Hong Kong

When I first mentioned to a friend that we had added Hong Kong to our list, she was so excited, telling me how wonderful the skyline was, the river, the iconic buildings, the coffin houses....my reply? It is the home of Disneyland !! I got the facepalm icon text by means of a reply. So funny.

Hong Kong was never meant to be on our list, nor for that matter are several other places that as yet shall remain nameless. but when you perused a map at length looking for cheap destinations (ha!) and the word Disney jumps out at you en route, it just had to be. These three bunnies are huge Disney fans and the chance to go was just overwhelming. So so excited. I have to admit that my research of Hong Kong was somewhat limited, knowing only that Disney was set on an island that appeared to be a long way from the main area. Do we book a cheap hotel and commute or do I twist Mr Bunnies arm and beg him to let me book the very wonderful Disney Hollywood Hotel, (the Mickey Mouse room of course) I gazed into his eyes, held his little bunny paw and without even needing to bend a little furry finger, one glance at my computer screen and his reply was, I hope you have booked it ! Mr Bunny was every bit as excited as I was, and so to Disney we went.

Hong Kong Disneyland is same same but different to both Orlando and Paris. It has a castle, but strangely I didn`t find it as attractive as the others, and a railway that runs around the park, but one that didn`t appear to take passengers? The huge flower display outside the entry at Orlando is a big Mickey Mouse face, in Hong Kong it is Duffy Bear. Mickey does not appear to be a favourite figure in Hong Kong, two girls made this very plain to me when in front of the statue of Mickey and Walt, she asked me to take their photo whilst totally obscuring the Mickey. They were happy to have Walt and the Castle in their photo, but Mickey was artfully ignored. The rides at HK are similar, they have a Toy Story land with RC Racer, the Parachute Drop ride and Slinky Dog, all of which are at either Paris or Orlando. Haunted Mansion is very different, and has a mansion feel with a Runaway Railway experience. Space Mountain is called Hyperspace Mountain and was actually awesome, we loved it. The best ride of all was Grizzly Gulch, a mine train ride of epic proportions and brilliant cross between Everest and Big Thunder Mountain. We rode this several times and once in the dark. This was their biggest and fastest ride but had a queue time of just 20 mins, however the longest wait time in the entire park was a photo opportunity with LenaBelle, some sort of furry bear like cat figure and friend of Duffy. 2 hours they waited for this, all day long the queue time never changed. Unbelievable. There were many other rides that we loved, and we admit to having tried to ride all of them. Dumbo was the exception. As per both Paris and Orlando, Dumbo is very popular. Jungle Cruise....hmmm... lets just say `no no no` very apparent that their sense of humour and ours differs wildly. How else would I describe Hong Kong Disney? Cute. We probably used the word Cute several hundred times during our 2 days at the park. Everything is Cute. Everything. The Chinese dress attire at the park was everything that Florida isn`t. Dressing for a theme park is an art form, and these guys are Picasso. Anything and everything goes, but everything is styled and accessorised to the very last item. Tutu, with tights, leggings, `cute` cardi, furry character handbag (cute, not a disney character, just something `cute`) and a disneyesque cute again, headband, matching shoes not trainers, full make up and styled hair. Or how about a full furry gilet with tail? Even the guys were ultra smart and carried practical bags with furry or cute or anime accessories and many many of them wore their disneyesque cute headbands without an ounce of self consciousness, even groups of young guys without a girl in sight wore their cute headbands with pride. We bunnies wore our best newly acquired Disney Mickey Mouse t shirts, or in Mrs Bunny`s case an Aristocats Marie T shirt, two bunnies had mickey ears and where in Florida we would have blended nicely, here we stuck out like 3 of Snow Whites Dwarves. Casual is not the done thing. Our hotel was fabulous, with a gift shop of course, but no food? They had a full on bar service or an al a carte restaurant that required a booking reservation. We couldn`t even find a bar of chocolate, never mind a coke to drink. Sorry, slight lie here, they did have chocolate, but the brand was Godiva. IYKYK.

