signs to Central Station. We passed by a 7-11 and we stopped there to buy some stuffs. :) It was kind of a long walk from Hong Kong Station to Central Station. From Central Station, we took exit C or D...I cannot remember actually. It is the one with Li Yuen Street. You can find the sign before the stairs to the main street. :) Then, we rode the tram back to our hotel. :) To sum it all up, it was the best day of my life. I really had so much fun! :)

Hong Kong: Day 1 Part 2 Post 3

3:oo PM. The Peak Tram is few minutes walk from St. John's Cathedral. On our way to the Peak Tram Lower Terminus, we saw many people walking to and from the Peak Tram station. The queue for the ticket counter was quite long. I was really excited! For the first time, I really felt like a tourist! Anyways, when I was waiting in line, I cannot help but notice some things. :)

line at the Peak Tram Station

1. I noticed that Koreans, who were totally made up and made us look like shit (fashionwise that is), love to go to Victoria Peak. Lots of them were queueing up for the Tram tickets.

2. The Yakult in Hong Kong (and Bangkok) are much bigger than our Yakult here in the Philippines. :)

Concession stand beside the Tram Ticket counter

3. You'll save time if you buy THE package (roundtrip tram ticket and entrance to Madame Tussauds, around HKD40+). You will have some sort of special line and the line is usually shorter than the queue for buying the tram ticket.

The tram could get really crowded and the 7 minutes ride up the Victoria Peak is quite steep, so make sure you get to grab a seat.

See what I mean?

I am glad I got to get a seat. I promised myself I'll get a seat on our way down cuz it would be diffcult to stand. Btw, I have read that the Peak Tram has been operating for 120 years and not a single case of accident!! :)

For Single Journey tickets:
HK$ 22 (adult) and HK$ 8 (8 to 12 y/o)
For Return ticket or what we would like to call Rountrip ticket:
HK$ 33 (adult) and HK$ 15 (8 to 12 y/o)

We decided to buy the Return ticket. We don't want to be stuck again in the long line for the tickets on our way down. But there are other ways to go down Victoria Peak, like bus, taxi, or just walk...looong walk.

Victoria Peak. Anyways, once we got off the Peak Tram, the exit lead us to the Peak Tower. There were many shops selling souvenirs, clothes, shoes, jewellries, etc. and restaurants, like Bubba Gump, Burger King, coffee and gelato shops, and juice bar. We saw these souvenir t-shirts and we made a mistake of not buying them. We figured we will be going to the night markets and we might as well buy the souvenirs there. But the thing is we never made it to the night markets and were not able to find the same shirts with the same quality in terms of the fabric.

Tip: Buy the souvenirs at the Peak Tower cuz the price is the same with the stores around Harbour City but better in terms of the fabric. The keychains and bracelets are far better than the ones you'll find at Kowloon and again - with the same price!

Once we got tired of looking around, we decided to go to the top of Peak Tower. It was kinda tiring to go to the top - the elevators were endless!

Escalator to Sky Gallery and top of Peak Tower

It was really cold at the top. But the view was great. You can see the buildings at Hong Kong Island and Victoria Harbour. :) You can also find the Sky Gallery at the top of Peak Tower. There were beautiful paintings but we didn't really have time to look at them. We were busy having our pictures taken and looking at the buildings at Hong Kong Island. :)

View of Hong Kong Island from Peak Tower

Then, we got tired of taking pictures and not to mention it was really COLD..we couldn't wait to get inside the Peak Tower! Once inside, we continued looking for souvenirs and some clothes at Giordano and this Hello Kitty store. At the ground floor, there were magicians and they were really funny. :) People had a great time watching them.

The magicians were way down there.

Performers at the ground floor

After almost an hour of walking, we got really tired! This time PAGOD na talaga kami. We went to Burger King to have "some drink". But we ended up buying fries and burgers to go with our drinks. Burger King was kinda popular to teens. A lot of teenagers/highschool kids were there. Maybe they were having gimik with friends. :)

We had enough of this Peak thing and we decided to go to Causeway Bay. On our way to the Peak Tram, we had to get out of the Peak Tower. We saw a new building across the door. But it was too cold to look around. I have read that there are gardens, where you can walk, but maybe we can check out that during summer. There is this queue again to the tram terminus. But everything went smoothly. :)

St. John's Cathedral at night

Lippo Centre Tower can be seen from Garden Road. The walls intend to show koalas climbing a tree.

Tram to Causeway Bay from Central

Causeway Bay. I find it really difficult to walk around Causeway Bay without getting lost, especially during the night. It was like a maze of buildings and stores. From Victoria Peak, we walked to Queens Road Central to ride the tram to Causeway Bay. It was around 6pm. The tram was crowded and there were lots of Filipinos. They were speaking Tagalog, so we listened to their conversations. LOL! Anyways, we didn't have any idea where to get off. Fortunately, we overheard that our kababayans were going to Causeway Bay, too!! So, basically, we just followed them. :)

Causeway Bay at night

Causeaway Bay is like tiny New York. Lots of stores, buildings, lights, billboards, and people. It was fun place for shopping. I sound so cliche! The young salespersons (they seem like a local to me) would say, Bili na, ate! Murang mura lang. LOL! We loved the Giordano Store and Sasa. We spent most of our time there. We also went to Wellcome to buy some food. I was looking for toys for my cousins, so we went looking for Toys R Us. I didn't get to buy anything. I was just tired! I really wanted to seat down and my sister was already complaining. We had our dinner at McDonald's. We noticed that the service crews were quite old, too. :)

A little bit spicy for my taste.

