Mega Update. Days 12-16. Monday Sept 13- Friday Sept 17

Wowza!!  We have had a jam packed schedule for a few days and I have been exhausted and terrible about updating.  Here are the updates!!! Thanks for reading!

Monday, Sept 13.

Well today we woke up and checked out of our Hong Kong hostel.  It is a shame, all we did was talk about getting pictures of it when we weren’t there, and then we forgot.  It was a super nice tiny place.  There was just enough room for two small beds and room for one person to fit between them.  I paid a couple extra bucks for a private bathroom.  Matt loved it because it was a tiny little room where you could sit on the toilet, wash your hands and take a shower all at once. 

After showering, we gave Mr. Philip, the hostel manager our bags and made our way to the train and then bus station.  We were on our way to Ocean Park, Hong Kong’s local non-profit park.  It is kind of a mix of an amusement park and Sea World.  The setting was absolutely beautiful, on the Southern part of Hong Kong Island overlooking the South China Sea and lots of mountains and islands. The park itself was built in the mountains.  We definitely got our workout walking steps and hilly paths.  They also had tons of escalators as well as our favorite mode of transportation, the cable car. 

One of our best memories of this trip is definitely going to be our cable car rides.  The views from the cable car were stunning and I also will remember the absolute silence of being suspended in a car all alone and taking in the surroundings.  It is very interesting to reflect on the stark contrast between this and the absolute chaos of populated Hong Kong, just a few minutes away.

A few of our other memories of Ocean Park will be the amazing aquarium, the giant jelly fish exhibit, the nightmares I will be having from the ugly goldfish area and the two adorable pandas China gave Hong Kong in 2007 on its’ 10^th anniversary of being a special administrative region of China.  We will also remember the aggressive people.  There are times when there is nowhere to go, but these people are always pushing up on you from behind trying to get one extra step.  I don’t understand it.

From Ocean Park we made our way back in the packed bus and subway to get our bags and make our way back to the airport.  We were now at the juncture of the trip that I was most nervous about.  Before leaving home a bought standby tickets on Cathay Pacific for the portions of the trip that American doesn’t have flights for.  From Tokyo to Hong Kong we had no worries because there are more than five flights a day so if the first one was full, we could just try again an hour later.  On the Hong Kong to Paris part of the trip there is but one flight a night, at 11:45 pm.  I knew the flight looked pretty full before I left home and during four hours sitting at the airport was just wishing and hoping that a few people wouldn’t show up.  We didn’t have any back up plan if we didn’t get on, we were going to have to find somewhere to stay at midnight and try for the flight again the next day.

Well after pacing and worrying for hours, at 11:10 they said anyone on standby for Paris can come get boarding passes.  Luckily, we were the only people on standby and there were four open seats after accounting for no shows, so we got on.  It was definitely one of the biggest relief’s of the trip and I was so so happy that everything was working out on this trip.  I know some people may ask why I go through the stress of standing by, but for $94 for a 6,000 mile flight, it is worth it, and I wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.

Matt and I were sitting in the middle of the bulkhead seats on the plane, the first double decker plane I have ever been on, and although it was super uncomfortable and crazy turbulent and the longest time I have ever spent on an airplane (12.5 hours,) it was all worth it when we landed on schedule at 6:30 am in Paris.  I had not slept more than and hour or two and we had gained six hours so I should have been exhausted, but the excitement of being in a new place gave me energy for the day.

Tuesday, Sept 14.

After asking a few people which direction to the Disneyland Paris shuttle, we made our way outside to the bus stop and were immediately happy that we were going to be provided with some relief from the heat we experienced the entire trip.  It was about 65degrees and perfect outside.  We took the harrowing 35 minute bus ride to Disney, stored our bags at the train station and made our way into Disneyland Paris (MAJOR thanks go out to Gary for getting us free tickets!!! This is the most expensive Disney in the world to get in to after accounting for exchange rate, so it is SUPER appreciated!!! Thanks Gary!)

The parks were open a short eight hours, 10am until 6pm.  We went to Disneyland first and before telling you about it, I will say I got increasingly tired and cranky through the day because of lack of sleep, so I saw the park through those eyes.  The park was unique in the respect that they have a lot of similar rides to other parks, but they are presented in a different, unique way.  Space Mountain was more like Rock N Roller Coaster, being launched up a hill and going upside down.  Big Thunder Mountain was on an island by itself and the ride went under the river to get out there and back which was pretty cool.  Indiana Jones has his own unique roller coaster here and this Pirates of the Caribbean presents the scenes in a completely different order from the other parks and is the only Pirates not to have added Capt. Jack Sparrow after the movies came out.

In my crankiness I noticed how dirty and not kept up the entire place was.  I also noticed how inefficient pretty much everything was, from food service to loading rides.  These people are definitely not in any hurry to get anything done.  That might be a cultural difference though.  Another distinct difference is that this is the only Disneyland that serves alcohol in it.  Another cultural difference I think.  Matt couldn’t believe the smokers.  Although this park did have smoking areas, they were obviously not enforced like every other Disney park.  People were smoking absolutely everywhere and in every cement crack or other open space there were cigarette butts.  They love their cigs here. 

