Day One in Shanghai

The lights of the Shanghai skyline from The Bund only are lit from 6:00-10:00 nightly.

Our Hainan Airlines flight from Seattle to Shanghai landed at Pudong Airport on Monday, March 27 at about 3:00 in the afternoon.  We deplaned on the tarmac, were bused to the terminal, and made our way to immigration with all our required paperwork.  We had read ahead of time that we would need to have proof that we'd only be in Shanghai for 144 hours, so I was prepared with gobs of email printouts all clipped together in neat little stacks that made me appear to be an organized person.

We knew we would need copies of our hotel reservations with all four of our names on the reservation to prove that all four of us were, in fact, staying in the hotel and not skipping off to the Chinese countryside to do who knows what.  Since hotel reservations are usually just in one name - the name of the person holding the credit card - we had to make a special Skype call to Shanghai the week before we left to ask the Toy Story Hotel to change the reservation and email the new one to us.

I also had copies of our tickets from Shanghai to Hong Kong with seat assignments. For some reason, just having the tickets isn't enough; you have to show the seat assignments.  Finally, I had gotten a Chinese student at Purdue to type out the address of the Toy Story Hotel in Mandarin for us so that we could show a non-English-speaking taxi driver where to take us.

We followed the signs to immigration and easily found the line for people planning to use the 24 or 144 hour visa exemption option.  The line for this option was fairly short - maybe only eight people were in front of us - while the regular line for visitors to China wound through rows and rows of what we like to call cattle gates.  I was initially excited about this since it seemed that we would have to spend far less time in line.

Boy, was I wrong.  We ended up waiting in that line for an hour and twenty minutes!  To pass the time, we chatted with some lovely Aussies who were about to board the Queen Mary 2 for a cruise. We commiserated about the slow-moving line, the immigration officers who apparently took a break every 10 minutes or so, and the people in front of us in line who didn't have their paperwork in order.  When it was our turn, every paper we had was inspected by two different officers ad then scanned into a computer.  Our photos were taken, and we were finally allowed to enter China!

On our initial itinerary, before the great all-nighter, we were to arrive in Shanghai on Monday at about 10:45 pm.  It is such a good thing that we changed plans.  I can't imagine having to stand there until well after midnight.

Once we were through, we collected our bags and changed money.  A taxi driver approached us, and while my plan was to go to the official metered taxi stand upon arrival, apparently I hadn't communicated this to Josh.  So when the guy approached him and offered a price of 500 Yuan to take us to Disneyland instead of the "usual rate" of 650, Josh started negotiating.  He ended up paying 450, or about $63.  That was more than I had read it was supposed to cost, and taxi drivers who don't use the meter annoy me, so I was maybe a little bit cranky as we followed the guy to the waiting minivan.   But it turned out that the minivan was the right size for all of our luggage (we travel often but we don't travel light), and the driver - who ended up being a completely different guy from the one who approached us in the airport - seemed to know where he was going once I showed him the piece of paper I'd brought with the hotel name and address in Mandarin.

About thirty minutes later, we could see the beautiful castle rising in the distance!  We had arrived!

The sign at the entrance to the resort

We pulled into the Toy Story Hotel (we had to show our reservations to the guard at the end of the hotel driveway), and oohed and aahed over the theming of the hotel.  The front entrance resembled an overturned toy box, and the uniforms on the staff were really cute versions of Woody's costume.

We love the way that Disney picks a theme and goes all out!

We made our way to the front desk which had giant blown-glass marbles encased in it.  They were all different and reminded me of Venetian glass.

Josh checks in at the Toy Story Hotel.  Notice the cool giant marbles!

                                   

Each marble was unique and highlights the attention to detail that is typical of Disney's theming.

Interesting tidbit: In Chinese, the word for the number 4 sounds almost exactly like the word for death.  Therefore, 4 is an unlucky number and most hotels don't have a fourth floor.

                                

After checking in, we headed to our room on the 6th floor.  The wallpaper was the same cloud pattern that you see in Andy's room in the movie, and the nightstand was a giant Rubik's cube.  

I loved the Rubik's cube nightstand!

                                  

We spent some time unpacking and then headed out to catch the bus to Disneytown, the shopping and dining area just outside the park.  We only had tickets to the park for two days (they actually don't sell packages with more than two days' worth of tickets), and we didn't want to waste a ticket just for the evening.

