Chimelong, China

"I'm in Chim-a-long, China!". That's what Leila kept announcing when we were on our little trip to the mainland. Although I think we've been saying it wrong, and it's actually Chime- Long. But Chimalong has a better ring to it, doesn't it? Well, our trip was busy and overstimulating, and not so much relaxing, but it was a great little excursion out of Hong Kong. Mike and I commented to each other that for as many things that went wrong on our day at Disneyland, they went right on this trip. The weather cooperated and all the traveling, border crossing and hotel arrangements went so smoothly. The girls were all great little travelers, napping when they needed to so they could handle being up late and then still being happy the next day despite being short on sleep. I was expecting gong shows... or "adventures" is maybe a more optimistic way of looking at it, and ... and there weren't any at all. Yay!

We met Kylie, Jocelyn and Rachel bright and early at 7:30 on Tuesday morning and took a taxi to a hotel in Mong Kok, which is a short drive away. The bus, the hotel with breakfast, and tickets to the circus was all part of a package we had booked with China Travel, so we just had to get there and find our bus. The bus left at 8:30, and it took about four hours to get there, but the border crossing took at least half an hour and we had to switch buses. I had forgotten that in China they drive on the right side of the road and it looked funny to me after so many months of being in vehicles driving on the left. Incredibly, Annika, Leila and Rachel all slept on the bus, even though we were driving in the morning. It made for an easy bus trip, and then they all had energy for the rest of the day.

Chimelong Resort is this big place in Guangzhou, China that is basically a really big hotel with a circus, zoo safari, amusement park and waterpark. We thought the hotel was way nicer than we expected. It is also famous for its white tigers that are in an enclosure that the lobby looks out onto. There were enough of them that they weren't always all sleeping, so of course the girls loved checking them out when we would go by. There were flamingos in another part too.

After we had checked in and settled into our rooms, we headed out to do the zoo safari. My thinking had been that we would just hang out and then see the circus that evening, and do the zoo the next day before heading home. But Kylie's parents and brother's family had been last year, and they had said that you don't need that much time for it, so he thought we could fit it in before the circus and then have time to go to the amusement park the next day. The waterpark is only open in the summer when it's hot (ha! It WAS hot- at least to us!)
The first part of the zoo you walk through, and the second part is a safari train ride. We discovered a little monkey show that was happening and sat down to watch some of it. It was all in Mandarin, so we didn't stay for long, but at one point this chimpanzee carries this Chinese dragon, and boy oh boy, Leila thought that was funny. Highlight of the trip. She's still talking about it.
There was nothing in between us and these birds. It kind of threw me off, but then I realized that's how it would be if we were in the amazon. Still... kind of scary.

(duly noted)

So after walking and walking and walking (the zoo was huge! And so spread out!), we finally got on board the safari train. We saw many cool animals, but there was nothing in between us and them! No cages, wire, electric fence... nothing! Apparently there was a pit between the lions, tigers, bears and cheetahs and us, but that doesn't seem like much.
Did I trust this zoo, and the fact that all these tigers were not that far from us all unprotected in our little zoo train? Not at all! It seemed like a Yahoo headline to me, and I kept picturing in my head: "Cheetah jumps onto safari train at zoo in Guangzhou, China, attacking passengers. Canadian woman mauled." Fortunately we survived.

There must have been at least thirty giraffes and probably thirty zebras as well. They had so many animals it was crazy. Sort of puts the Edmonton Storyland zoo to shame!



And koalas! They had about eight or ten. This one had a baby on her back. By this point we were done the safari and were worried that we wouldn't have enough time to have supper before the circus, so we rushed through the pandas and the koalas.


Here's a picture of a tightrope walker, but I didn't really take pictures of the circus, instead I put the camera down and just enjoyed it. It certainly was spectacular! It had all the "traditional" elements of a circus and was very entertaining. There were profiles of the performers that flashed onto a screen before it started, and it looked like most are from Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, but some from USA and China as well. We have never been to a Cirque show to compare it too, but Kylie and Jocelyn have and thought it did compare. It felt like a very large-scale production, not a home-job. Annika's favorite part was the act with the divers (there was water surrounding the stage), and Leila's favorite part was the tricks that the bears did. Rachel enjoyed it too, but didn't last until the end, and it was impressive that she could sleep through a human cannonball!


