I answered this “meme” a few years ago, and my grade was a “C”. I came across it a few hours back and I decided to take it again. Improvement.

April 16, 2011. We only had three days to spend in Macau. Our second day was reserved for the standard city tour. To give you an idea of how small Macau is, Macau’s land area is smaller than Makati’s, or Manila’s. It’s just about the size of Pasig City. Needless to say, it is a very small “Special Administrative Region” of China.

Our first stop for the half-day tour of Macau was the A-ma temple. (I know, in any standard city tour in any East Asian city, there’s always a temple visit and they’re all pretty much the same). The tour included this in the itinerary not because it was an extraordinary sight or spectacle, but because it was a way of introducing tourists to a brief history of Macau.

It is apparently because of this temple why Macau got its name. When Portuguese sailors arrived in this territory many centuries ago, they asked for the name of the peninsula. The locals thought they were referring to the temple, so they answered “A-Ma Gau”.

Near the temple, our tour guide showed us a shop that sells Macau’s famous egg tarts, among other delicacies. I sampled one, and was instantly hooked. The tarts are creamier and sweeter than the regular egg pie in bakeries in Manila, and the texture is flakier and the egg custard filling is softer it almost melts instantly at bite. A piece costs roughly twenty pesos.

We couldn’t bring them home to Manila though, because they expire after two to three days.

The end of the afternoon till early evening was spent at “Tomorrowland,” the ‘futuristic’ section of Hong Kong Disneyland. We got so tired walking around the park for the entire afternoon, so we didn’t explore Tomorrowland that much. Tisay and I just went for the race track ride “Autopia”, where visitors can ride cars and actually drive around guided tracks. There are other rides but by the time we got there the lines were too long and we were too tired and impatient to wait. There’s also a height requirement for “Space Mountain,” a virtual roller coaster of sorts, so we couldn’t go in without leaving Tisay behind.

A visit to Disneyland is usually capped by witnessing the nightly lights-up and pyromusical show at the Sleeping Beauty Castle. It was nice, though don’t get your expectations too high. I felt like I’ve seen many better fireworks before. The experience of witnessing it can be magical for younger children, I guess. The fireworks are accompanied by music from Disney’s animated classics so it can be nostalgic for young adults, too.

In sum, the visit to Disneyland was enjoyable, but perhaps because I’m already too old to be fascinated by Disney characters, it wasn’t that exciting for me. I was expecting the park to at least provide some entertainment and other exciting attractions for teenagers and adults, such as exhilarating roller coaster rides, but there were none. There were barely any good rides inside the park. Then again, it’s for the kids. The park is also quite small, as there were only four small themed sections. I was expecting more than five, such that it would make me or any kid crazy just thinking how to cover everything within a day. It’s actually an easy feat to cover the entire park and try out all the rides and attractions in a day.

In my opinion, Hong Kong Ocean Park is much better. If it weren’t for little Tisay, I would’ve asked that we go there instead. I thoroughly enjoyed our visit there almost fourteen years ago. It must be better these days.

Anyway, we stayed for the night at Hong Kong Disneyland’s “Hollywood Hotel”, one of its two own hotels in the area. Hollywood Hotel is art deco-inspired, its rooms are furnished, well aside from the expected ‘hidden mickeys’ and other Disneyland icons, with art deco designed beds, wallpaper and other facilities. Even if it is technically within the Disneyland compound, it is still quite far from the theme park, and isn’t really within walking distance. There are, however, buses that shuttle visitors to and from the hotels every fifteen minutes.

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April 14, 2011. Late in the afternoon, we took HK Disneyland’s train that goes around the theme park in a loop. There are two stations, one in Fantasyland and the main station is back at Main Street, near the entrance to the park. We made one full loop from the central station before taking a stroll down Main Street to have some afternoon snacks and shopping. Prices inside HK Disneyland are exorbitant, so be prepared. (A plastic bottle of Coke can cost as much as the equivalent of 200 pesos).

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April 14, 2011. After lunch, we left “Main Street, U.S.A.” and proceeded to the next section of the park, “Adventureland,” a jungle inspired section with a river and a small island with a giant tree at the center. We rode the “Jungle River Cruise” which took us around the waterway. There were mechanical animals (elephants, hippo’s, gorillas and other monkeys), and other ‘surprises’ at select sections and bends of the ‘river’. The ‘climax’ towards the end is a simulated earthquake and volcanic eruption with real fire and smoke, and with splashes of water.

While we were going through the ‘cruise’, it made me realize how the concept of Westerners exploring the jungle and conquering the land as if it was free for their own taking is constantly reinforced in children’s literature. The native population were portrayed as uncivilized, blood-thirsty tribes with dark skin and unintelligible chanting, worthy and deserving of Western submission.

We skipped Tarzan’s island with the giant tree at the center of Adventureland, because the lines were too long and it didn’t really look too exciting. We also missed the “Festival of the Lion King” show, which runs just thrice throughout the day.