After knocking out all the major attractions and getting tired of Disneyland by about 1pm, we made our way to Walt Disney Studios park, the last Disney Park on my list to see them all.  This was not a good park to go to cranky.  It is by far the crappiest, most thrown together piece of garbage I have ever seen Disney produce and it is completely clear they are just trying to get another days money out of people.  The place is teeny tiny.  They have tons of dumb shows, a cheap version of Rock n Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, an Armageddon walk through show that fails to impress and a number of other things not worth mentioning.  I know this is a crappy park when Genie’s Flying Carpets (a carnie ride that goes around in circles,) has fastpass.  Are you kidding?  Fast pass on this?!  They also have an even worse version of the Backlot tour than the one I worked at when I lived in Florida.  I didn’t know it was possible to make it worse, but they somehow managed.  It looks like they recently added some kids’ rides themed to Toy Story and this is the most themed area of the park.  Well after wasting some time here we picked up our luggage and got on the train for two stops to meet up with our couchsurfer host.

After struggling trying to use phones not in our language, I got a wireless internet connection and sent a message to Jean-Marc who met us at the train station.  He and his girlfriend Laure are lifelong Parisians and live in an awesome two bedroom condo/townhouse two blocks from the train station.  It looks all sleek and modern and straight out of Ikea.  Hopefully my place looks like this someday!  We were super exhausted from being up two days.  Jean-Marc and I walked and picked up Chinese for dinner.  We went back to the house and ate and had great conversation.  Then we went to bed for some much needed rest.  I was definitely all theme parked out so Jean-Marc said he would give us some ideas on sightseeing in Paris in the morning.

Wednesday, Sept 15.

This is going to be a short update, the pictures are cool for this day, so go to facebook! 

I woke up late, at 9:30, but was rested and felt great.  Jean-Marc was working at home today and he had yummy French pastries waiting for us at breakfast.  He gave us a tour plan for Paris and we bought an all day rail and metro pass and we were on our way.

Montmarte was our first memorable stop and looking our over all of Paris was a beautiful sight.  The black dudes trying to sell dumb bracelets and the Indian women trying to get money were super annoying and ruining the moment.  Other memorable placed were Notre Dame, Champs de Elysee and the Arc de triomphe.  We had a great time just meandering from place to place and then just finding random Metro stations to figure out where we ended up and how to get to our next place. 

I made a few observations as we went.  First of all this is the dirtiest place we have visited on our trip.  From the trains to the streets there is dirt and grime everywhere.  Second of all, there is absolutely nothing in English.  Jean-Marc says it is because the French never need to leave France because they have everything here, from Ocean beaches on one coast to the French Alps on the other.  They are stubborn people, but not unfriendly.  He says they have a life disposition that they are in a bad situation and it should be better, no matter what their situation.

After six hours of sightseeing we made our way back to the house.  I had mentioned I like crepes so Jean-Marc was nice enough to make them for our dinner.  They were so delicious.  I loved them!!! We started with meat and cheese crepes and ended with dessert crepes. YUMMY!  We also talked for a few hours.  This is exactly what I imagine couchsurfing being all about.  Talking about each others’ backgrounds and asking questions and learning about each others’ countries.  (Let me tell you, they could not believe the health care cost and situation in the US!  Or that people could so readily get guns.)  After a great evening of crepes and conversation, we made our way to bed.

Thursday, Sept 16.

We woke up and packed up (and had a few leftover crepes,)  said goodbye to the awesome Jean-Marc and felt totally awkward doing the kiss near both cheeks goodbye with Laure and made our way back to Disneyland to kill a few hours, do some shopping and see the few things we hadn’t done yet.  Nothing to eventful happened.

At two we left for a long train ride and bus ride to an airport on the outskirts of Paris where we had a cheap ($44 each including one checked bag) Ryanair flight to Reus, another small airport an hour south of Barcelona.  They don’t assign seats and you pile onto the plane, but it’s cheap, so what are you going to do?

After an hour and a half we were in Spain and back in the humidity.  It’s not as hot as it was in Hong Kong, Tokyo or California though.  We took a cab to our hostel in Salou.  The owner, Pep, was really laid back and chill and there is calmness to this place.  After checking us in he took us over to the bar area for our welcome drink where we chatted for a while.  It was a great icebreaker and we feel totally comfortable here now.  Matt went back down there and had drinks after I went to bed.  This pace really reminds me of the

Willy Street

vibe in Madison.  Hopefully we will be able to check out the area a little more.

Friday, Sept 17.

Well, here I sit in the hostel doing a mega-update.  The plan originally was to go to Port Aventura theme park today but we are honestly all theme parked out (We have been to eight so far!)  Today ends the race around the world and we are going to be able to relax starting tomorrow on the cruise.  Mercifully, we will not be taking any more flights for 19 days when we are headed back to Madison.  I can say with absolute certainty that I have had more diverse experiences than I have ever had, I have been taken out of my comfort zone in sometimes scary but always in a good way more than I have ever been and I have learned and observed many amazing things along the way.  It is very hard to convey or even remember lots of things when I am doing a blog so I can’t wait to get home and share my experiences.

I am not sure how difficult and costly it will be to update from the cruise ship, but I will definitely update as often as possible.  Thanks again for reading, Talk to you soon!