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most magical thing about home is it feels good to leave and feels even better to come back
Before we set off on our vacation, my final day of work was finally getting to create some icy magic with Elsa. It was an absolutely incredible day filled with snow flurries in the air and a few in the eyes.
On Sunday, Nov 27 we took the direct 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to Toronto, where Mike's parents met us at the airport.
It was not mandatory to wear a mask on this flight, and it was a pretty empty flight, but we chose to wear them anyways, since we were not used to everyones American flu/cold germs, and we were still pretty used to wearing them.
On Tuesday, Dec 29, and the real reason we have come for a trip home happened. Mike's dream job is an adventure guide with Adventures By Disney, and he has gotten pretty far into the interview process before, but this time they asked him to come to the in person audition portion in Orlando. He had been preparing for weeks, and nailed his speech (in my opinion anyways). We will be leaving Hong Kong in early May, and not sure what the next steps for us will be, but hopefully Mike will be able to follow his dreams, and we will hear something about all this before we go home. His interview was at Disney University, and while he spent the day there, mom and I went and played at Magic Kingdom.
We rode my favorite rides, the parking tram and the monorail (don't try to change my mind).
We rode my other favorite (real) ride, Buzz, and had my favorite treat, Mickey pretzels!!
We really loved Belle's cottage Christmas decorations!
Hi Snow White! 
I was really sad to learn Ariel's Grotto has not reopened since Covid, so we visited her ride instead.
We had a reservation pop up for Be Our Guest in Belle and Beasts Castle for lunch, and we had to take it.
For our mains, my mom got the pork chop, which I highlyyyy recommend. I had the steak, which was also great. We were so full from both of these courses, we barely saved room for dessert.
AND dessert was a TRIO of desserts, a delicious raspberry/lemon macaroon, grey stuff tart, and chocolate truffle.
Beast even came into the ballroom to greet everyone while the snow fell in the windows behind him.
We went to Chef Art Smith's Homecomin' for lunch, a reservation that took months to secure. With my moms birthday coming up, they even gave us a free piece of hummingbird cake and ice cream.
checked out the new M&M store,
We also met some of my favorite characters, Belle, Mary Poppins, and Snow White and chatted about their cute Christmas decorations and plans.
From here, we grabbed a snack (eggnog donut) and then said goodbye to Epcot and moved on to Hollywood Studios.
After food, we walked around, visiting the Christmas store,
washed our hands at Basin,
played dress up at the Disney store,
visited the Christmas trees,
We also took the boat over to French Quarter Hotel to get some Mickey beignets for third dessert (oops, when in America...).
We took some Earl of Sandwich home with us for dinner, where we once again hung out with the family to get some quality time together.
From here, we ran to the other new Epcot attraction, Ratatouille. We rode this in Paris, but we were excited to ride it again. It is such a cute little area as well.
The next day was December 1, and time for Mike and I's full day at the parks. We started the day off early at Epcot.
The new system is a virtual cue ride the popular rides like the new Guardians of the Galaxy; Cosmic Rewind. This means you have to play the game of getting up super early and relentlessly tapping your phone to get a boarding pass. We were very nervous we were not going to be able to get the pass, but it worked out, and we ended being in the first boarding group of the day and walking right into the ride. Everything about this ride is incredibly immersive. Since it was the first ride of the day, it did make me a little sick but it was such a cool ride, and with it being Christmas, we got the Christmas song, "Run, run Rocket".
Hollywood Studios was a little more crowded, but so festive with it's cute Christmas decorations.
Although I had seen Star Wars Land working during press days back in 2019, Mike had yet to see it. We are not Star Wars movie fans, but the land is so incredibly immersive, it is hard not to get into it.
There are 2 rides in Galaxy's Edge, Rise of the Resistance and Smuggler's Run. Smuggler's Run you drive your hyper craft vehicle to make deliveries. We had a child driving us and were at the mercy of them not being able to reach the buttons, but Mike and I did our job as gunners to protect the cargo.
Rise of the Resistance is the ride I worked on for press day, and knew what an incredible attraction it is, but Mike had not been on it yet. The ride went down as we were walking toward it, but the line had been over 90 minutes long. We waited in the area for it to go back up and immediately got in line once it did, and only waited about 30 minutes.
It's no secret that snacks are my love language. We only did half a day at Magic Kingdom, so we did not have time for all the snacks in the world, but we had a few. Jalepeno cheese pretzels, Casey Corner corn dog nuggets, and some dole whip.
Our last activity of the day was watching Flights of Fantasy Parade, where I saw so many familiar faces I could cry. We watched the parade with Emily's parents and after said see you later to them since they will be coming to HK for Christmas!
Complete with Etta's special hot cocoa.
The time to say goodbye to Orlando was inevitable, and as emotional as I thought it would be. Hopefully we will be back soon and it won't be 2.5 years before we see these faces again!
We really got into the holiday spirit while we were home. We watched holiday Christmas movies and Food Network shows, baked and decorated Christmas cookies, and even played in the tiny bit of snow we got.
We also went to holiday shops, and visited the Rochester Holiday village, complete with ice skating, hot chocolate, and a visit from Santa.
There was even snow!!
We also visited some of the famous Rochester Christmas landmarks, like the Genesee Brewing Company beer keg tree,
and the Rochester High Falls that change color for the holidays.
One of the best parts about coming home besides seeing family and friends, is AMERICAN FOOOOOOOD and grocery stores and driving in your car to go get both of those things. Please enjoy this photo collage of us doing probably very normal, mundane things to those who live in America, but very exciting to us who have missed these things so much. Things like...
Auntie Anne's soft pretzels
Panera Bread! (Whoever did not tell me they now serve their broccoli cheddar soup with their mac and cheese, this was a mistake, or I would have been home a lot sooner).
Chick-Fil-A (Also, we have forgotten how huge American portions are)
and cheesy, cheesy mozzarella sticks.
and can't forget Target.
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