Happy Star Wars Day from Okinawa!

Happy Valentine’s Day from the Clones!

Someone’s “Too Hot!”

But he has a critic up above who disagrees.

We had a very happy Valentine’s Day here on Okinawa!  I made sugar cookies covered in Valentine’s sprinkles my wonderful mother-in-law sent me.  Sky Housing, Torii Post Office, Torii Military Police office, and Torii Library were the happy recipients.

I found the “Swedish-born Lace” at the 100-Yen and thought it added a bit of charm to the cookie plates.  Sure do love those stores!  (Those are Hershey chocolate hearts on top of some of the cookies, just in case you were wondering.)

I decided to do “easy” cookies for Valentine’s Day this year, as I had already spent hours piping fancy cookies this past weekend for a baby shower.  (I’ll post photos of those in the near future!)  Sometimes it’s just fun to do mass quantities of quick, tasty cookies to make people smile.  I keep reminding myself they don’t always have to be show-stopper cookies for people to enjoy them.

And check out the fun that my sweetie gave me!  Brandon got the Portal (video game) card from www.epbot.com (we love Jen and John!) and was so peached to be presenting me with Thor’s Hammer earrings on Valentine’s Day that just happened to fall on “Thor’s Day” (a.k.a. Thursday!)

I made Brandon a Gears of War (video game we’ve been enjoying playing for quite some time now) card and got him some Star Wars figures to display on his work desk. We make sure a great geeky pair – love that he and I truly can be “different together!”

Remember how we said we ended up walking over 2 miles on Hong Kong Island in search of the Bruce Lee statue, only to realize that it was actually located in Kowloon?  On our last day in Hong Kong, we spent the morning visiting the Avenue of Stars.

Brandon found the hand prints of Jackie Chan.

We were the only people on the Avenue when we first got there.  By the time we walked the length of it (beautiful by the water!), it was a more reasonable hour and people were out and about.

Finally – the ever elusive statue of Bruce Lee!!!

We spent the late morning walking towards a section of Kowloon that Brandon had mapped out some action figure hunting spots.  The window and building front Christmas displays were so much fun to see along our hike!

For lunch, we stopped at McDonald’s.  I know, I know, but we wanted to see what their country’s special item was!  The Sweet Taro Pie was indeed a “purple delight in a golden shell!”

Similar to McD’s apple pie, the Sweet Taro Pie had the same flaky shell.  The inside looked reminiscent to our beni-imo, but wasn’t as flavorful.  Sweet and tasty.

We decided to take a walk through one of the famous outdoor street markets on our northward walk.  Again, we hit it at just the right time and it wasn’t busy…until we got to the middle and oh my, I think everyone in Hong Kong descended on our street.  Crowded doesn’t begin to describe it.  I was so incredibly ready to get out of there!

Hello Kitty was a familiar sight!

And I can’t say I’d seen shoes marketed by (or perhaps to?) Vulcans before.  hehehe  I’m sure they weren’t actual Vulcans, but that’s what we both thought as soon as we saw the posters!

We were able to find a couple tiny toy shops, and picked up a few items, but most of the shops on our maps were closed until night time.  We did walk through some very interesting buildings that seemed to be old dormitories-turned-office-space, several floors of tiny shops (if they were open, one of us could have stuck our head in and requested the owner hand us action figures to look at, but there was no actually walking inside the “store”), and a few stores in buildings that had a lot of empty storefronts and only a handful of functioning stores.  It was quite the adventure and experience.

On the way back south, we stopped at a shopping mall to kill some time before we went for Brandon’s last fitting appointment for his new suit.  Neither of us was looking for anything in particular, so we had a blast checking out all the Christmas decorations.

Brandon got to ride in Santa’s sleigh.  Hope he made sure the elves packed lots of action figures for us!

Downstairs, we found the “Present make-up” display.  Gotta love that British-English influence!

I worked with the elves wrapping gifts.

Check out that almost 2 story Santa with his Wish Generator!  The dry ice he breathed was a nice touch!

After all that wandering around and photo taking, Brandon was ready for a break on a strange orange bubble seat we found.

On our way out, I found some more elf friends!

For dinner, we took the ferry across to Hong Kong Island to our favorite Hard Rock Café.  (And it’s still our favorite Hard Rock experience so far as of 2013!)  The staff was energetic and fun and the food was great!

