Day 18 - Hong Kong Day 2: Disneyland

We knew today was going to be a good day because we were going to DISNEYLAND!! Woke up early to get breakfast hoping to arrive there around 11-11:30. Got ourselves some noodles for breakfast before heading to the MTR to pre-purchase our ticket and catch a train to Disneyland (love the MTR).

Daniel had been to Florida Disneyworld, but this was my first taste of Disneyland theme parks, so all along the ride to Disneyland I was smiling from ear to ear and humming Disney songs. My first taste of Disneyland was the giant water fountain outside the front gate with Mickey Mouse riding a whale (sick). When we got in it was exactly like I had imagined (except more Asians), walking along Main Street USA with the Castle in the distance and the Disneyland train choo-choo'ing around us.

The girl at the MTR ticketing booth told us to go to Toy Story Land first as it gets packed later in the day because it only recently opened. It was like we were destined to visit Toy Story Land as it officially opened a week before we arrived in Hong Kong. We arrived through the gates of ToyStory Land and saw Woody and (cowgirl) taking pictures with young kids; good start.

After taking it all in and taking a few photos of the displays, we went on the RC Coaster. It was pretty much a pendulum-like ride on tracks that had the biggest height restriction, so luckily for us there was hardly any line up for it. The ride was funner and faster than it looked from the outside and we knew we had to go on it again later. The next ride was the Parachute Drop, which was a toy soldier simulated parachute drop. It looked pretty decent from the outside, but when we got on it didn't drop down using gravity, but dropped down rather slowly. We thought about going on the slinky dog ride, but it was a kids ride and there was a 1 hour wait. We went and got some Pizza Cones and another ride on RC coaster before heading over to Adventureland.

 

 

Adventureland was the land of Jungle Book, Tarzan and the Lion King. The first ride was the Jungle Cruise, there were 3 separate lines for Cantonese, Mandarin and English speakers. We went on the English speaking one and after a bit of a wait, we were on our cruise with a very animated Chinglish speaking captain. The ride was a bit average and not very scary, but it was worth it for the trip around the park. Tarzan's tree house was the next stop and apart from it looking cool and having a few cool props, it was pretty much just climbing up and down stairs attached to a tree. We did make some awesome videos of us making cast iron cookware music though.

 

There weren't any other rides at Adventureland, so we went to the Festival of the Lion King theatre show. The show was an abridged live version of the Lion King narrated by a big African lady.. who wasn't Rafiki (?). There was a bit of everything in the show, giant animal props, colourful sets, dancing, wire-flying, martial arts, drums and even fire-twirling. "Be Prepared" was probably my favourite song. Overall, it was pretty good, but needed more Rafiki and Zazu.

Our next stop was lunch at the fancy Main Street Cafe, where we had a 4 course meal in Disneyland. Probably a bit more fancy than usual, but we had a full day ahead of eating candied corn, pizza cones and coke; so it was a good choice. Just outside the restaurant the Main Street Parade was happening, so we went out there to see all the floats and our favourite characters. All the floats were awesome and we finally saw Mickey and his crew, along with the missing piece of the Lion King show, Rafiki:

 

Tomorrowland was next and we chose the ride with the least amount of people, Space Mountain. The foyer area for the ride was very camp.. think Robyn's Mathematics TV show from How I Met Your Mother as the safety video. Once we were on the ride, the lights and sounds made it seem like a really gay Tron ride.

We thought we'd made the wrong decision by choosing the most camp ride in Disneyland, but then the room got dark and everything became awesome. The ride was like the rollercoaster in Dazzleland (if anyone remembers), but longer, much faster, with sharper turns and in almost complete darkness. We went on the Buzz Lightyear of Starcommand ride, which was a kids rail shooter ride complete with LASER pointer guns. After Daniel owned me on the shooting range in Phuket, I knew I had to reclaim my manliness by being better than him at a kids ride in Disneyland. In the end I smashed Daniel and achieved a Star Rank 5, whilst he only got a Star Rank 3. We went on Space Mountain again and since everything else was aimed at kids, and had huge lines, we ventured onto Fantasyland.

 

Fantasyland is the princess/kids side of the theme park, with Sleeping Beauty castle, It's A Small World ride and Winnie the Pooh rides. The rides here were obviously targeted towards kids, but it was good to see the It's a Small World ride (I kept daring Daniel to drink the water like in the Simpsons, but he didn't get the joke and got annoyed); and was amusing being the only adults without kids to ride the Cinderella Carousel and Mad Hatter's tea cups.

