Mickey and We

First flight out of Manila to Hong Kong on CX904 at 630 am is always a no no! You crowd together with those flying Delta to the US. But off to Disneyland we went.

Alright, so we're all adults (and 1 senior citizen), so who cares if we wanted to meet up with Mickey and his gang again? This was vacation. And we wanted to have fun. It was after all, the longest holiday in the Philippines. And splurge I did (my pocket hurts).

This was a last minute decision, so all flights were booked by the time I got seats on line for Cathay Pacific. Hence the very early morning flight! And I had to call Disneyland long distance for hotel bookings. There were no more rooms available if I were to book on the internet. And unlike in previous years where we stayed at the posh Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, we had to settle for the less classy, yet quaint Hollywood Hotel.

In spite of the lack of sleep, my family and partner, had a lot of bonding. Harried and tired amidst the dreary Hong Kong winter weather, we managed to stay less argumentative and ventured on places we had not seen in Hong Kong, like the Citygate Mall at the Tung Chung exit line where ALL the branded outlets were. The sale there was crazy!!! Imagine getting Lacoste bags at 50% off or a pair of Reebok rubber shoes for only $200 HKD (P1200) or having a quarter kilo of fresh cherries for only $20 HKD (P120) or buying Esprit shirts at $120 HKD a piece (and get 30% off if you buy 3 pieces)!

And the food was all we dreamt of. It was food tripping all the way. From the fancy dinner at the Lotus Restaurant at the Hong Kong Disneyland, where we had the Salt Fried Chicken to the extra large prawns in sweet and sour spicy sauce, to the Peking Duck, to the salted fish fried rice, to the steamed garoupa...the extra baggage of fine food was unforgettable.

We had the Park View room at the Hollywood Hotel, so in spite of the rain, we would huddle off to our rooms, turn on the TV to channel 36 and listen to the music accompanying the fire work display and watch the fire works from our room! How cool was that?

The newest park destination in HK Disneyland is the "It's a Small World" ride. It is the nicest among the "small world" sites of all the Disneyland Theme Parks (probably due to being the newest). Of course, we had to look for the dolls representing the Philippines and had not my niece told me, I didn't even recognize it because the Philippines was represented by a Nipa Hut (now how monkey could you get?) and a supposed tarsier (which actually looked like a Koala bear).

We had a day dedicated to going to the city - and it was a mad rush for more SALE at Causeway Bay. When my mom saw the onslaught of people at Times Square Mall, she was flabbergasted and wanted to go back to the hotel immediately.

Whenever we got back to the hotel, it would be simply heaven, having to rest our tired feet and aching backs and enjoy the warmth of the rooms. Honestly, I guess we all didn't get enough sleep.

We took the 245pm CX 919 flight back to Manila. A little more duty free shopping to even up the last few Hong Kong dollars. A little more duty free shopping for me on the plane to get some bargain toiletries.

And it's back to reality when we landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

This holiday, it was simply family bonding. And of course, there was Mickey and We...