We said farewell to the beautifully lit skyline on our ferry back to Kowloon.

What a wonderful trip to Hong Kong we had!  From exploring to Disneyland to finally finding the statue of Bruce Lee, we had so much fun and made so many happy memories!  Definitely a trip to remember!

Stitch Encounter was probably my favorite show at Hong Kong Disneyland.  We caught the English show and weren’t certain what to expect.  A large group of us was herded Disney-style into a dark room with about five rows of bench seating, all facing a large video screen.  Once we were all settled, we got to meet Stitch on screen.  He interacted with specific members of the audience by telling his human helper (a Disney employee) which person he wanted to talk to and she brought over a microphone.  Stitch chose an elementary-age Japanese girl to talk with first and she was fairly terrified of not only being singled out of the audience by a giant cartoon character on screen, but also of speaking English into a microphone for all to hear.  Stitch eventually got her to agree that she did in fact like to eat chocolate, one of Stitch’s favorite foods. 

There was a storyline progression throughout the show that would culminate in the audience helping Stitch navigate his way out of a secure installation where he was being held.  But before he was captured, he “recognized” someone in the audience as a former cell mate of his.  The gentleman a few rows behind us denied ever being in prison while he turned bright red from the attention, but Stitch was adamant.  Through the technological wonders of Disney, Stitch even showed us on the screen a wanted-poster of the gentleman, complete with a photo of the guy.  He was still fairly mortified and wouldn’t talk much to Stitch.

Then Stitch told his human helper he’d like to talk to person number seven in row three.  This would probably be a good time to mention a bit of background history on why I’m so animated when we go to productions, sit in classrooms, or anywhere a presentation is being given.  It’s true, I absolutely adore being in musical theater, so I tend not to be overly intimidated by microphones or being in the spotlight.  But I also have been on stage, whether for theater or giving a speech, and I can tell you, it’s so disappointing when the audience doesn’t participate or show much interest in what you’re talking about.  I’ve learned to be an active listener when it comes to listening to speeches, because I want people to actively listen and participate when it’s my turn to be the one in front of the crowd.  I understand how much time and effort the person on stage put into their presentation, the least I can do is at least act interested.  So, when it comes to watching theater or theme park productions, I’m the first one giving the rock n’ roll scream the presenter is asking the audience to do (more about that in our trip to Singapore in November 2012), or the one who’s actively nodding in agreement, smiling and laughing at the jokes, and generally attempting to give the person on stage someone to act off of.  I’m also the person in the audience who is attempting to get everyone around me to participate as well.  So be warned if you sit next to me – you’d better give the presenter your undivided attention and be prepared to have a lot of fun!

So, of course, person number seven in row three was me!  I had an absolute blast bantering back and forth with Stitch, and he clearly had fun interacting with an audience member who attempted to actually play into his story.  (And I should probably also note, although I was joking back and forth with Stitch, and giving much more than one-liner answers that left him no where to go, I was also not attempting to derail his show.  It’s Stitch’s show – I was there as an audience member to have fun and help him move the story along, not make it MY show.)  So, long and wonderful story slightly abbreviated: Stitch decided that even though I had a wonderful husband, Stitch would still be my boyfriend; Stitch named a planet after me (!!!) and then subsequently blew it up while attempting to correct his misspelling of my name – and he blamed the “former convict” behind me of destroying the planet which further mortified the poor guy who was too shy to play along; and he made me say I forgave him three times for blowing up the planet he named after me – he evidently didn’t believe me the first two times I said it.  It was so much fun to get to actively participate in the show!  Definitely the highlight of my day at Hong Kong Disneyland!

And what’s a trip to Disney without riding the classic “It’s a Small World?!”  Besides the song getting stuck in our heads for the next few days, this was the first “Small World” in which we saw Disney characters in their respective countries.  For example, animatronic Aladdin and Jasmine were next to the classic belly dancers.  Thought that was a neat addition!

“The Golden Mickeys” was our favorite musical performance of the park!  It was based loosely as a music awards show (think the Grammy Awards) and had lots of wonderful singing and dancing by a variety of talented Disney characters.  The music was great, the audience had fun singing and clapping along, and the show was overall outstanding.  We’d highly recommend!

