MY BABY FOOTSTEPS

After spending our Holiday Day 2 in Disneyland… you’d think us coming again during Day 4 was crazy?

NO WAY! We did so much things today that we didn’t manage to complete during Day 2… and not to forget, this whole trip to Hong Kong was really for the girl to experience Disney Magic before she turns 3… and there’s never too much of Disney for anyone.

It being a Sunday weekend, we had thought it would be super crowded… but no! The crowd was similar to Friday’s, but there was more hype, like huge Disney balloons decorating the surroundings!

This was the little one’s outfit for Day 2. A mix of Pooh Bear’s ears + a hula skirt (ala Lilo from Lilo & Stitch). Quite some identity crisis eh? But who cares if one can just look cute.

First stop, again, the Jungle Safari Cruise.

Except this time, the little one somehow chose to spend the whole journey on her daddy’s lap…

And you would think she’d be braver after experiencing it before, but no… she turned out more timid and burst out in loud wails and tears when the fire and smoke started erupting out from the caves! *FAIL*

And then remembering how fantastic the “Festival of the Lion King” performance was, we queued up early to get the best seat in the house! That meant a front row unblocked view for the little one, and fantastic photos from the daddy who was capturing the moments for the girl (and this blog!)

When this performer came out singing the opening theme song “Circle of Life”, my girl shouted “THE MANDRILL!!!”

Apart from front row seats in the house, we also got the center view too! Note Simba on the right, and Timon and Pumbaa on the left! That’s what you get for recce-ing for the first visit and knowing what to do the next time round.

Simba & Nala during their reunion…

The mandrill as the main narrator… together with two white-faced saki monkeys narrating in Cantonese for the Hong Kong-ers as well.

The evil Uncle Scar was impressive with his two fire-waving warriors…? They were AWESOME!!! My jaw was opened the whole time they were “playing with fire”. Seriously… WOW!!!

And the girl enjoyed herself so much that she was dancing along to the finale number, “Circle of Life”. She was standing up and swaying from left to right… totally entrancing the Disney cast member who thought she was more entertaining than the show itself.

Another perk of front row seats… You get a nice HIGH-FIVE from zebras and antelopes etc… Totally thrilling for my little one.

After the musical, the little one remembered, and insisted she wanted to go sit on “Pooh Bear’s Honey Pot”… so here we are queueing up for “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” again.

Somehow, despite it being a Sunday weekend, the pathway up to the Castle was empty! So we quickly took a nice MUST-HAVE family pic with Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in the background. And onwards we went…

… to see Cinderella!!! It was surreal… Even I was awe-struck… Meeting Cinderella was every little girl’s dream come true…

When my girl went up to the royal couple, the prince held her hands but she ignored him and went straight to her favourite fairytale princess instead. She even sang to Cinderella!!! To which the princess said, “Good Job! You sing so well… so much better than my step-sisters…” I think this whole fairytale encounter made this trip totally worth it.

Of course we had to pay Pooh Bear a visit too! And the big bear showed his appreciation of her Pooh ears by paying special attention to her hairdo. So happy was she that she willingly and happily posed with him!

And how could we go Disneyland without taking a picture with Mickey. My little one even kissed him on his nose!!!

(On hindsight… I wonder how much germs there were on Mickey’s nose with everyone kissing him )

So excited was she that even when we break for lunch, the girl was pointing out on the map where she wanted to go next after meals…

And the first stop after lunch… “Mama, I want to sit on Dumbo the Flying Elephant!” I hung on for dear life as the girl controlled the up-and-down motion of our Dumbo ride…

But as per her previous Disneyland visit, her favourite remains to be… “It’s a Small World” ride!

Now riding for the second time, she knew what to look out for and started pointing them out to us throughout the whole ride… “Mama look! Wendy is sitting on the moon! And Peter Pan is flying around the moon! And Tinkerbell too!”

So much in love with this ride that once we disembarked, she shouted “AGAIN!!!”… And since there wasn’t a queue, we obliged and ran back to the entrance, and managed to get a front row seat this time… in a boat all by ourselves!

But when she asked for a third time in a row, we looked at the growing queue and decided there were more to do and see… So we distracted her with bubbles and let her put on her butterfly wings…

(Yap, she has costume changes too. )

… and went to sit on the Disneyland Railroad which brought us round by the Park…

… with unexpected guests popping up to say hi! Such as the Cheshire cat… the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland… Aliens from Toy Story… etc.

And we landed back on the Main Street… where we visited the Art of Animation to see the stages of animation and figurines of famous Disney characters…

There was Bambi… and the girl pretending to be Bambi… And figurines of all princesses… and even the villains such as Sleeping Beauty’s Evil Witch Maleficent… and the heroes of Disney such as Tarzan and the Beast.

They also showcased a Zoetrope which was like a spinning disk with Toy Story figurines in slightly different postures… that when it started turning, the various figurines merged and looked like they were moving naturally… just like a cartoon itself!

The girl was quite intrigued, watching the Toy Story characters come to life when just seconds before, they were only stationary characters standing there.

And just when we were about to leave, a door opened and we saw people coming out from the adjoining “Animation Academy” where they teach you how to draw Disney characters. Told the girl to give this a miss but she insisted “Mama, I want to go inside! I want to go INSIDE! GO INSIDE! GO INSIDE!!!”

To avoid a scene… *sigh*… inside we went. Decided to just throw her a piece of paper and a pencil and let her scribble away while we, the adults, learn from the experts how to draw Donald Duck.

Until she saw how well everyone else was doing and insisted on drawing Donald too! “Papa, I want (you to) help me draw Donald.” And of course, at the end of it all, she would forget all assistance rendered and announce “Look, my picture! Yahn drew Donald Duck!”

This is mine. Got some slight proportion error and ended up making my Donald look slightly sleepy… But for someone who can’t draw well, I’d say I did a pretty good job.

Just as we were about to leave, Chip and Dale appeared!!! By now, the little girl was super into Meet-and-Greet with the stars so she queued up nicely and finally got to meet the two chipmunks. They couldn’t keep their hands off her… and even scooped her down for a mega kiss!

And finally, near the exit, we found one final stop where you get to throw a ball, and whatever stickers or flashcards it stuck to belongs to you. A great final souvenir.

It was a great visit… No less exciting even though it’s the second time we were here, just 2 days apart. But we chose not to stay for the fireworks this time round cos we’re going back to rest for our next day’s itinerary – MACAU!

(Well, actually we took the MTR to Tung Chung for dinner and to visit the outlets before going back to our hotel… Believe it or not… we travelled all the way to Hong Kong, and ended up eating dinner at Food Republic – Singapore’s Food Court. And despite us really wanting to go back and rest for the trek at Macau the next day, we ended up walking the outlet stores until they close… AND STILL END UP EMPTY-HANDED! … We really do Hong Kong injustice )

Quick links on our Hong Kong Trip:

- Day 1: Singapore to Hong Kong
- Day 2: Hong Kong Disneyland (Part 1)
- Day 3: Hong Kong Central + Kowloon
- Day 4: Hong Kong Disneyland (Part 2)
- Day 5: Macau
- Day 6: Hong Kong to Singapore

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