We went to another show at Fantasyland, the 3D Disney show, that was pretty much a 3D medley of Disney's best movies from the 90s. This is how 3D movies should be like, where you feel as though you're almost touching the characters and ducking when they throw things at you. Daniel bought himself a pretty sick retro Mickey Aviation alarm clock for about $15aud from the gift shop at the end of the show. There was another show on Main Street called the Disney Xmas Illumination show, which was xmas lights done Disney style, was pretty cool and ended with some fireworks and fake snow from the rooftops.

We went back to Fantasyland to catch a Golden Mickey's show, but that was full.   We went on the Winnie the Pooh ride, which was a storybook ride and kinda dumb. The good thing about going to Fantasyland last was that we managed to go to the picture taking area with all the haracters when there were pretty much no lines. We got photos with the characters, including one with Minnie, where I felt like the 3rd wheel =(. It was starting to get late so we bought a few extra gifts and photos before settling down in front of Sleeping Beauty castle to watch the fireworks show. The fireworks were pretty cool and like the 3D show was like a medley of Disney movies with fireworks to set the mood.

 

 

After 11 long hours at Disneyland, we caught the train back to our hotel and had a quick dinner before heading to bed.


As you can see, I was super excited all day about Disneyland and I decided I needed to tell everyone about everything that I did there. =D

Hong kong Arrival Daniel

We arrived at our hotel in Hong Kong central at 11pm and went to a BBQ place for dinner. Pork rice and pork noodles, which turned out to be bits of pork with mushroom in this gelatinous gravy thing ontop of crispy noodles......hmmmm

Hi kong is awesome and ridiculously busy all the time, on our first full day we went on the 360 cable car up to the big Buddha. We got a cable car with a see through bottom on it, great views of hong kong on the 25 minute ride. At the top is a "Chinese themed village" which is really just a very cheap Disneyland style main street, we watched 2 10 minute movies, one about the life of Buddha which was ok. The other movie I'm still not quite sure what it was about.... There were 3 monkeys and they were trying to get forbidden fruit and there were statues and in the end they got the fruit......

We then went to see the "largest bronze outdoor seated Buddha" it was very impressive and well large..... We bought some overpriced trinkets then went for a walk on the wisdom path....... No wisdom was gained as we had to stop halfway so we didn't miss the last cable car back to HK. Dinner then bed ready for our disneyland adventure!

The 2 best things about hong kong.

The MTR. It's great the trains come every 4 minutes go at about 100kms an hour and are so long you literally cannot see from one end of the train to the other, Wikipedia tells me daily ridership is 4milion and each train that room for over 2000 people and is 180meters long

Food - there is food everywhere every street has a noodle bar or BBQ place, there don't seem to be a huge number of actual restaurants but all the food is at least average and pork rice is amazing.

Ring of fire - Days 15-16

Phuket
I currently have massive stomach craps so this will probably be quite a "to the point" entry

Post our elephant/shooting/PingPong excitement it was time for a rest day. We had to prepare ourselves for MONDAY NIGHT Thai boxing. Didn't really do much at all.

I looked online to see if there were an recommended tailors out of the millions in Patong. I did find one, but when Tom and I went looking we couldn't find it..... Surprise! So I went to a place called A.Armani Rocky in a dodgy mall and got 2 suits and 5 shirts made, went back for x2 fittings and got a couple of things changed, and picked up the suits at 11pm on Wednesday. The place was a few blocks behind our hotel, but we have to pass a dodgy 'massage' parlour filled back alley to get there. It doesn't get much people traffic so we got hounded, a lot -Tom.

We wandered around and bought some more trinkets, fake shoes and another bag for us to store the trinkets, ate dinner at an Indian place that wasn't particularly good, then Thai boxing. Tandoori, more like blandoori - Tom. I thought I would enjoy it for about 20 minutes then find it incredibly boring, however it was awesome, we had ringside seats which meant we also got a free fluro yellow shirt. There were 9 fights, each fight had 5 x 3min rounds with 1 minute breaks between. Just over half the fights were good, the others were a little boring, and girls boxing is 100% boring..... Just no.......... For Most fights it didn't hurt that the "visuals" were quite nice also...... There was a kid in one of the fights that looked more suited to sumo wrestling and bullying school kids than Thai kickboxing. He lost to an Australian rookie with 0 previous fights, so probably an accurate call -Tom.