Hong Kong part two

After two wonderful days at Lantau Island and saying goodbye (for now) to Mickey, we headed for our next hotel on Hong Kong Island. We truly went from sublime to the ridiculous. Oh my goodness have you ever seen as many skyscrapers in one place before? I had no idea where to stay in HK but every review said Central on HK Island was the middle of everything. Yes it was, but it was so loud. Loud, chaotic, bustly, busy, rushed, were all words I could use to describe where we stayed. Leaving the hotel the first day and heading off in a direction with no great plan, my first thoughts were I`m a celebrity bunny, get me outa here! I have never been so overwhelmed by so much chaos. Every traffic junction had a sound indicator, a constant beep beep beep as you waited to cross each busy road. Tall buildings surrounded us on all sides, cafes, shops, were never ending and so close to each other. Whilst we had eaten reasonably well in Disney, we were nervous about immediately diving into any old cafe and had to think about what ingredients may or may not be used. Please don`t laugh when I say we had our first meal in McDonalds, but a chicken nugget is a chicken nugget, and fries look like fries. HK is an absolute maze of walkways and passageways. You can move through multiple buildings and never step foot outside. Having flown from the high humidity of Kuala Lumpur we found HK to be a little chilly. Knowing we were going to travel even further north, we chose to buy some warmer clothes. With very little walking we found ourselves in the most beautiful shopping mall. Brand new stands right next to very old. Like a crazy jigsaw. Not quite the right mall for us as once more we found yet another Gucci and LV. Uniqlo is the nearest shop to a Primark and sufficed our needs. Bakers are a plenty in HK and we bought a selection of bread items like pizza buns for our evening snack. I found a cake that I couldn`t resist. Who doesn`t love a panda? Day 2 and little bunny had us walking our little bunny paws all over the city. We walked through the park, a sea of green oasis within a myriad of buildings. Across the river to Kowloon island, using the green ferry. A huge eye watering 41pence to cross the river, on a boat that criss crosses this waterway constantly, back and forth, back and forth. We walked the Avenue of Stars until we reached the statue of Bruce Lee. There were many other named actors and actresses but non that we recognised, Asian stars we assumed. I had expected the Bruce Lee statue to have been the busiest place, but surprisingly not. Maybe the fact that is is a scary 51years since his death? We tried to adopt his famous pose, but two bunnies failed miserably. On Kowloon island is a very popular bakehouse, they sell egg custard tarts and amazing cookies. We bought a selection and ate them whilst sitting on the dockside off Kowloon island. The same evening we had tickets for the Aqualuna boat. We sailed at 6.30pm on the most beautiful little red `junk` boat up and around the bay. We watched the sunset and the saw the city light up. Hong Kong from the water is truly magical. It took me a while to `get` it, but slowly I began to feel the draw of this enormously varied city. From our hotel window, we could see the lights of the harbour. two streets away, two streets were all we had to traverse to return home. What a walk we had. Through buildings, across walkways, down escalators, upstairs, past Sothebys as they were stage setting a complete dinosaur skull, and skirting busy restaurants that were entertaining some rather smart gentlemen in suits. Have you ever tried using google maps amongst high rise? We walked over 30,000 steps that day. On our last day we headed for the Peak Tram. Little bunny ahead of the game as always, had prebooked our seats, and set us the route. Through yet another small park, we climbed to the entrance of Peak Tram, walked smugly past the rather large queue of people clamouring for a ticket, and boarded our tram to the summit. The track is so steep the tram could easily pass for a funicular railway. The journey was short but fantastic. The view from the carriage was amazing. We climbed so quickly that we towered above the high rises of HK, giving you the most wonderful panoramic view of the island. We could have gone to the very top of the Peak building, but better views always cost money. Why could they not just have a free timed entry, why does everything have to be pay pay pay? Why is a view point a paid experience? Instead we had drinks in the cafe with quite possibly one of the most scenic vistas to date. With time running out on us, we just had time for one last tour. The botanical gardens and the monkey house. The monkey houses were set in the most wonderful clean, tidy and well kept gardens. All the animals were active and climbing around which was nice to see. What we didn`t expect to see were the Orangutans. Not just one either, a least 5 or 6. A much more laid back animal, these lovely gentle creatures were mostly asleep, leaving just one keeping an eye out for a means of escape in the back quarter. A lovely end to our short bunny hop in Hong Kong.

Crazy, noisy, chaotic and clean.

Hong Kong you were quite special.