After the scary lunchtime experience, we thoroughly enjoyed Mickey Belgian Waffles with raspberry sauce for dinner.  Yum, yum, yummy!  And so cute, too!

The evening light and firework show was the best we had ever seen!

The lights and fireworks paired with the iconic Disney music was perfect!  And they projected well-loved scenes from the movies on the lower walls of the castle!  What an amazing show!

Of course, we weren’t the only ones who thought it was a great show….fortunately, this was the only time during the entire day that we noticed crowds of people.  The rest of the day (excluding Toy Story Land), we waited in almost non-existent lines.

Overall, we loved our trip to Hong Kong Disneyland!  What fun and wonderfully happy memories we’ll have!

And they even made it “snow” for us at the end of the show!  A great way to end a perfect day at Disneyland!

Adventureland was a hop, skip, and a jump (with a pause to create some fun beats on the drums) from Toy Story Land.

We caught the first showing of “Festival of the Lion King.”  As you know, I’m a big fan of musical theater, so these performances are always so much fun for me!

And the show didn’t disappoint!  We’d highly recommend it!  Our show was primarily in English, with two hyenas who did short translations in Cantonese.

The colors were gorgeous and the music was Disney spectacular!  It’s interesting to note that this was the first time we experienced the iPad phenomenon where everyone and their brother filmed the show or took photos during the show with their iPads.  Really odd, as they tend to be much larger than a camera and might brighter (due to the screen size.)  So it was often like watching dozens of mini televisions showing the same live performance.  This was also the first time we’d ever been to a performance where the audience didn’t clap at the end.  The actors did their finale, waved to everyone, and exited as the audience watched mutely and then filed out of the theater.  Not sure if that’s just a cultural thing or just odd.  And honestly, if it’s a cultural thing, I’m not sure it’s even a Hong Kong cultural thing, as the audience was clearly made up of many different nationalities.  Either way, the performance was awesome!

Brandon tried his hand at pulling the Sword from the Stone.

And then we attempted lunch.  I say attempted because my difficulties with real Chinese (as in Chinese-Chinese, not American-Chinese, very different!) came back to haunt me.  (During my two week trip to China in 2005, I survived on white rice, shrimp, and Coca-Cola.  Chinese-Chinese food and I just don’t get along.  Which is funny, because I was willing to try their Duck Blood Soup while I was there.  So it has less to do with being a picky eater and more to do with my taste buds rebel at most of the sauces everything is saturated in.)  But I thought, hey, we’re at Disneyland, surely I can find something to eat!  Famous last words, right?

Yes, folks, those are ducks.

And thinking that we’d order something relatively “tame” and “safe” off the menu, we ordered Sweet and Sour Pork.  Let’s just say, it was unlike anything I’ve ever tasted before and hope never to taste again.  Brandon was barely able to choke some of it down…and he eats most anything.  I try to keep an open mind regarding Chinese-Chinese food, but every time I try it, it gets more and more difficult.  On the opposite side of the spectrum, one of my Japanese host sisters LOVES the food in Hong Kong.  So you know it can’t be all bad. 

Next we were onto Tomorrowland!

Space Mountain is the only rollercoaster to date that I’ve been able to ride and not get sick.  I love it!

Brandon found a shiny, new sports car of the future!

And found that the electric cars of the future in Autopia might not have been built with 6’6” people in mind.  He had fun driving me around, though!

As many people in Hong Kong don’t drive, this ride was very popular.  We found it ironic that we got to experience an unexpected  “traffic jam” that only added to the realism of the ride.

After our car ride of the future, we met a very friendly Buzz Lightyear!  “To infinity and beyond!”  (Yes, folks, I’m left handed.)

Next on the list, Fantasyland, where we take in a totally outstanding musical production, get thoroughly creeped out by animatronics and have a certain song stuck in our heads for hours to come.  Did I mention we have an awesome encounter with our favorite Stitch?!

Good morning, Hong Kong Disneyland!  So happy to be here!

As part of our tour package, we had booked travel to and from Disneyland along with our Disney tickets.  It was quick and easy and we didn’t have to worry about anything other than having a ton of fun.  That being said, if we ever went back again, we’d feel very comfortable purchasing our own passage by train and our own Disney tickets at a train station (who would have thought they’d sell them at a train station?!) as long as it was during off-season.  They actually have a rail station right at the entrance of Disney and you can ride from Kowloon Station to Lantau Island with no problem.  (Yes, folks, if you’re keeping track, we visited two islands and Kowloon [Kowloon is attached to the mainland] on our trip.)

