Toys

Pictures of old toys at a museum in Hong Kong

Back home again

Writing this from our local cafe in Budapest. Eating breakfast out, having returned yesterday.

We had a long travel from Hong Kong. After spending the day at Disneyland, we had a flight at 2am (in the meantime went back to the Disneyland hotel where we had spent the previous night, had a swim and ate). The first flight was about 8.5 hours to Doha in Qatar, then 3 hours in the airport, then 5.5 hours to Vienna (and it was delayed a bit), then 2 hours drive to Budapest. From door to door it all came to about 24 hours travel.

Hong Kong is +6 hours so our body clocks are messed up of course. I got out of bed this morning at 5:30 having been half awake for a while, and found the two girls already out of bed and playing quietly. They are happy to be back with their ponies and costumes. Although on the way back Briana said she would have liked a little longer in Bali!

We had two days in Disneyland, which was just about right. HK Disneyland is not terribly large but has all the core attractions - Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland and "Main Street USA". Luckily for us it was not busy at all especially on our 2nd day, so we could often finish a ride, run back to the entrance again and get right back on. We did almost everything at least once and some things 3 or 4 times. Briana and F both happily went on the Space Mountain rollercoaster and enjoyed it a lot - no fear!

We stayed one night at the Disneyland Hollywood hotel, because then we got two days at the park for the price of one. Anyway it turned out to be a good idea for a number of reasons - it was close to the park of course, the room was spacious and family-oriented, good pool, close to airport, etc. And the girls were delighted when Goofy joined them in the swimming pool and on the water slide!

Before that, we had 4 nights in the center of HK, staying in the Western District of Hong Kong Island. The street where we stayed contained a long row of shops selling 'dried things from the sea' - shark fins, anenomes, eels, etc. Strong smelling stuff! We did a number of the main sights in HK although one would need a lot of time to see it properly. One highlight was the international dragon boat racing regatta which happened to be one, after which we had a traditional dim sum meal in a restaurant where absolutely everything was in Chinese and they had to not only translate for us but also recommend what to order, etc.

Before HK, we were in Java with 4 nights in Yogyakarta and 2 nights in Solo. The main reason to visit this area are the ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples are Borbodur and Prambanan (which are beautiful and atmospheric, but rather expensive to visit for foreigners). In the remaining days, mainly we just looked around the towns, saw some Sultan's palaces, visited some markets, and so on.

In a way, we were a bit undermotivated in the last week or so, with everyone thinking of getting back home and I have to admit kind-of counting the days until the return flight. Also, with Bali having been the place we liked the most, everything after it paled a bit in comparison.

Now we are just relaxing and unpacking. The lady who was supposed to have cleaned our flat before our return didn't do so, and as a result the place is rather dusty and a bit too many insects around so we'll need to spruce the place up a bit as well! Unfortunately our infestation of food moths have come back in anger in our absense so we'll have to sort that out.