It’s a small world

It is the night before the HK Disneyland trip and Aidan and Lydia are having a bit of a hard time falling asleep. My initial thought was this was nothing new, as they often are little chatter boxes or Lydia is fussy or Aidan is scared. My job is to come to their room from time to time and settle them down. But I hear a new noise tonight and I’m not quite sure what it is. I walk into the room and Aidan is softly weeping. I asked him what’s the matter. He says he misses Elisa. I say Elisa is in the room right next door, with mommy. Aidan says he is missing Elisa for tomorrow because when we go to Disneyland we are not taking Elisa with us.

The next morning was fine and Yang, Aidan, and Lydia flew to Hong Kong. I flew out the next day and meet them at one of the two Disneyland Resort hotels. We got checked in and headed over to the park. It was hot and humid and upon entering the park we were greeted by some type of parade down Main Street USA in which Disney characters sprayed the audience with water. Aidan loved it and got soaked with Yang, Lydia wanted nothing to do with it and hit in the shade with me.

We ended up doing a ride or two, then a show to escape the heat, then a ride or two. The shows were really good overall, kids loved them, Yang liking the muscular young man who played tarzan and Aidan liking the 3D cartoon. Aidan was obsessed with optimizing his toy purchase (he was on a budget) and Lydia was walking from exhibit to exhibit drawing on scraps of paper. Rides wise, we hit the all time favorites – the tea cup thing, jungle cruise, orbiter, space mountain, and of course flying dumbo.

In the late afternoon we made our way over to “It’s a small world” which Aidan and Lydia both really liked.

 
I remember liking “It’s a small world” when I was a kid. The music, the images. I don’t think I ever imagined the world was small enough that I would be living in Beijing and taking my family on a weekend trip to Hong Kong Disneyland.

Overall, HK Disney is really quite small and can be canvassed easily in a day. We went at peak season – the weekend before school starts – and while it was very, very crowded, it was still manageable. One thing that impressed me a bunch was how well executed everything was. From the shows to the cleanliness, they really run a great operation.

My mind must have been in this space because the two days prior to the trip I had just finished a one year “special” management training class which trained me, among other things, how to interpret pictures like this.