Hong Kong Part 2

On Christmas Day, Scott read us the Christmas story from Luke 2 off of Greg's ipad

 Then the kids opened 1 thing-

 shirts to wear to Disney!

 2 of the cool Disney things on the metro line that just goes to Disney-it was the pink line, which Ashley loved of course

 Here we are!

 I loved the wreaths and all the decorations for Christmas were beautiful!

 with Sleeping Beauty's castle in the background!

 we took a raft like this over to

 Tarzan's treehouse!

 the kids were amazed at how real the things looked-like this robotic baby elephant

 We teased the boys about their diligent map studying-totally gotten from their Daddy!

 Another mine train that the boys rode repeatedly!  This one even had part of the ride going backwards and they loved it!

 Ashley loved the slinky dog ride!

 and was SUPER excited to get to meet Tinkerbell!

 We rode it's a small world 3 times!

 After lunch the boys went to Tomorrow land-to ride Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear/space related rides while Ashley and I stayed in Fantasyland with the characters and the camera

Cinderella's Carousel was another of Ashley's favorites!

playing games with Goofy

 It was fun to meet Rapunzel and Cinderella too!

 The afternoon snack!

 Ryan LOVED seeing how fast we could spin on the teacups-my favorite ride as a child

 she also got to meet Alice!

 The lighting on Main Street-fireworks didn't start until 9 and we had an hour on the train to get back to our hotel so we decided not to stay

 It sure was a fun way to spend Christmas Day!

 We started Wednesday at the Hong Kong Science Museum!  Below is the huge marble track in the atrium-balls were released only 3 or 4 times a day

 We watched a demonstration about liquid nitrogen with the lady speaking Cantonese-thankfully Greg and I knew enough about what she was doing to give the kids English commentary.  The look on Ryan's face when she squeezed a frozen lettuce leaf into nothing was priceless.  The lady was talking to Greg after the presentation and he was telling her that his favorite liquid nitrogen trick was freezing a banana and using it to hammer a nail into a board-even the non-Scientist that I am remembers being impressed by that in college.  The lady's response was that they knew of that one but that bananas were too expensive to use for science experiments in Hong Kong.

 Ryan and Ashley are making bubbles in different viscosities (thicknesses) of oils

 Experimenting with open and closed circuits to make the bulb light up

 After the museum we rode the Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island-from Wikipedia

The Star Ferry, or The "Star" Ferry Company, is a passenger ferry service operator and tourist attraction in Hong Kong.^[1] Its principal routes carry passengers across Victoria Harbour, between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It was founded in 1888 as the Kowloon Ferry Company, adopting its present name in 1898.
The fleet of twelve ferries currently operates two routes (four prior to April 1, 2011)^[2] across the harbour, carrying over 70,000 passengers a day, or 26 million a year. Even though the harbour is crossed by railway and road tunnels, the Star Ferry continues to provide an inexpensive mode of harbour crossing. The company's main route runs between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui.

 We walked a long way-including going through a fancy mall where these decorations were in their atrium-models of a cable car and snowy mountain scene

 to have lunch here and let Greg add another t-shirt to his collection

 Then we walked past this beautiful church

 and went to ride the Peak Tram-from wikipedia

The Peak Tram's route from Central district to Victoria Peak covers a distance of about 1.4 kilometres (.86 miles) and a height difference of just under 400 metres (1300 feet). The line has two pronounced curves, one to the left immediately after leaving the lower terminus, and the other to the right in the upper half of the ascent. The gradient also varies considerably throughout the ascent. It is a single track route and a passing loop, with two trams.

 At the top of the peak we saw Madame Tussauds Wax Museum-we had explained to the kids that the point was to see how real and lifelike the statues could be made to look

 Ashley's ultimate-a pink Christmas tree!

 I do not know this famous Asian singer, but Ashley liked her dress and wanted to have her picture taken with her

 A picture with a real princess!

 It made us laugh that Ryan wanted to be the one sitting on the throne!

 Scott has been learning about heroes for social justice at school and wanted to have his picture made with Gandhi

 I laughed at Greg when he saw Einstein's statue

 The boys thought this one was really cool!

 Alfred Hitchcock

 We breakfasted at Tiffanys

 Ryan and Ashley with a sumo wrestler!

 The view from the top of the Peak!

 It was pretty windy!

 We got to watch the funicular go back down

 


After the peak, we did a bus tour-listening to commentary in the language of your choice on headphones-you could listen in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Italian, German, Korean, and a few other languages