Q: Would you like to know what my Top 10 favourite books are?

A: Yes!

Why, how nice of you to be interested in my reading preferences! Much obliged!

If you would like step this way, please.

I’d better talk about Hong Kond Disneyland the park itself, today. I’ve already done two long posts but have only talked about the hotels, lol.

From the bus station to the entrance of the park is a long walk, but enjoyable, because Disney music plays throughout, instantly lifting your mood and heightening your anticipation of magical things to come.

I think the best travelling group size is four — three girls and one guy.

Because one guy is needed to take the photos for the ladies. Haha!

It was perfect weather when we were there. Cool, like a moderate air-conditioned room in Singapore, very conducive for touristy activities!

At the end of the long walkway is Mickey Mouse riding atop a whale’s spout — a great photo opp spot! Many people were milling about this area snapping photos so we had to wait a little bit for our turn, and then risk other tourists taking photos of us!

At the entrance of the park, we were distracted by two little stalls selling Disney merchandise by the side.

We knew there was going to be lots of big stores inside but we still couldn’t resist stopping to gawk at the wares.

Even the Goonfather was much infected by atmosphere!

I made him do a lost puppy face cos he’s very good at that!

My ticket into Hong Kong Disneyland:

Right on the other side of the gate is yet another stall. LOL. Minou and I stopped here to buy a little prop for our day. You’ll see it in a while.

The first sight that greeted us inside:

The buildings are all very pretty. Pretty enough to eat, almost! I hardly knew where to aim my camera. Everything just looked so awesome and I was so torn between doing my job photographing stuff and just letting myself loose in this fairytale town!

We had planned to leave our shopping till later in the day since we didn’t want to carry stuff while walking around, but the Disneyland Emporium was right there at the front so we had to walk in.

The queue you see is not to go into the store. It’s to take photos with some Disney character or other.

Inside the store!

It was in Hong Kong Disneyland that I first got acquainted with Scrump (Stitch’s stuffed toy in the cartoons). I haven’t even watched Lilo and Stitch in the first place but I’m a big Stitch and Scrump fan now. Gotta try and catch the movie some time!

Angel (Stitch’s girlfriend) is so cute, too.

I was very tempted to get Angel but was concerned about space at home (really running out of space) and now I regret not getting her!

That means, you know, I need to visit Disneyland again some time soon. =P

In the store, because we were wearing Star Guest lanyards, a few Disney staff came over and made a big fuss over us, chatting with us in excited voices and bright faces.

Then they made us do little jigsaw puzzles in record time, all the way cheering for us like pom pom girls. It was all very delightful!

(I just happened to be trying on a Minnie Mouse headband when we got waylaid, which is why I’ve got that silly thing on my head.)

After we completed the puzzles, they cheered for us and gave us Disney stickers as a reward.

In the store, Minou and I found mirrors and put on our “props”.

More silly things on my head!

Elyxia bought a Stitch hair clip, instead. We all think it’s cuter but we could only find one in the entire place!

More pretty buildings:

And a palace!!

Well, not an actual palace. It’s sort of like a bridge ornament. Haha. Great for taking photos, I suppose.

We didn’t manage to take all the rides because we only had one day in which to explore the park and we spent a lot of it shopping. Plus I was a bit sick that day and had to go back to the hotel twice to rest.

But the Goonfather recommended us to take the “It’s a Small World” ride because it’s pretty and colourful.

The boat ride took us through a long and winding tunnel with plenty to see. Made up of sections of different worlds, the place is dark but with colourful lights and sights. The song “It’s a Small World”, sung by children, plays in a loop but it’s a different version in different languages melding into one another each time you enter another world.

And all little dolls in the world move as if they are the ones singing.

It was very overwhelmingly awesome!

I can’t remember how long the ride lasted because time warps when you’re having fun. But I guess around 15 minutes?

Refreshments!

I really wanted to eat the Mickey ice-cream but I couldn’t because of my illness. Boo. :(

I had to go to the little sick house in the park.

We also took the Winnie the Pooh ride but I couldn’t take many photos in there because it was very dark and the boat was quite bumpy (in a fun way) so the photos are all blur.

We got to sit in cute little honey pots!

A story is narrated (with voice acting and everything) when you enter the tunnels, so it’s like you’ve been transported into an animated story book. I managed to get one clear picture at the beginning of the ride:

A blur picture:

Okay, I won’t show you anymore pictures cos it will be quite spoilerish since it’s a story. Go check it out yourself one day when you get the chance to. ;)

A souvenir photo is taken for everyone sometime during the ride but we all (the girls, anyway) forgot to smile at the camera when the alert rang out because we were all busy trying to take photos ourselves!

Our photo ended up looking like that, lol:

In the evening, there was a street parade with wonderful floats and performers.

Well, the parade just went on and on. I can’t show you everything cos, once again, the post is getting too long already!

Okay, last photo!

Hehe, Scrump in three sizes! I wish I could have bought all, but I have no place for three of him!

And, guess what, this is still not the end of my Hong Kong Disneyland posts. Part 4 will be coming up soon!

Some time back, I submitted this post to the Star Sports Blogger Contest.

And I just only realised that it’s over and the winners have been announced. LOL. I didn’t win but I’m now in the running for Favourite Blogger.

Need your votes please. =P

Unfortunately, you need to sign up and log in to vote, but it’s for a good cause. Voters stand to win a laptop! And so does the winning blogger! =D

Please click here to vote for me. Mine is now the first entry, under the name of Qiaoyun Shen.

Thank you so much. Love you all!!

And happy long weekend!

Just wanted to share my first contribution as guest columnist for Stuff magazine. This is the April 2010 issue.

I have permission to repost it so here it is!

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[Column Starts]

To start my column off, I should like to maintain that while I may be on the geek side of girl, I am still a girl first and foremost. Which explains why I can’t always understand the way men behave around gadgets.

It’s a mystery to me why men have a burning need to own gadgets that have so many functions it will take them ten lifetimes to discover all their uses, never mind actually use them.

Say, a man is shopping for a phone. He gets weak-kneed when told a certain phone can do a million things including file his taxes and throw out the trash. It doesn’t matter that he’s shopping for a phone. It only matters that his phone must have at least one more feature than his colleague’s phone.

Girls are easier to comprehend. We want a phone that can make phone calls. And maybe tweet. And look pretty and shiny. End of story.

Well, alright, I grant that I do expect my phone to have an Internet browser. An e-mail application. And GPS. And a shopping guide. It’s moving with the times. But men, they like to move beyond. Beyond common sense.

Sample conversation: “My phone can calculate the current wind speed and translate that into the number of revolutions a hamster makes on a wheel!” “And why would you want to do that?” “I don’t know. But it’s cool because I can do it and you can’t.”

Perhaps there is a higher reason for men to be hardwired this way. But if there is one, I have yet to discover it. Perhaps you can tell me.

[Column Ends]

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By the way, I bought a cheap S$10 iPhone case in China.

So silly looking, but cute, right?

But it’s really cheap stuff. The blings are actually a line of stickers and they keep unsticking and I have to keep sticking them back. Right now, one corner has fallen off from the rest and disappeared.

Oh well, it was fun for a while.