Around 10pm, we decided to go back to our hotel. We hopped on a tram to Kennedy Town. Other trams with signs like, Whitty, were going the same way as the Kennedy Town tram. Just to make sure our tram will pass in front of our hotel, we always ride the tram with Kennedy Town sign. Near our hotel, there was a tram traffick jam! The tram in front of us collided with a bus - or it just looked that way. :) We waited for few minutes. There were cops everywhere, some people were getting off the tram and started walking, tram drivers were yelling, and some people, including us, stayed inside the tram and waited. The local woman beside me kept on narrating to me what happened - in Cantonese! Anyways, the tram started moving after 10 or so minutes. :)

The first day was fun yet tiring. But it is still fun! :)

The Peak Tram
Garden Road, Central
Operation is every day, including Sundays and public holidays
7:00 am to 12:00 midnight.
The tram departs every 10 to 15 minutes.
info@thepeak.com.hk

By Foot From MTR Central Station
Take the MTR to Central and make your way to the J2 exit of the Central MTR station. Turn right, through Chater Garden, cross Queen's Road Central and make your way up Garden Road. You will pass the Bank of China Tower and Citibank Plaza on your left and St John's Cathedral on your right before arriving at the terminus, which is to your left.

By Bus
Board the Peak Tram shuttle bus No. 15C at the Central (Pier 7) Bus Terminus.Daily: 10:00am - 11:40pm (from Central (Pier 7) Bus Terminus)Daily: 10:15am - 11:55pm (from Lower Peak Tram Terminus)
Frequency: 15-20 minutesFare: HK$4.00

Hong Kong Island Tram
www.hktramways.com
Fare: HK$2.00 adult / HK$ 1.00
Time: Everyday from 6:00 to 24:00

Call Customer Service Hotline on (852) 2548 7102
Fax to Hotfax on (852) 2118 6038
Email to enquiry@hktramways.com
Write to Whitty Street Tram Depot, Connaught Road West, Hong Kong

HK: Day 1 (01/28/2007)

12.30 PM. We just arrived from Hong Kong and we were planning to attend the Mass at St. John's Cathedral at 2 pm. The 2pm Mass was a sung service with hymns in Filipino. We decided to have our lunch first before we go to St. John's Cathedral. We found this Chinese restaurant along Des Voeux Road. I forgot the name of the restaurant. What I can remember - once we get out of Ramada Hotel, we turned left.

Chinese menu

We chose this restaurant cuz there were lots of locals eating inside the resto. The restaurant looked normal..you know, like the restaurants here in the Philippines. Square tables with 4 chairs. The waiters were kinda old (mostly men). This was something I noticed about Hong Kong. The service crews were usually old - on the way to becoming senior citizens. I think this is a good thing and I wish we could adapt this kind of employment here in the Philippines.

The waiters were very accomodating. We didn't know how to speak Cantonese so we just kept smiling. Basically, we relied on sign language. We thought they knew we were not locals. The waiter handed us the Chinese menu as shown above. We just couldn't understand the menu no matter how hard we tried to remember the Chinese lessons we had back in highschool. So, we asked for an English menu and the waiter smiled and nodded. :) I cannot complain about the servings in this resto - andami talaga!

Pork in corn sauce and pork with veggies

beef noodles

Since we were not fond of tea, we ordered Coke. I thinks it's Coke Sakto's great grandfather.

St. John's Cathedral. After lunch, we crossed the street to ride the tram to Central. The tram at Hong Kong Island is the cheapest mode of transpo. It only costs HK$2 - doesn't matter where you get off. It was Sunday, so there were lots of Filipinos. They were all heading to HSBC building. I think they had a gathering or something. When we were lost we asked for direction, we discovered that the residents of Hong Kong were more helpful than some of the Filipinos we asked help from. Some Filipinos just totally ignored us!

St. John's Cathedral

A person at the tram station told us that we get off once we saw the HSBC Building - the one with lions at front and Bank of China Building. The woman got it right! The tram stopped after we passed the Bank of China Building. Bank of China Building is different from Bank of China Tower. This is the Bank of China Tower, which you will also see before you turn right to St. John's Cathedral.

Bank of China Tower

The Mass hadn't started yet when we arrived. Since it was Candelaria, we went outside with our candles. The Mass started there, then we all went inside.

It was cold outside and we were kinda sleepy in the middle of the mass. My aunt had Bonamine during our flight, so during the sermon, she could hardly open her eyes. LOL!

Inside St. John's Cathedral

Close up of stained glass at the altar in St. John's Cathedral

St. John's Cathedral is an Anglican church and the building was built in the shape of cross. During Communion, we dipped the "bread" into the cup of wine. That's a first for me! :) The people in the Church were mostly Filipino and those helping in the Church were Filipino as well, which was kinda great. It's like attending a mass here in Manila.

St. John's Cathedral
4-8 Garden Road, Central
general@stjohnscathedral.org.hk

Public transport:
- Buses, 12A, 40, 40M stop on Garden Road in front of the Cathedral.
- MTR, Central Station, Exit K which leads you to HK & Shanghai Bank HQ. Cross the HSBC building through the open Ground Floor to Queens Road Central; Cross Queens Road Central at the traffic lights to the Cheung Kong Center; Go up the escalator, then the stairs to the Cathedral.
- Sunday Car parking is available at Cheung Kong Center, Citibank Plaza and in Murray Building.