At Disneytown, we explored the ENORMOUS World of Disney store where Kinley decided to have a custom phone case made for her new-to-her phone.  

It took about 20 minutes to have a phone case made, and it cost 115 Yuan or about US$ 15.

                                     

                                     

We previewed the other merch, and then made a loop around the rest of Disneytown, including a cute little sweet shop called Spoonful of Sugar, a reference to the song from Mary Poppins. 
                                     
We ended our tour at the Lego store.  Knox is a huge fan, and we all enjoyed seeing the Disney-themed giant Lego creations.  Since Disney now owns Star Wars and Marvel, it wasn't all dwarfs and princesses.

The Marvel characters made of Lego bricks and suspended from the ceiling were cool.

                                 

Naturally, there was a large Mulan display since she's the only Chinese Disney heroine.

                                 

Lego Snow White is surrounded by Lego Thumper and other forest friends.

                                   

From there, we walked to the Metro station to go into downtown.  The skyline at night is supposed to be beautifully lit, and this was the only night we'd be able to see it.  It took us a while to figure out the ticket machines since we didn't have small bills, but we eventually figured it out were on our way.  We had to wind our way through a station that was under construction and change trains once, but the station where we ended up was right beside the Hard Rock Cafe Shanghai.

The ride into Shanghai took a good 40 minutes.

Josh is a big Hard Rock fan and tries to visit every one he can.  I think he's been to forty-something of them, so we decided to pop in for dinner before heading to view the skyline.  The great thing about HRCs is that the menu is dependable and the servers' level of English is usually pretty good no matter where you are in the world.  Plus they have free refills which isn't the norm in the rest of the world.

Obligatory family picture under the Hard Rock Shanghai sign

Knox ordered what he almost always orders at a Hard Rock - the hot dog and chocolate milk.  The server looked confused, so we asked if they had chocolate milk.  He said he would check, and disappeared for a few minutes.  Upon return, he announced that indeed there was chocolate milk listed in their computer system and that he would ask the kitchen to make it.  (Evidently, no one ever actually orders it, but it's part of the standardized HRC menu.)  He came out a few minutes later with a mug of hot, white milk for Knox.  Poor Knox looked helplessly at us and then took the mug with  a weak smile.  How could he not when the server looked so proud of himself? In the past we've encountered several places in the world where chocolate milk is unheard of, so, bless his heart, Knox drank it all like a champ.

Knox with his hot dog and warm, white milk

Feeling refreshed and full, we headed out to walk to The Bund, a riverfront walkway with a beautiful view of the city's lights.  It was about 9:35, and unfortunately for us, the lights only stay on from 6:00-10:00 nightly in order to conserve energy.  We hoofed it from the Hard Rock dragging poor Knox by the arm, darting between bicyclists, and dodging other tourists who apparently were unaware of and unfazed by our race against the clock.  We anxiously waited at crosswalks and even took to walking in the relatively-empty street to try to get to our destination before the witching hour.

At 9:55, we could see the lights of Shanghai ahead of us.  I considered stopping to snap a quick picture and decided I'd gamble on getting closer before the stroke of 10:00.  At 9:58, we realized that a major thoroughfare lay between us and the riverside walkway.  And, of course, the walk sign was red.  We weren't going to make it.   So I took out my phone and snapped the picture below as we waited for the walk sign to give us the green light to cross.

The light changed, and as we were halfway across the street, the chime of a clock ominously struck 10:00.  One by one, the lights of the Oriental Pearl (the tower below with the three glowing orbs) began to flicker and fade.  By the time we reached the other side, they were gone.

The Bund, the Oriental Pearl, and the light that kept us from making it across by 10:00

  We walked along the walk anyway, enjoying the lights that remained aglow and taking pictures just like hordes of other tourists.  The Citi building was still lit, so we got a picture of its famous "I Heart S H" before deciding to head back to the hotel.

                   

We retraced our steps to the  Metro station and hopped on the train.  We had to change trains to get back to Disney, so we found ourselves hoofing it again (this time I was the pokey one) to try to make the last train of the night.  We hurried through the corridors of the station and finally descended the escalator to the platform as we saw the doors close and the last train of the night begin to pull away.   We were still 40 kilometers from our hotel.

