Hong Kong Phooey (and how to get rejected by Daisy Duck)

So a few months ago, Mark and Tara made me an offer I couldn't resist. Come over to Hong Kong with them and visit Disneyland. Never to pass an opportunity to sponge and see my niece and nephew (and Mark and Tara of course!), I jumped at the opportunity.

The problem was I am in serious negative leave territory, but luckily my boss, Mony, doesn't really care and told me to go. Coco, the Assistant Country Director, isn't so flexible so we both thought it a good idea to keep it under wraps (eventually she did find out but luckily Mony covered for me again :)

We arrived late Thursday night in an exhausted state.

The trip was almost called off because Dillan was sick but he appeared to get better. Unfortunately he got even sicker overnight and spent most of the time like this...

The next morning we headed of to Disneyland (we were staying at the bewilderingly un-child friendly Hollywood Hotel at Disneyland so it wasn't far). Unfortunately the weather was just appaling, it was freezing and drizzling and raining the entire day. Even worse was the Disney staff insisting no strollers were allowed almost everywhere meaning poor Dills kept getting moved around.

But it was fun I have to admit for all my scepticism of Disneyland. My favourite highlights were Space Mountain (a rollercoaster than I suspect was a little watered down for local tastes), Buzz Lightyear Space Blasters (where you get to shoot aliens) and the Safari River ride. The Dumbo ride and mad hatter's tea cups were also fun :)

Lamest ride had to go to the electric cars, I liked Pooh Bear's ride more!

The kids liked meeting the characters the best I reckon, Amali was so excited. It was really funny though it was mostly adults lining up to meet the characters. The park was also eerily empty at times (probably due to the appaling weather). Mark, Amali and I returned later in the night to see the fireworks which were quite good.

I also found time to try and kiss Daisy Duck but was shot down (no doubt footage of this will be placed on facebook some-time), as well as other tacky photos :)

The next day we were determined to finish off Disneyland and Dillan was looking a lot better so we blitzed the remaining rides and decided to head off to see some more of Hong Kong. In the wet and icy weather we caught a cable car at Ngong Ping and went over to see the world's largest Buddha.The weather kind of obscured a lot of it but it was fun. But we didn't stay very long at the top because there really wasn't much to do once you got there.

The next day Amali had become sick but we persevered to go and see 'the Peak' , the highest point in Hong Kong and from which you could catch a tram all the way down into Hong Kong town. We went into Kowloon town and caught a ferry across to Hong Kong Island.

We finally arrived at the peak and it was the blowing a mighty gale with rain everywhere. We abandoned our plan and retreated back to the Hotel. Hong Kong is famous for its shopping and we weren't really able to go into the city due to the weather and the sick kids so we had a poke around where we were. The shopping centres were truly bizarre they seemed so big but were almost empty, including this giant one shaped like a big cruise ship but had a pretty average supermarket in it and a $2 shop!

Oh well, i got a few new pairs of jeans at least (having not bought any new ones for at least 3 years or so).

Mark was staying in Hong Kong for work so Tara and I came back with the kids on the Sunday night. It was not as traumatic as I was expecting but Dillan had a hard time getting to sleep and waking Amali up when were landing wasn't pretty. But at least the plane was pretty empty so everyone could stretch out. Having arrived back at about 2am or so, I woke up at 6am to head onto my connecting flight to Cambodia.

Perhaps predictably tragedy struck, I waited patiently in line at the SilkAir counter and presented my passport, thinking about what souveneir to give my landlady since she is always cooking for me and the lady at the desk says "and who is this lady?". It turns out I had taken Tara's passport instead of mine. They suggested I head home to pick up the right one as I still had time. But I had no idea what Mark and Tara's address was which the SilkAir staff found very funny. So i got bumped onto a later flight and I headed back to the apartment once I made contact with Tara. I am glad i did miss the flight cos i spent a bit more time in Singapore, got to see their new place and had a yummy lunch with Tara as well.

Needless to say eventually i boarded the right flight and was safely delivered back to the bodge.