Before I went to sleep last night I had thought about doing a couple of things over on Landau island today and only hoped that I would get enough sleep and still wake up at a sensible time. Well I woke up around midday, so by the time that I got up and dressed it had just gone twelve and I was in a rush to get out the door and down to the metro station.
The tickets for disneyland cost HK$350 normally, the hotel could sell me tdiscounted tickets but as it was the high season the discount was only 10, making the entry price 340 so not really worth wasting time in my opinion, but there you go.
But first I wanted to go and see the worlds tallest outside sitting buddha, and that required a metro journey or two and a bus ride. When I arrived outside the metro station I followed the arrows that led the way to the number 23 bus but just as I was arriving to buy the tickets a tour representative came up and started saying did I want to get a nice aerial view of the buddha and why not go up the quick way, via the monorail.
HK $55 was the cost of a day pass on the buses and the monorail was a futher HK $48 each way, so to go up by monorail and come back by bus was HK $103. What a complete rip off and a waste of time and money.
Once I had bought the ticket I was told to go up the elevator and join the queue to get on the monorail. They never said why dont you waste 45 minutes in a queue that snakes longer than a security check at Heathrow to then take a 25 minute monorail ride that apart from the first and last couple of minutes is dead boring, oh and the view of the buddha is ruined by the cables used for the monorail and the best view is coming the other way, ie, on the way back!
By the time I had queued up and taken the monorail it was almost time to come back. In fact I missed the tea garden, the garden on contemplation and didnt even get time to walk up the long flight of steps that reached the buddha, not unless I wanted to skip my trip to Disneyland and waste the KH $340 that I had already paid ( the OTHER reason why paying in advance at the hostel was a rip off as I had no way of getting a refund if i changed my mind ! ).
So I took a few photos, dodged the other tourists and restaurant hawkers who were doing their best to pull in any traveller too slow to avoid them and jumped on the bus for the return journey. The return journey took around half an hour, which was a fraction longer than the monorail but didnt require queueing up for almost an hour so it was a vast saving of time.
Then it was back on the MRT for a couple of stops and then get out at Disneyland Hong Kong for an evening of fun filled laughter and merriment.
I can see why disneyland has a reputation for being one of the worlds best places to take kids as it was everything that I would want if I were a child. Within the first couple of minutes I passed Mickey and Minnie, an art studio, a animaiton museum and witnessed a couple of Jim Hensons muppets rolling about in one of the crazy professors newest inventions.
Stopping off for a bite to eat wasn't cheap but then again it wasnt as expensive as I had thought it would be, and I have to say that I was impressed with both the range of foods and the quality.
Next stop was to science world where an indoor roller coaster ride in Space Mountain was my destination, and thankfully here all the rides are free. As a sneaky trick that I caught off the locals, go to the exit and pick up a 'fast forward' repeat ticket that means you jump past of the queue, although you can only do this once per hour but it does save a bit of time.
I have never been a huge roller coaster fan, but here inside Space Mountain it is fast, you dont go backward or upside down and the whole place it pitch black except the illumanted stars ( reflected off mirrors to make the sky look the same ) so you also dont think about how high up you are, in fact the only down side is that it is over a little too quickly, but then I could always queue up and go again.
The next place was a ride that was very dear to my heart and it was my all time favourite childhood hero, Winnie the Pooh. I was by far the oldest person on the ride, outsid of parents carrying smal infants, and it wasn't a roller coaster ride as such, but it was nice to see and if the prices were not so high, or rather my budget so low, I would have dearly loved to bring home a cuddly Pooh bear, baby Roo or even poor tired old Eeyore ( which I think was mums favourite, certainly I felt she could sound out the perfect voice for him !).
My timing was perfect here as I came out just in time to see the days parade march with the huge floats go through the main centre of the park and I got to see all the favourites, including some of my favourites being Chip n Dale, Snow White and the seven dwarfs plus Alice in Wonderfland.
As I had already got my entrance ticket before I arrived I didnt have a map or the times for the shows and so took a wrong turn, totally missed a theatre performance by Mickey Mouse and also missed the middle showing of the story of the Lion King. Howeve I had plenty of time to kill before the final show, so I took the Junge River ride which was a lot of fun, even if the boat driver had done it one too many times and I could tell was a bit bored of repeating himself ( now unable to muster the enthusiasm that he would have had a few months ago ).
The thing with Disneyland is that although everything is very fake, it still looks good to the casual eye, especially if that eye belongs to a young child, and I know that I would have gone nuts had I been brought here myself around the age of say ten or eleven. Also, the imagination used here to create places and lands was top notch and I was seing things that I could never see in real life even though I would have wanted to, such as a lost civilization now fallen into ruins and sinking in a swampy river, or Tarzans treehouse that looked like it had been created out of the wreckage of a huge sea going vessel broken up on the rocks and taken piecemeal high up into a trio of giant trees.
Up close the details on things didnt quite stand up to reality, so taking photos of anything serious wasn't really worth it, but there were plenty of opportunities to take funny photos and I only wished that I had brought along a friend or a child and also that my battery had not given out before the end of the day.
After a quick run around Tarzans treehouse I just got back in time to watch the final nights showing of jungle theatre where they reenacted the highlights of the Lion King in stage production form, which was great especially with the fire dancers and acrobat suspended by a high wire. Timon and Pumba were there, acting up exactly as you might expect and the singing and dancing of the whole cast was amazing and well choreographed, plus again it was all included in the admission price.
Without a live camera battery I didnt worry about fighting to get a great position to watch the final firework show that they had over the main castle, but it was still spectacular and ended a wonderful trip that may be meant for kids but will stay with me for a long time.
When you add it all up, the history, the interactive scnenery, the free rides, the free stage performances, the chance to get signed photos of your favourite heros, the free fireworks display and all for around £30 it does actually work out to be a cheap day out and one that any child from 8 to 14 will love. I'd say teenagers too, but they would first have to leave their teenage temper tantrums and attitude at the entrance and remember they are still children before they would enjoy it properly.
The place closes at 8pm and so that is when we all bundled into the MRT train and came back to civilization, or in my case my hotel. Not fancying nightclubbing or going to a fancy restaurant and having already missed sunset, not that it would have been spectacular as it was a little too grey for that, and feeling that a cinema trip two nights in a row would be overkill I headed back to my hotel and began the long task of soritng out the photos.
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