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deck the halls and not your family fa la la la laa la la la la

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

MERRRRRY CHRISTMAS!

Happy Holidays and warmest wishes from our home in Hong Kong to yours!

Ariel also would love to wish a Merry Fishmas to all the humans out there!

Some of the Christmas offerings at the park have been extra tasty this year. The mini donuts are my new favorite HK treat because the vanilla cake inside is just like the American kind, and they're coated in a hard chocolate.

Mike came to the park to try some new tasty treats.

Some of our favorites were Mickey chicken-mushroom pie, chestnut alien buns, and HK seems to have finally figured out the corndog.

Before getting too Christmasy, we had a face off on Ant Man, where Mike KICKED my butt, which is a first (haha).

We had a great day meeting Santa Goofy and watching all the Christmas shows. Santa Goofy told me my present did not bark, so I asked him to return it and try again in time for Christmas.

The parade (not technically allowed to call it a parade) is called A Gift of Holiday Cheer with Duffy and Friends, where Duffy and his friends make an appearance in the park! Duffy and Friends are really popular here in HK, and the crowd is several people deep trying to get a peek at Stella, Olu, Cookie, and Gelatoni!

Duffy and Shellie May loved our Christmas necklaces!

Mickey and Friends Christmastime Ball is the same show they opened last year, but was only performed for about a week before the park shut. It was nice to see the show again without the looming closure.

Later in the evening, Santa Goofy makes it snow in Santa Goofy's Magical Snowfall! This show was so magical and reminded me of everything a Disney show should be.

The tree lighting ceremony was also incredibly stunning! I was sobbing like a little baby because the songs and fireworks made for the perfect closure of a Disney park. I haven't seen fireworks at HKDL since 2016, and even just the 2 fireworks shot off were enough to poke my heart. It was such a magical Disney day where I finally felt like a guest for a minute.

This season is all about giving, and Disney VoluntEARS had an event where we got to sing at a school and spread some Christmas cheer-

When we aren't eating at the park, we are often eating out in the city elsewhere. One of my favorite date nights was to La Vista in Tung Chung for Mexican food by the fire pit.

and we also came back not long after to celebrate as a cast after Christmas Cabaret-

We ended up next door at Funky Monkey for a beverage after, and ended up with some of the best drinks we have ever had. If you go, make sure to ask for Wawesome because he is amazing.

We also had great drinks at Iron Fairies-

Elysia and I also went for brunch in Discovery Bay at Zak's and were pleasantly surprised at how delicious it was for being the only breakfast option on this island-

Also a quick visit to Shake Shack -

a little stop over for some Greek food at Santorini-

and some of my new favorite donuts from Nuts, who now have CAKE DONUTS, which are my favorite-

I went and watched my friend Lydia singing in Kowloon Tong, and had a delicious dinner with her after at Amoroni's-

One of my other favorite dishes was the bubble waffle and chicken from Tai Wo Tang in Kowloon City. The lemon drizzle sauce reminded me of eating lemon bars as a child, and I truly think this might be one of the best things I have ever eaten.

After filling up, we walked over to visit what is left of Kowloon Walled City. There is a lot of political history here, but I will try to give you the very, very basic outline. Originally a Chinese military fort, it later became the most densely populated city on Earth. Confined to an area barely a hundredth of a square mile, you found over 350 buildings between 10-14 stories high, occupied by 33,000 residents, housing things like gangs, factories, and unlicensed doctors and dentists. The city was so densely packed, it barely saw any sunlight, and was known as the city of darkness.

The photos below are thanks to Google....

In 1987, the HK housing officials began to force out the residents, lasting through 1992. Eventually the city was demolished and a park was resurrected and what stands today.

The rise and fall of this slum is incredibly hard to picture when standing on the ground that now look like this-

The only area with something as far as "remains" of this areas former life

There were a very small amount of signs with information about the walled city's past as well.

Also around the corner is Hoover Cake Shop with what they claim to be the best egg tarts since they are made with Portuguese style crust and duck eggs. If I am being picky, I will say they are good, but I have probably had something I liked more.

We had another tourist-y adventure with our friends to Victoria Peak to watch the sunset. Although the tram wasn't running, we took the bus to the top and got there just in time for sunset. We basically had the whole top of this mountain to ourselves.

On the other side of the mountain we had the beautiful city view, where we watched the lights turn on.

and we finished the night with a favorite Ichiran Japanese Ramen-

Another super fun holiday outing was going ice skating at Elements! Bayley is a pro and was giving us all lessons.

We also saw Spider-man and all I have to say is wow. Thank you for this Christmas gift.

The week of Christmas, we held a Harry Potter style Yule Ball, complete with a roasted turkey, games in sorted house groups, and even potions class with Professor Snape

On Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve (22) was Kira's birthday, and she wanted to celebrate by decorating cookies and playing games. We had a great time celebrating this little ball of light.

Christmas Eve was one of my favorite days this season however.

We continued some our family tradition with our friends out here, having a lovely family dinner together, and the worlds fastest gift exchange.

After dinner, we had a little Christmas Eve church service, complete with candles and carols and the telling of the nativity story with a stand in nativity set.

After church, we watched Charlie Brown Christmas before a surprise visit from SANTA!

We have some amazing people out here we are able to celebrate with, but we are still missing our family at home. It's been nice to be able to zoom and bring everyone together.

Christmas morning, we woke up to see Santa had visited us and dropped off presents!

We had breakfast first, which is usually orange cinnamon rolls, but this year we upgraded to Cinnabon, and they were the size of our faces.

We also had a mini brunch with our friends before sending them all off to work. I was very lucky and had Christmas Eve and day off to get to celebrate at home with Mike. We opened our gifts, and spent most of the day watching Christmas movies and cooking before Elysia came over for dinner.