On Tuesday up early at 645 to have breakfast prior to our Phi Phi island trip. Speed boat for an hour out to the Phi Phi islands, then we arrived at Maya Beach where "The Beach" was filmed..... Leo.... OMG!!!!! Anyhow this beach was only about 100meters long and was PACKED, it was crazy..... So many European and Chinese tourists there. The Europeans provided some entertainment though.. (see photos) - Tom. Then we went to monkey island and threw bananas at monkeys from the boat, they were very cute, then an average buffet lunch... followed by snorkeling at a reef, where unfortunately the coral was all bleached, there where however many many fishies... There were Nemos and that hard Zebra fish from the movie as well; and deadly looking sea urchins - Tom.

Tom and I are cool kids so obviously we were sitting in the front of the boat.... Where the cool kids sit, this however meant in addition to getting sunburnt I'm pretty sure I also got wind burn to my face. Also, rain hurts your face when travelling around 32-35 knots - Tom.

After lunch off to a beach to chill or snorkel for an hour and a half, Tom and I went snorkeling for about 10 minutes, until these mad fish started biting us not just nibbling, actual biting...... I think we made the right decision not to go into the big fish-fish spa in Malaysia. The fish that bit us were the bigger fish swimming around the reef - Tom.
Then back home, it was a nice day, not amazing, but nice.

Attempted to find a restaurant that had been recommended to Tom..... Couldn't find it , so we went to "Da no.1 Thai food seafood" restaurant which was amazing! My mouth nearly feel off from the heat and my "ring of fire" is not appreciating it today, but soooo tasty, we had
Chicken satay
Thai pork salad.... HOT
Beef Penang
Shrimp Phud-Thai
And baked fish in banana leaf...... Most of the food groups covered
We were missing lamb to complete the Food Chain*, but lamb is surprisingly expensive in Phuket.. - Tom.

then I made Tom stay awake to come pick up my suit with me, then sleep and up early for a 12 hour flight/transit to Hong Kong via Singapore.

Day 13 - Phuket day 2 - Activities, Activities, Activities!

12 and 14 hours of sleep after our airport day, we were in Baan Lai Mai Beach Resort in sunny Phuket!

We woke up in time to get the free buffet breakfast, which rivaled the Shangi-ri-la's except it was for free and we only paid $68 a night for the room :D. (and im assuming its far better than our planned $20 a night China Check-inn in Bangkok  - Daniel) Afterwards we went back to our room to book our adventures - Elephant Trekking and Snorkeling/day tour of Phi Phi Islands. We got a cheap elephant tour booked for the same day and a Phi Phi Island tour on Tuesday.

I decided that we needed to be outside instead of being bums in our room so we went for a tour of the streets in Patong Beach. The streets are filled with shops selling T-shirts, shoes, trinkets, day tours and offering Tuk-Tuk rides. These Tuk-Tuks are pretty much just converted Daihatsu minivans with seats in the back, along with neon lights and sound systems as standard features.

Daniel and I ended up buying a few things along the way; Daniel got a Paul Smith t-shirt, sunnies and an ornament of two pandas hugging, while I got a pair of legit Red Bull Muay Thai shorts. I went out for a walk last night between my two sleep sessions and I wasn't pestered nearly as much as I was with Daniel. I think the shop keepers think I'm a local, cos I'm tan like a Malay now :D.

From there we went back to the hotel to have a swim in the pool and have some lunch before our elephant trek (It's a tough trip..). We got picked up at 1pm by a private Tuk-Tuk (a Toyota Hilux ute), driven by "Mr. Bank" (and just like Dance class we are Mr. Daniel and Mr. Tom - Daniel) who spoke good english and was quite nice. After about 30 minutes driving through Patong and Kata, we arrived at our elephant trekking forest.