The girls would not have been happy if we stayed in this hotel and didn't make use of the pool. So after a big buffet breakfast with the white tigers (btw this is what Annika ate: a bowl of cereal, yogurt, bacon, a croissant, a danish, a mini-muffin, watermelon, a pear, and a hash brown. Maybe even more, I can't remember. Growing much??), they got their swimsuits on and headed to the pool. I know it probably looks really nice, but it was COLD! There's a reason why we were the only ones there! I didn't even go in. The rest of them didn't last long, but at least they got to swim!

And... then we went to "Chimelong Paradise" aka the amusement park. This really ended up being the highlight for the girls, even though they had liked the zoo and the circus. What a contrast from Disneyland the week before- we basically had the place to ourselves!

It was huge and there were so many rides for the girls to go on. They would run rides for them even if they were the only ones on. For bigger rides, you had to wait for enough people to come fill it up and then they would run it. And Annika and Leila LOVE rides. Annika even went on a real roller coaster, first with me and then with Mike. It didn't go upside-down, but it was fast and scary and she loved it!

Since Minnie Mouse, Leila is no longer scared of mascots and instead runs up and embraces them. They attracted a little crowd when they posed with this guy (don't even know his name! Just the Chimelong white tiger).

Leila rode this train again... and again... and again... switching from the conductor seat to the back, to the middle. It was her idea of a great time!
When we booked our tickets, we were indecisive about when we should return home. Jocelyn thought they should take the 3:40 bus so they could be home for Rachel's bedtime, but I ended up deciding that we should take the 6:40 bus so the girls could just sleep and we could make the most of our time there. I had been regretting that decision thinking that since we check out early we'd be killing time until we left. But we all enjoyed the amusement park so much that we were happy to spend the whole afternoon there. That's when it was relaxing and Mike and i could sip our coffee while the girls went on ride after ride. We also each took a turn going on the scariest roller coaster I've ever been on. Your feet just dangle, so I had to put my flip flops in a cubby or they would fall off. This roller coasted boasted the longest, steepest drop in the world. It was so scary, but so great.

A few more observations about this trip:

- it was really strange that it wasn't busy. We think that's because the rest of China wasn't on holidays, and clearly the day that we were at Disneyland must have been a holiday for a lot of people.

- We saw barely anyone the whole time who wasn't Chinese. Usually when we go do touristy things there are lots of Caucasions and people from all over the world. We were surprised by this.

- And then considering that everyone in the hotel was Chinese, we were never accosted and asked for pictures. Also surprising. Other than that time when the girls were posing with the mascot. But it is such a common occurrence when we do touristy things that it was really unusual. Kylie's theory was that maybe the hotel was filled with people who were from more affluent backgrounds and have traveled more, so seeing blond girls just wasn't that unusual for them.

- Even though China is crowded, there is clearly a lot more space than Hong Kong because this place was huge and so spread out!

All in all, I'd say that Chimelong exceeded our expectations and I would recommend it to other families with young kids.

Adventures in Sai Kung Part 2

We haven't really given Sai Kung much of our chance since our initial encounter during Mike's grade 6 camp. We figured spring break would be the perfect time to return and meander through the cute little "town" of Sai Kung. We started off with lunch at Paisano's Pizza. We've eaten at two other locations of Paisano's in HK, and it's massive pizza slices haven't let us down yet! Mike was still able to manage the big piece with a sleeping girl in his arms!

What we didn't try were all the fresh seafood restaurants located along the marina. We need to be more adventurous, but all the squid and shells just don't look appetizing to us. I'm sure there's something that's good, but we need to know what it is. Maybe Linc will try when he comes. He's brave when it comes to food!


Annie's not looking at the camera because it's too sunny. It's been so grey for so long that we've all turned into vampires and our eyes can't handle the sun when it comes out.

Here's an example of all the fresh seafood. You can choose what you want, and they'll cook it up for you.

This place looked interesting... a little taste of home... haha!

Always a temple to explore...

Inside the temple.

Some of the detailing on the outside...

So pretty and green.

Mom, look what I found! I've never seen a Curves in Hong Kong, but there does seem to be a lot of expats in Sai Kung. You can even go have a "taste of France in Hong Kong" when you're finished your workout.



Ending off with some playground time.

I'm procrastinating packing. Tomorrow we head to "the mainland" for a circus, zoo safari and crocodile adventure...We're only gone for one night, so packing shouldn't be hard, but that's exactly what's making it hard. The weather has been unpredictable. Grey skies can mean so many things... wet, cold, hot, damp. Anyway... will post when we return if we don't get eaten by a white tiger.

the happiest place on earth

When I bought our tickets for the first time we went to Disneyland, I looked into getting year passes, but saw that the 365 day "Magic Access Pass" was really expensive. There are weekday passes that cost less than the price of going twice, but I didn't think that seemed like a good deal either because you can't use them on weekends, and there are blackout dates during holidays. My friend Jocelyn has one, and it makes sense for her because Rachel is still free since she is two, so she takes her to Disneyland literally once a week! We have a standing invitation to join them, but I'd have to pay full price for a ticket for me and for Leila, and Annika would be bummed if went without her, so we've never taken her up on the offer.