The next section of the park is “Fantasyland,” the fairytale-inspired part of Disneyland. It has quite a number of kid-friendly rides (read, boring), such as the “Dumbo the Flying Elephant” octopus ride of sorts, the usual carousel and a teacup ride. I joined Tisay in riding the Dumbo ride, and we fell in line for almost fifteen minutes for it, only to realize that the boring ride only took us round and round on a baby elephant with big ears for just a minute.

One of the highlights of any visit to Disneyland is to witness the “Flights of Fantasy” parade of Disney characters and floats. We mistakenly thought this was to happen late in the afternoon, so when we saw the parade of Toy Story a few hours after lunch time, we thought it was just some random performance so we moved on after taking a few photos. It turned out to be the tail of the parade, which we effectively did not witness anymore.

The better attraction in Fantasyland is perhaps the “Mickey’s Philharmagic” theater which shows a 3D presentation of clips from some of Disney’s classic animated films, including its theme songs. The show can evoke nostalgia for children of the 90′s. Another ride in Fantasyland is the “It’s a Small World” castle, which takes visitors on a boat ride inside the indoor river that showcases dolls of different costumes in different themed sets. There’s even a a Southeast Asian section with a pair of Philippine dolls singing “It’s a Small World After All” in Filipino.

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April 14, 2011. While waiting for our lunch to be ready, I begged off and headed to the area in front of the “Sleeping Beauty Castle” where a “High School Musical” performance was being staged.

The live performances in front of the castle are scheduled to run just thrice in a day. After the show, the performers and the mobile stage move away.

The dialogues are in Chinese and English, but all the dance performances are to the tunes of High School Musical’s popular songs. In the middle of the show, the performers will ask some participants to shoot some balls with some makeshift hoops and towards the end, the kids will be invited to come join the performers in dancing.

April 14, 2011. In celebration of my mother’s and my brother’s birthdays, and my brother’s graduation from college, our family spent a day in Hong Kong Disneyland. It was our third time as a family in Hong Kong, and Tisay’s first overseas trip. Since we’ve been to Hong Kong before, we skipped the usual “Hong Kong city tour” that the average Filipino travel agency peddles (yes, the ones that include the compulsory stops at the jewelry and/or tea shops). We went straight to Hong Kong Disneyland.

HK Disneyland is just a few kilometers from the airport, so from the airport, we were dropped off directly at our Disneyland hotel (Disney Hollywood Hotel) at just past noontime. After checking in our luggages (we couldn’t check in the rooms since check-in time was still at 3PM), we boarded the free shuttles straight to the park.

Since it was high noon, it was pretty hot and humid. And since visitors to the park are only allowed to bring in one bottled water each, we found ourselves having to buy severely overpriced beverages inside Disneyland. We had lunch at the park’s Chinese restaurant. Food inside the park are generally much more expensive than food outside. Not that there’s anything to buy outside because the entire park complex, including the two hotels is quite isolated from the rest of Hong Kong.

The first section of the park is dubbed “Main Street, U.S.A.” No rides here, just gift shops, coffee shops and other food stalls, and the theme park’s service and information desks. This is the main avenue where the parade of Disney character and floats passes through. At the entrance to the park, there is also the main train station where people can board a train that takes visitors around the park in a loop.

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After breakfast the next day, before we proceeded to the airport for our flight back to Manila, I walked around town to take photos.

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PLUG: Call PinoyTravelAgent.com (02-7824441) if you’re interested in booking a Coron tour for you and your family or friends.

The waters of the lagoons are, like that of Kayangan Lake, brackish, a mixture of salt and fresh water. More noticeably, the waters of Twin Lagoon are a mixture of cold and warm water. For the most part, the lagoons’ waters are warm, then there are parts when currents of cold water would swoosh beneath. There are parts when the opposite is true. It was quite odd, but an interesting feeling nonetheless.

I wasn’t able to take photos of the second lagoon, behind the limestone walls. Our banca was parked several meters away from the access hole, and taking my non-underwater camera while swimming in waters a dozen meters deep would be risky.

Swimming on your back with your floaters on at the second lagoon can be quite a serene experience. Shadowed and walled in by the towering limestone cliffs, there’s that certain feeling of calmness and security as you wade through the brackish waters of the lagoon. It was a good end to a day-long tour of Coron Island.

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PLUG: Call PinoyTravelAgent.com (02-7824441) if you’re interested in booking a Coron tour for you and your family or friends.

October 23, 2010. After spending almost an hour basking and swimming in Kayangan Lake, we proceeded to Banol Beach in another cove within Coron Island. It took us around fifteen to twenty minutes by boat to get to Banol Beach from the cove where we docked for Kayangan Lake.

Banol Beach is a small beach, but no less stunning and awesome as the many white sand beaches in Palawan, or in the Philippines for that matter. The beach is made up of a short stretch of white sand (no, not powdery, as some travel blogs exaggerate) interrupted by limestone boulders jutting out from the cliffs that wall out the beach from the rest of the island.