I was in awe as soon as I saw the elephants in their hut, there were about 3 or 4 of them there eating palm leaves and offloading passengers. (Tom was Smiling like a Cheshire cat the entire time  - Daniel) We paid the operators ($33 aud each, bargain) and we were all ready to ride the elephants. The ride was set up with the tourists in a two seater on the elephant's back while the tamer sits behind the head, around the shoulders. It was a fairly bumpy ride due to the lumbering steps but we got used to it pretty quickly. We were kinda shocked when the tamer used this hook-stick to hit the elephant in the head whenever it was going off track though. At one point it was getting worrying as the elephant stopped in its tracks and was shaking its head around and not obeying even after two hits. Turns out the elephant just really needed to pee, so it stopped, let us know and just peed on the trail.. just like people!

 

The ride was pretty fun and the sights were great in the forest, especially the views of the beach from the edge of a hill. The elephant also got tired of lugging around our fat holiday butts, so it started grazing on grass by the side of the trail. We were loving it, but the tamer, not so much. Towards the end the tamer got off the elephant to take some pics for us which was cool. So, really, we learnt how to ride an elephant solo, obviously. After the ride we donated to a fake fund in order to feed the elephants bananas; we figured they deserved it. About 4 bunches of bananas later, we had to say goodbye to the Elephanties.

Mr. Bank offered us a free ride to the Phuket Shooting Range activity complex to shoot some guns. Apparently the complex had a shooting range, go kart track, cobra farm and monkey school; better than Disneyland? we'll find out after Hong Kong.(This was my activity of the day, have always wantted to shoot some shit - Daniel)   We made it to the firing range and were offered ear muffs, didn't think much of it until someone shot a 12 guage shot gun.. Ear Muffs On. They offered us a menu of guns to shoot, but we decided on the beginner .22 pistol for about $20 aud. We were given our targets and bullets and given a quick 1 minute demo before shooting. I sucked pretty hard and only hit 19% of my target, while Daniel fared better with 42%. We got our James Bond pose photos before heading back to the hotel.( And clearly due to my far superior shooting i am a better man than tom- Daniel)

On the trip back Mr. Bank got all pimp on us and told us about all these must-see attractions and no go zones. Apparently we shouldn't go to Kata Beach at night as the Russians go out there to have sex (Why wouldn't you go there? Unless they were ugly)(They are Russian, the Men will be Ugly..... - Daniel)... Listening to him try to describe what happens there at night was gold: "..the Russians.. they do things there.. you know do in hotel room? they do on beach, boy, girl, not good. They don't care people see". He also told us about Fantasea (a Thai stage show), Simon Cabaret (a ladyboy cabaret show) and then came the sleaze. The "ping pong show" and "russian fuck-king show" were the star attractions and he conveniently had a brochure in his car for those activities. He assured us that we'd get Thai prices if we booked through him ($50 instead of $80, bargain). Daniel was surprisingly much more keen than I was.( 1 must see attraction in Thailand is a Ping Pong show...- Daniel)

After a dinner recommendation from a friend (thanks Erin!), we went to a place called No.6 restaurant and had some super cheap thai food: noodles, rice + dishes and drinks for $7 aud each. Daniel wasn't feeling too well, but he picked up a second wind before we headed off to this ping-pong show. The place was called JJ Club, with a super sleazy brochure, but when we got there it looked like a Chinese open air diner. We went inside to the admin area which looked like a standard business office (kinda like a shipping company) and got our cheap rate to see the show. After our obligatory search for cameras, we were let in through a massive steel door like the doors used for shipping containers.

Inside were hundreds of chinese/european tourists sitting in the dark like in a porno theatre watching someone on stage. Once our eyes were acclimatised with the darkness, we saw someone on stage shooting ping pong balls into the crowd. So many Chinese tourists were literally hiding behind their chairs; although we were loving it.( We found out later that it was a man shooting them out of his ass........which explains the ducking- Daniel) It was non-stop show after show here and although kinda sleazy, overall it was pretty funny. There were many attempts to get audience participation, but the only one keen was this fat old white guy. It was pretty funny for a while, then he got real dirty and it was awkward from there. About 2 hours had passed and the shows began looping, we got up on stage to participate in the 'pussy shooting balloon' show we held some big balloons while a girl shot darts at them from her hoo-ha. Then we decided to leave and call it a night.(Massive strings of glow-in-the-dark flowers "appeared" Looked exactly like Avatar- Daniel)

Here's a copy of the brochure to show what we experienced...

(Althought there were no Russians and No "Eat Oranges ....i really wanted to know what that was....... - Daniel)

More to come tomorrow. :P