Hong Kong Disneyland was the proud home of Tinkerbell’s Castle (at least temporarily- they redressed their usual Sleeping Beauty Castle in celebration of their 5 year anniversary.)  Definitely shorter than Cinderella’s Castle (Florida’s Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland) and different than Sleeping Beauty’s Castle (California’s Disneyland and Euro Disney.)

The entrance to the park has this great Disneyland Railroad building and Mickey plantings!

All day long people did double-takes of Brandon’s shirt.  It’s a mash-up of Monsters Inc. and Star Wars with Sulley as Chewbacca and Mike Wazowski as Han Solo.  Dale in particular LOVED Brandon’s shirt!

Since we were there in November, we were just in time to admire their Sparkling Christmas displays.  Wish it had been throughout the park, but we thoroughly enjoyed the decorations in Main Street, USA.  It might be interesting to note that English, Cantonese, and Mandarin are all spoken in the park. 

The giant Christmas tree was a great focal point and very festive!

And we just couldn’t get over how cute the streetlamps looked all decked out in their Christmas glory!

This was the first Disney park where the lines to meet n greet the characters weren’t obnoxiously long.  Could be because we were there during off season.  We took full advantage of it while still riding all the rides on our list.

Dale was adamant (without talking, of course) that Brandon be at his height.  He threw an arm up around Brandon’s shoulders, pulled him down, and wouldn’t let him up until the photos were taken.  He also gave Brandon many thumbs up regarding the Monster Inc/Star Wars shirt.  Very fun!

We stopped to listen to these “sweepers” on Main Street and thoroughly enjoyed their performance.  Who would have thought you could get that many sounds out of a bunch of buckets and garbage cans and weave them together to make music?!

Toy Story Land was the newest addition to Hong Kong Disney and opened a week before we arrived.  It was definitely a hot spot for visitors!  We took a quick wander through and stopped for photos, then high-tailed it out of there and on to the rest of the park.

Me posing with some Tinker Toys and showing off my new Cinderella shirt.  “Casting a Tiny Spell – Dreaming of Magical Somedays”  Can you tell I found the shirt on Okinawa?

The details were of course awesome!  I especially loved the bright colored lights hanging everywhere.

Cooties and Tinker Toys?!  Do you remember playing with these as a kid?!  What fun!

And the “balsa” airplane was a great touch!  I definitely remember playing with one of those.  Also loved the fencing.

While we were standing in line to get photos, the Green Army Men came through for a short performance.  The kids loved it!  (And the adults did, too!)

Dominoes and monkey escapees were fun to look at as we waited for our turn in the Barrel of Monkeys.

Woody was surprised at how tall Brandon was (the person in Woody’s costume was on risers in the boots and his eyes were at Woody’s mouth.)  I got a big hug from Jessie.  What fun!

Definitely a great start to the morning!  Onto Adventureland next!

Overpriced, but I was still experiencing culture shock from the previous evening and running around all morning on our tour, so I was in the mood for something familiar.  Plus, we don’t have many American eateries on Okinawa, so it was a special treat.  And being so tired, I totally forgot to take photos of our very American meal.  Oh well.  I did remember to get a photo of the TV inside the elevator on the way down from Ruby Tuesday.

And on the bottom floor, we stopped for a fun photo.  We may not always have a plan when we travel, but we always manage to have a lot of fun!

Our “plan” for the afternoon was to locate the Bruce Lee statue we thought was located on Hollywood Road on Hong Kong Island.  So we set off from Victoria Park and headed east.  During our over two mile walk, we enjoyed the Christmas displays that were being worked on throughout the city.

Definitely an interesting arty sight to see all those white feathers stuck into the ceiling.  Created quite the neat effect!

Hong Kong is set up in “districts.”  You have the wedding district (I think we drove through this on Kowloon), the cooking district, the expensive shopping district, etc.  On our journey to find Hollywood Road, we took an unofficial tour of the hardware district.  Not too many tourists or foreigners there, I must say.  Toilet store after bathtub store after sink store, they had everything one might desire for bathroom furnishings all clumped together in one area.  If you didn’t see what you liked in one store, just pop on over to the store right next door.