But we were thinking about going to Disneyland during spring break, and I know it's on my mom's list for when she comes in October, so I went back to the website and looked closer at the dates for the weekday pass. It turns out that despite the blackout dates, there still are dates during all of our holidays this next year that would work to go. And Leila and I can now join our friends during the week, and if Linc wants to go when he comes, we can. There are also a few weekend dates throughout the year that are open with this pass. And how often do you live in a place with a Disneyland? May as well take advantage!

So I reserved passes online and we "just" needed to pick them up at the ticket booth when we arrived.

Well... I guess our first clue should have been that the train to Disneyland was probably three times as crowded as when we went on that Saturday in September. Yikes! We finally got off the train and the line was sooooo long to get tickets! If only we'd picked up our passes the day before at one of the locations in Kowloon we could have just skipped ahead, and from now on, we can just skip ahead (they actually scanned our fingerprints, so that's what we'll do from now on!), but instead we had to stand in line fooooorrrrrrevvvvvveeeeerrrrr. Clearly the park was busier than usual thanks to Spring Break and Easter!

We finally got in, and went to one of the rides that we hadn't done last time- the Space Orbit, or something like that. It was another long wait, but this time Leila was excited about it instead of scared.
After that we met up with Jocelyn and Rachel who decided to join us, even though they'd just been on Tuesday (they really love Disneyland!), and we decided to go meet some of the characters. We chose Pinnochio because it was the shortest line up!
While we visited Pinnochio, Mike stood in line for us to see Minnie Mouse. Leila had burst into tears from fear of Pinnochio and was whimpering at the prospect of meeting Minnie. But when it became our turn, she suddenly became brave and had hugs and kisses for her.

Annie was pumped to show her the Minnie Mouse shirt she'd worn especially for the occasion. Minnie even clapped her hands to show her how much she appreciated the effort! :)

After that, we had to once again get in line so we could see the showing of "The Golden Mickeys"- (Disneyland's take on the Academy Awards) which was something else we hadn't had time for last time. It's in Cantonese, which is why we opted out last time, but there are lots of Disney songs with all the characters, so the girls loved it. The funny thing is, they've barely even watched any actual Disney movies, and Mike and I are really out of date as well. They showcased Lilo and Stitch, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, and Tarzan and we haven't seen any of those ones!

We came out of the Golden Mickey's to find out that it had started to rain while we were watching, and quite hard, too! What??? That wasn't in the forecast! So we hurried into "It's a Small World" which the girls were set on doing so we could stay dry.


Such a classic! They love it as much as I did when I was four! BTW, Mike says he was posing for me when I snapped that picture. It wasn't actually because he was so taken by the tulips in Amsterdam.


After "it's a Small World", we looked and it had gone from raining to pouring! We tried to wait it out, but it was crowded (of course... like everything was today!), and it didn't look like it was going to let up, so we decided to get the stroller and make a run for a restaurant to sit in. Unfortunately all our hoodies in the basket of the stroller were now soaked, and we only had one small umbrella with us. We said goodbye to J and R who were heading home, and ran to a restaurant, but of course it was completely crowded with a line-up to go inside. I think Annika had actually been directly under the rain that was pouring off the edge of the umbrella, because she was more wet than the rest of us. All three layers she had on were so soaked that I could wring them out. So as her luck would have it, that meant she got a new t-shirt because there was no way we could have made it home with her being as soaking wet as she was! At least our Magic Access Pass gets you a bit of a discount in the gift store. HA!

So, we called it a day and headed home, once again standing in line forever for an extremely packed train. I felt bad for all the tourists who may have only had today at Disneyland. At least we can come back, and maybe it won't be as busy or wet! When has it poured this hard in Hong Kong? Not in recent months, anyway. Oh well... Annika said she still had fun, but she had more fun last time. Leila said that she did have fun, which I don't think she ever said about last time. She was way too traumitized. But is it really the "Happiest Place on Earth"? I don't know... I saw a lot of meltdowns as we walked through the crowds.

kindergarten homework is hard work...

and it doesn't help when mommy gets out the camera and tries to document it all...