Hong Kong Part 1: Disneyland

We just got back from spending a few days in Hong Kong for Christmas. Hong Kong is an awesome city - at times futuristic and other times a part of the old world. It's very international - every nationality seemed to have a presence (including some truly amazing food). There were a lot of very evident British influences from the colonial times (Hong Kong's colonial times which ended in 1997) but the city is always somehow distinctly Chinese.
This is our visit to Hong Kong Disneyland, which we did the first couple days since the Hong Kong airport and Disneyland are on the same island, Lantau Island.

While checking in to our hotel we ran into Goofy.

A view from our hotel. You can see some of the other islands that make up Hong Kong in the distance. The section of the island where Disneyland is was built up by land filling. It used to be underwater. In Hong Kong they are strapped for land, particularly flat land, so land filling has become a common practice.

At our hotel - The Hollywood Hotel. It only made me a little homesick for California.

The kids at dinner at our hotel. We ate at one of the buffets in our hotel the first night. It was a mix of Japanese, Chinese and Indian food with a little bit of American thrown in there. I'm guessing they are catering to their tourist demographic. The food was amazing.

I don't think the kids appreciated it though.

At Disneyland our first night. They were all decorated up for Christmas and had a great fireworks display, complete with special glasses to see all the lights in snowflake shapes. Very fun.

Here are some of the lights at the front of the park as seen with the naked eye.

And here they are through the special light viewing glasses they handed out. Each little light looked like a snowflake. It made the fireworks display really cool to watch.

Anna was excited to see some familiar faces on the Winnie the Pooh ride. She kept shouting, "Robin!"

Our second day at the park. Our tour guide kept teasing us about being Japanese, since our tour group was from Japan. He kept saying we better not ask for sushi and if we wanted some we had to go get our own from the ocean. He was funny.

Hong Kong Disneyland looks a lot like California Disneyland, except smaller. HK Disney has Adventureland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland and Main Street USA only (missing: Frontierland, Toon Town, Bear Country, New Orleans Square). It was enough for us though.

Matthew got to ride the cars in Autopia, but Anna was about a cm or two too small.

She got to sit on the display car outside. Someday Anna.

Posing outside of Small World. They had the ride all dressed up for Christmas and had various Disney characters appearing in their appropriate countries and regions. Peter Pan flew around in the UK area, the Jungle Book characters showed up in India, Aladdin and Jasmine were in the middle east, Pinnochio was in Italy etc. And who do we get in the United States? Woody and Jesse from Toy Story. :) It was very cute.

And of course It's a Small World in Hong Kong Disneyland must have a little Hong Kong section. Here it is.

We did some usual Disney things. Rode the carousel.

Rode Dumbo - Matthew called it "Jumbo" and Anna called it "Elephant." They both liked the ride a lot.

We saw a 3D show called Philhar-Magic. It terrified Matthew and he cried to go back to the hotel during the second part of it. It's the kind of 3D show that sprays you with water and has different smells and things. The water spraying was particularly offensive to Matthew (sobbing..."I got wet!") but Anna thought it was great fun.

This is the line for Jungle Cruise. I took a picture because you can get in one of three lines to hear the ride in Cantonese, Mandarin or English. Pretty interesting I thought.

Matthew and Buzz Lightyear.

In lieu of a real nap we rode the train around the park a few times and, sure enough, the kids fell asleep.

Then they were up again for more excitement.

We had dinner in the park. I didn't expect much from theme park food, but we had a really delicious dinner - Chinese food, of course. I don't think we had a bad meal the whole time in Hong Kong. I am still thinking about some of the food now. Mmmm

Matthew liked to eat the noodles with his little soup spoon.

All of the park workers were especially friendly and all wished us a Merry Christmas (we were there on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day). And they gave Matthew and Anna lots of stickers, which they really loved. Here we are just before leaving the park.

They each got a set of Mickey (and Minnie) ears. We had a great Christmas there...not the same as being with our extended family, but our little family was together, so it was great! More Hong Kong adventures to come.

An Early Christmas

We had our Christmas morning a few days early since we won't be able to do it on real Christmas. It was fun just to relax and spend the time together. This was the first Christmas that Matthew was really able to anticipate Christmas enough to be excited about it. It was fun to see how eager he was!