We were also quite impressed with the bamboo scaffolding we encountered on several buildings under repair.  We’d seen bamboo scaffolding used sometimes on Okinawa, but never to this height.

We stumbled across an outdoor concert at one point.  Stopped for a few minutes to listen, but then kept walking east.

Thought it was quite neat that they still had some working streetcars.  Like we had been told, not very many people (percentage-wise) own cars in Hong Kong.  Most use public transportation so there are many, many cheap and easy methods of public transportation available.

As it was November, the city was preparing for Christmastime.

Loved the giant Tiffany & Co. Christmas tree we happened upon!

We caught the moving walkways that go from near the harbor front to the middle of Hong Kong Island.  Remember that blurb about awesome public transportation?  We can heartily attest to how helpful the super-long moving walkway system was!  There were exits every so often so you could get off at certain intersections.

Especially nice when going up inclines!  And did we mention, they’re all covered, so when it rains, no worries?!

We finally made it to Hollywood Road!  There were these neat medallions in the sidewalk all along the road.

And some really neat trees growing along the wall!  Check out that root system!  What nice shade they provided – an escape from the heat.

We made it all the way down to Man Mo Temple without seeing hide nor hair of the Bruce Lee statue.  Lots of antique shops along the road, but no statue.  We sat on a bench across from the Man Mo Temple and decided we’d better head back towards the moving walkway system and see if we could find a coffee shop with free internet.

We stopped at lovely “Café O” for drinks and internet, whereupon we learned that the Bruce Lee statue is actually located on Kowloon Peninsula.  We were on the wrong island!  Seeing as how it was nearing dinner time for us (we eat between 5-6pm…most of Asia eats much later), we found the address for the Hard Rock Café and set off in search of dinner and new pins to add to our growing collection.

We got to enjoy sound-check of the band that would be playing later in the evening.  There weren’t many patrons yet, but the wait staff was full of energy and having a blast!  They were so happy to see us!

I worked a bit on our travel journal while we waited for our meal to arrive.  And we had fun telling our Hard Rock story to the staff in the Rock Shop as we purchased our pins.  The first time Brandon and I met in person, we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Café in Cleveland, Ohio.  The following day, we headed up north for a day at Niagara Falls.  As it was wintertime, part of the falls was shut down and the only restaurant open in the area was the Hard Rock Café.  Since then, Hard Rock’s have become our “thing,” along with Disney, Universal Studios, and action figure hunting together.  They are fun reasons to go to different places, collect memorabilia (our bulletin boards are covered in pins from places we’ve been), and then stay an extra day or so and explore the surrounding area or learn more about the different culture.  So maybe our “thing” is actually just travel and these other “things” are places to visit when we travel.

On our way back to the harbor, we passed a very packed Apple Store.  Not sure if there was something special happening that night, or if it’s just a Hong Kong past time to hang out at the Apple Store.  Made for an interesting photo.

We caught the Star Ferry back to Kowloon.  Inexpensive, fun, and gorgeous sights!

And many of the buildings were lit up for Christmas!

On our walk from Tsim Sha Tsui station, there were more fun Christmas displays!  This one was an advertisement for the opening of Toy Story Land at Hong Kong Disney!  Loved all the bright, happy colors!

1881 Heritage, an upscale shopping and dining center with hotel, had a gorgeous display in their courtyard.  People could have their photo taken in the carriages.  Very pretty!  (1881 Heritage used to be the Former Marine Police Headquarters.)

And we stopped at our favorite 7 Eleven on the walk to the hotel to pick up breakfast.  We found this amazing Natchan flavor that both of us instantly fell in love with – Sweet Honey Lemon!  Oh my, if you’re ever traveling and come across this drink, don’t hesitate, buy five!  So good!  Brandon really likes the orange Natchan we get on Okinawa, but this was so incredibly better!  Wish we could find it in Japan!

We had quite the busy day our first full day in Hong Kong!  Got to see so many awesome sights, walked over two miles and saw parts of Hong Kong I seriously doubt the usual tourist sees, had an absolute blast at the Hard Rock Café for dinner, and finished off the evening with a wonderful, relaxing ferry ride!  When we got back to our hotel, we rode the elevator with several girls from the Japanese Cheerleading team and were very happy to say a familiar, “Oyasuminasai,” as we got off on our floor.  Nice reminder of home and a great way to end our evening.

