Disneyland

Late Saturday morning after Hannah's dress-up and photo session we headed to the park.   The weather forecast was for cloud and occasional showers, so it was not at all crowded.

Main Street on Saturday lunchtime

First stop was Space Mountain (15 min wait).  The first time Hannah rode this, on our last visit, she had cried with fear.  Now it is her favourite ride.

My favorites is still the kaiten moku ba.

Like last time we had several rides on the runaway-mine-cars at Grizzly Gulch.

By late afternoon Rika and I ware exhausted.   I was gagging to head down to the 'The Drunken Rat' in the basement of the Castle for a stiff drink.  But Hannah showed no signs of flagging, so we had a quick rest and meal back at the hotel, and headed back to the park to see the fireworks.

Video:  Dreams come true

Amazingly Hannah was still going strong at when we returned to the hotel at 9pm, and we struggled to get her into bed by 10pm.

On Sunday morning we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and walked back to the park.   The weather was sunny and warm, which brought the tour busses out in bloom.

Main street on Sunday Morning

As the park was so much busier we didn't rush to do so many rides.

Video:  Mad Hatter Tea-cup

Rika and Dumbo

Video:  Dumbo

Its a Small World.   Especially in New Zealand

Tomorrowland

After 2 days we had pretty much covered the park so we looked at the minor attractions you normally skip.  An unexpected treat was this Zoetrope model demonstrating the principles of animation.   It was very well done and is well explained in this Wiki Zoetrope link.

Video:  Toy Story Zoetrope

Hannah finally ran out of energy aground lunchtime.   As we'd planned, we left around 3pm to get home early to do homework and get Hannah into bed on time.

Hannah wrote this lovely 'thank you' note

before we went.  Clever Hannah.

Disney Princess

Last weekend we took Hannah to Disneyland as a reward for working so hard on her morning training program.    We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel on Saturday night to make the trip more relaxing.

First stop on Saturday morning was a very pink boutique in the hotel where a team of fairy godmothers transformed Hannah into a princess "through the magic of shimmering makeup, costume and dazzling accessories".

There was a wide choice of Disney Princess costumes.   Hannah chose 'Belle' from 'Beauty and the Beast'.   I declined to dress-up as the Beast.

After the hair and make, a photo session.

The little princess on her throne

Princess Hannah and Queen Rika.

When we visited the Disneyland Park, many commoners wanted to take photos with Princess Hannah.  She got quite skilled at posing.

You know the air is clear....

... when you look out the window and see a mountain you've never seen before.

Looking north-east from ICC, I could see a large mountain looming behind the Lantau Link suspension bridge (top left).   I had to look-up a map to identify it as Castle Peak (583 m) or Pui To Shan (杯渡山).

According to Wiki, "Pui To Shan was associated with a Buddhist monk Pui To Sim Shi (杯渡禪師).  In Cantonese, 'Pui' means cup, 'To' means water-crossing, 'Sim Shi' means Monk of Zen. Legend has it that the monk had travelled over water in a cup and finally reached the Castle Peak. He established a monastery on the hill."  (wiki link).    A more recent version of the legend has the monk simply walking over the smog.

Anyway the air today was unusually clear, with an official visibility of 30km, which seems about right as the Castle Peak is about 25km from ICC (that explains why we normally can't see it).

Even more amazing, the air quality at the nearest monitoring station at Mon Kok was actually classified 'good'.

Li Fai CNY Dinner

On Sunday I attended the annual Chinese New Year dinner for my Tai Chi club.   It was held in the conference room on the top floor of the Customs Exercise Department at North Point.  This is an interesting place with cabinets full of interesting mementos from the department's history under British and Chinese rule.  Nice view of the harbor too.

For a couple of hours before the meal,  students and teachers from different classes gave short demonstrations.  A group of students from our Saturday class performed a shortened Chen 56 set.

I joined the group at late notice and we did a reasonable showing, especially as we barely rehearsed.   I was initially pretty happy with my effort, although when I saw the photos I could see lots of basic errors.

We were the 3rd group of about 25, and the quality got higher and higher as the program progressed.

Video:  Chen (?) fan form

I was impressed by the breadth of martial arts taught by the school.  The main instructors are all women and in fact there was only one male teacher.

Video:  Sword forms

Push hands.   This exercise is one of the core foundations of real tai chi.  I plan to take classes as soon as I get the opportunity.

Video:  Push Hands

Many of the students are very silled.

My classmates Tommy and ??

Video:  Tommy Yang(?) sword form

The dinner.  Very nice chinese food although I passed on the gooses' web.

Group photo for students who won awards in competitions during 2013.

Our table with Sifu.

Kung Fu Kids

One of the nice things at the Li Fai dinner was the chance to see the kids' classes in action.

The kids table was next to us and they were very well behaved, and not at all nervous.

I think there were demonstrations form 4 or 5 classes.  The kids classes focus more on kung fu than tai chi because its more fun for kids.   I was very impressed.
 

Video:  3 kids classes

Video:  kids sword form

I'd love Hannah to do kung fu and I think it would do her a lot of good, as well as being a lot of fun.  But so far she has rejected the idea as being too boyish.   But I'll try again when the time seems ripe.

Video:

Well done kung fu kids!