Matthew in a clacker frenzy - a surprise he found in his stocking. I was amazed that both kids had no trouble with the clackers. I wasn't sure Anna could do it - but she can!

We had German pancakes for Christmas breakfast and we baked half of them as little individual muffins. They were tasty.

Matthew and Anna are still a little young to totally get Christmas, but not in a bad way. They were so excited just to open one gift, let alone more than one. Here they are opening some.

The kids got this inflatable cozy coupe complete with balls to go inside.

They are having fun with it, but its probably just a matter of time before it causes someone bodily harm.

Matthew got a camera. He was very excited and ran around snapping pictures of everything.
I also got a new camera - a digital SLR (hooray!!) - with which I took this picture. I'm not a great photographer, which you will know if you've seen much of this blog ;), but I took these pictures knowing pretty much zero about how to work the new camera and they already turned out better than most of my point-and-shoot pictures. I'm excited to learn more about my camera - hopefully I can become a better photographer.

I took this one with the new camera too - Anna snuggling her new kitty toy from Grandpa K. She was very sweet with her new "kitty." Merry Christmas everyone!

Almost Christmas Eve

Some pictures from our Christmas Eve. We decided to celebrate Christmas early this year since we won't be able to do the traditional Christmas stuff on real Christmas. Here we are making Orange Sweet Rolls for Christmas morning. The kids love to help me cook and most of the time I love to have them come be a part of it, even if its just dumping pre-measured things in to a bowl or stirring a little bit. Today they spread the flour around the table for me while we made the sweet rolls. I gave them their own little dough clumps to squish in their hands and they thought that was great. Matthew was very enthusiastic about spreading the flour out - and left a little pile of flour next to his chair.

When not helping me cook, the kids entertained themselves by jumping on a bunch of pop paper.

We did a lot of baking that day

We had a little family home evening program and then the kids each got to open a special present. They were super excited to use their finely honed ripping skills.

And here they are wearing their special New Years Eve presents.

We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas. I love the Vince Guaraldi music! Matthew got a little worried when Snoopy was skating crazy on the ice, but other than that he liked it. Anna kept pointing and saying, "Snoopy" the whole time.

And she did this with a peanut butter kiss cookie that we let her eat during the show.
Can life get better?

So pretty

Anna let me put her hair in pigtails today. She barely has enough to do it, but she looked so cute. She kept trying to pull out the rubber bands and eventually succeeded. Oh well, it was cute while it lasted. I never liked having my hair done when I was little either.

Children's Christmas Party

Scott's office hosted a kid's Christmas party for some of the different organizations on base. There were about 25-30 kids there and it was a lot of fun.
Here's Matthew working on his hand print wreath. His favorite part was putting the little stickers on. He also put a few on his face.

Here's Anna with her finished reindeer cup craft. They had all the craft pieces cut and ready to go, so even toddlers could put the craft together...with help.

Anna and Matthew got to try and throw balls through a wooden Christmas tree. They were supposed to stand a few yards back and try to throw the balls through a hole in the tree. Both of them preferred the slam dunk method, however. Luckily they were not disqualified and each got a prize. Matthew chose a small matchbox sized F-15 airplane (good choice) and "flew" it all around. Later he wanted to take it to bed with him. It was very cute. Anna got bubbles, which she was very excited about. Here she is chasing some bubbles.

Anna blows some bubbles. She's getting very good at it.

Matthew's favorite part was when Santa arrived on a firetruck.

Everyone gathered around for a picture.

All the other kids followed Santa inside, but Matthew was way more interested in the firetruck and stayed by it so he could do a walk around with the firemen and Sparky the firedog.

Here he is with Sparky, or "Snoopy" as Matthew called him.

We eventually got back to the party and Matthew and Anna decorated some gingerbread cookies. Well, Matthew decorated them. Anna cut right to the chase and ate hers.

And, of course, we had to visit with Santa. Matthew liked it. Anna not so much. Frightening Santa incident notwithstanding, we still had a lot of fun at the party.

Bonus Pictures!

Here are the kids two weeks ago seeing Santa. Anna wasn't cool with Santa that day either.

And here are the kids last year with Santa. Oh how things have changed.