While we were planning our trip to Hong Kong, we decided to schedule a 1/2 day tour so we would be sure to see a few of the more typical sites.  We had be assured that public transportation was cheap and easy, but sometimes when you’re traveling, it’s nice to be able to just jump on and off the bus without having to worry about how to get where you’re going and where you’re going to next. 

The tour bus picked us up at our hotel and did a circuit of pick-ups at a few other hotels before we headed over to Hong Kong Island.  (Our hotel was on Kowloon Peninsula.)  Our first stop was at the harbor where we got to ride on a traditional Chinese Junk. 

The owner took us on a tour around the Aberdeen Harbour area so we could see some of the surrounding city, boat life, and a famous floating restaurant.

The Jumbo Floating Restaurant has been used in several of Jackie Chan’s martial arts movies.  (This point was stressed to us several times by the boat owner.)

Many of the boats in the Harbour are generational family homes.  Some of these families don’t go on solid land.  As with my experience with mainland China a few years back, it was startling to see the disparity of wealth in the area.  Boats that appeared to be held together with duck tape were anchored right next to million dollar yachts.

I snapped this shot as we rumbled on by.  Today’s catch out to dry on the top deck.

After the boat ride, we hopped on the bus to drive to Stanley Market, a famous open-air market. 

It was crowded and noisy.  Several people from our tour came back to the bus with bags of items they were ecstatic about – evidently there were some great deals haggled on purses.  Brandon and I walked through the first few shops on the outskirt of the market and found a few items – Hong Kong pins for our bulletin boards, a shot glass for Brandon’s collection, some post cards for my travel journal, and we had a stone carved stamp made with Brandon’s name in Chinese.  (I have a similar stamp of my name from my China ‘07 trip.)  We stuck our heads in part of the main market and decided that we probably didn’t need to squeeze our way in there.  Unless we’re on a mission for something specific or there is promise of action figures, neither of us are big shoppers.  Now give us an open-air market full of sci-fi action figures and that would be a different story!  Good luck ever getting us out of there!

Our next stop was the Aberdeen Jewelry factory and showroom.  No photos were allowed inside, but it was very fun to see some of the pieces of fine jewelry being created.  And, of course, as all good factory tours (and Disney rides) do, they empty you into the show room (or gift shop) and encourage you to spend your money.  They had some gorgeous jewelry and great prices on good investment jewelry, but nothing specific caught our eye.  (You know us, we still had action figure hunting in mind.)

Then we were onto Victoria Peak, where you can see for miles and understand where most all of the Hong Kong postcard photos come from.

Positively gorgeous views from up there!

We even found a Hong Kong lion (not quite a shisa, but close) for Brandon’s collection of photos!

And speaking of lions, we also found this familiar sight:

And we enjoyed gelato at the famous Gino’s Gelato on top of Victoria Peak!  Vanilla for me and Rich Chocolate Brownie for Brandon.  (We thought happy thoughts of our trip to Italy and my best friend and her hubby currently living abroad in Rome!)

We piled on the incline to ride back down from Victoria Peak.  The tram is very popular and was very crowded, but was quite the experience. 

Beautiful views of the surrounding area…and with a 48% grade, those of us without seats were bracing ourselves anyway we could.  Made for lots of laughter with the Australian couple next to us!

A great 1/2 day tour where we got to see and experience all sorts of Hong Kong sites all before lunchtime!  Now we were on our own to explore Hong Kong Island for the rest of the day.  But as this has turned into a fairly lengthy post already, I’ll save our exploring for next time.  All-in-all, a great morning!

(This is part of my “catching up on the past” series.)

Anyone who has traveled with us knows that traveling with Brandon and Arielle tends to be quite the interesting experience.  It can be interesting in the “I got chosen out of an entire audience to perform with Stitch” and it can be interesting in the “How are we getting from the airport to the hotel late at night?  Let’s look at the map.  Map?  What map?!”  But travel with us usually tends to be a mix of the two extremes and we are always guaranteed to have lots of fun!

Brandon proposed a trip to Hong Kong in November 2011 to celebrate our 3rd anniversary over Thanksgiving.  That’s my sweetie for you – taking his favorite girl to Disney!  Oh wait.  You thought we were going to Hong Kong so we could see Victoria Peak, ride incredibly long moving sidewalks from the middle of Hong Kong Island to the harbor, check out a jewelry factory, take in smells that I can only compare to aged road kill, enjoy the gorgeous Christmas lights displays along the water, go action figure hunting, and find the best Natchan flavor in the world (Honey Lemon Natchan)?!  Well, yes, we did all those things as well, but we were super excited to visit another Disney together!

We flew Hong Kong Express from Naha to Hong Kong.  This was our first time flying out of Naha’s International Building.  (Be warned – there is no food once you go through security in the International Building.  None.  There are, of course, two drink vending machines.  This is Japan, after all.  The land of the vending machine.)  Can you believe that while it takes us 3 hours to fly to Tokyo, it only took us 2 2/12 hours to fly to Hong Kong?  I’m happy to report that after a successful backpacking weekend to Tokyo, we decided that we could do Hong Kong for 4 nights with only our backpacks.  Makes traveling so much easier!  We don’t have to track down our luggage and don’t have to drag suitcases all over the countryside (or city metro) trying to locate our hotel. 

We exchanged some money at the airport so we could purchase MTR (rail) tickets and found a map at the Hong Kong Tourism Board’s kiosk.  Everything felt different, sounded different (aside from Cantonese, Mandarin, Indian, there was also Chinese-British-accented-English), looked different…if you’ve ever experienced culture shock, you know what I mean.  After an absolutely crazy-fast-swervey shuttle ride from Kowloon Station to the Kimberley Hotel, I was experiencing extreme culture shock.  On Okinawa, we don’t honk our car horns unless it’s for the occasional “thank you” toot or in dire emergency.  It felt like in Hong Kong the vehicles were carrying on long detailed conversations by way of horn.  Quite the difference!  I was very happy to get my feet back onto solid ground and start across the street to the hotel when Brandon was promptly engaged by an Indian tailor.  I swear, my feet had barely hit he pavement before this gentleman had convinced Brandon that he needed a new suit and that this man was the perfect one to facilitate the creation and purchase of said suit.  Being travel weary (car, plane, long train, crazy shuttle), we heard out his spiel, saw his shop, and agreed to think about it and come back the next day.  We were thrilled to spot a 7 Eleven near our hotel (we had caught a glimpse as our shuttle swerved around the corner) and stopped in to grab our usual orange juice, chocolate pastries, and coffee (for Brandon) for the following day’s breakfast.  We sure do love our “combinis” (convenience stores) in Asia!

The hotel lobby looked ritzy and the hallways on our floor were mirrored and had gold accents.  The room…well, not so much.  In fact, they had evidently had some damage done to part of the room’s ceiling at one point and had patched it by stapling white poster board to the ceiling.  No joke.  Staples and poster board.  We were definitely wondering what we had gotten ourselves into by this point.  (Remember, I warned you at the beginning, traveling with us is always interesting and an adventure, but it always turns out great in the end!  And this trip was no different!)  So we drifted off to sleep, laughing about the culture shock, laughing at the poster board, and anxious to explore Hong Kong in the morning – after we thoroughly enjoyed our 7 Eleven breakfast, of course!

(This is part of my “catching up on the past” series.)

We’ve been meaning to make our own light box for quite some time now.  I came across this tutorial a while back and thought we’d give it a try.

We took an old box we had in the closet and cut panels out of four sides so it can be used it in “portrait mode” or “landscape.”  Then, covered the panels with white tissue paper.  We cut two pieces of white poster board- one portrait and one landscape.  And I already had two lamps from my college days that worked perfectly for the side lights.  Place some sci-fi memorabilia inside, and presto!

Awesome photo that looks professional!

Let’s see that process one more time, shall we?  Insert Optimus Prime and…

…take photos you can use for insurance purposes, making cards, selling items on the internet (no, folks, no worries, this is NOT the reason I wanted a light box), or for keeping track of your growing sci-fi collection in a fun, artsy way.

And the best thing?  We didn’t have to purchase any of the supplies besides the poster board!  After you finish snapping photos for the day, you simply slice the tape at the back and the light box stores flat.  (I may look into creating a different type of clasp in the future, but for now, the tape method works just fine.)  Looking forward to playing with the photos for crafty purposes (and a collection database) in the future!