We took a moment to moan about our situation and then rode the escalator back up to street level.  We exited the station hoping to find a bank of taxis waiting for poor unfortunate souls just like us.  No such luck.  So we walked to the curb to try to hail the next passing cab.  As one approached, we gestured wildly while wondering, "How does one even hail a cab in China?  Should I bow politely?  Is arm-waving considered rude here?  Who knows?"   And then I remembered that I hadn't brought the piece of paper with the hotel address and name in Mandarin.  What were the odds that this random cab driver in Shanghai at 11:00 at night would speak English??

The cab slowed down and pulled over, looking at us and our blonde children curiously.  But his curiosity evidently wasn't enough to make him decide to drive us because as soon as we started jabbering excitedly in English, he waved his hand in annoyance and drove off.

You'd think that a city the size of Shanghai would have gobs of cabs circling the train stations at night, waiting to pick up commuters who missed the last train.  But you'd be wrong.  We stood there for what was probably just 10 more minutes but seemed like forever until another cabby pulled over and agreed to take us.  And, saints be praised, he even turned on the meter.  Bless him.  Though by this point I was willing to pay whatever he wanted to get back to Disney,

In the end, the 40 kilometer drive only cost us about US$45, a steal considering our desperation.  We made it back to our hotel safely, and collapsed into bed, anxious to get some sleep before our first day in the park.

In my next post, I'll tell you ten things to love about Shanghai Disney!                        

It Was Cheap, And It Was Chinese: Our Experience Flying Hainan Airlines

When we booked our Spring Break trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong Disneyland Parks, we chose Hainan Airlines almost entirely because of price.  We had read online reviews of China Southern Airlines that were less than favorable, but the ones of Hainan were pretty good.  We were willing to take a chance in order to be able to afford an exotic Spring Break, but would the flight be pleasant in addition to being affordable?  Would there be any movies in English?  Would the English movies be ones I wanted to see?  How would the food be?  Would the flight attendants be able to speak and understand English? 

We needn’t have worried.  As soon as we boarded, Hainan set themselves apart with the most entertaining safety video since Delta's safety video with the Finger-wagging flight attendant.  I have never seen bikini-clad actresses in a safety video before, but I counted no fewer than seven of them in this one.  I was both stunned and completely entranced with the absurdity of it.

The movie and TV selections exceeded my expectations.  I watched a British movie called The Bank Job  and Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine with Cate Blanchett.  I started The Hurt Locker but quickly decided that my already-frazzled nerves couldn't handle the suspense and then watched something else that was apparently entertaining but was also forgettable.  Josh watched a season of Elementary, and the kids watched family-friendly options.

Upon boarding we were given an amenity kit with a toothbrush, toothpaste, socks, headphones, and an eye mask along with a menu of food options.  Each of the two meals served had both Asian and western options, and we all found things that we were actually looking forward to eating.

Knox's child's meal included pasta and some yummy junk food.

My meal of teriyaki beef was fine, not delicious but also not tasteless.

Note: We always ask for a child’s meal for Knox when we fly internationally because they serve the special request meals first.  He’s a super slow eater anyway, so getting his food early helps him have more time to sleep after meal service.  But if you want to get your meal early on pretty much any airline, even adults can call or get online a few days ahead to make special meal requests.  Airlines differ in their offerings, but most offer vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and allergy-free options.  Of course, you don't have to prove that you're a vegetarian or anything, so you can request a vegetarian meal with the sole purpose of getting your food earlier than everybody else.  

There are also some really unusual special request meal options on some airlines.  One is called Jain.  It’s kind of vegan plus no root vegetables, with the idea that you don’t eat anything that kills the plant when you eat it.  Pulling a root would kill the plant, so no carrots, potatoes, onions, etc.  Anyway, you can ask for that on some airlines, though why you’d ever want to subject yourself to that is beyond me. Other unusual options are carb-free, low-sodium, diabetic, Muslim (no pork and all meats are Halal), Kosher, Asian vegetarian, or Hindu vegetarian (which actually sounds spicy and kind of delicious).

Speaking of food, Hainan put out snacks in the galley in the back of the plane that guests could go and grab whenever they got hungry (or bored).  There were sandwiches, Oreos, chips, pretzels, coffee, a selection of teas, and soft drinks.   Can you imagine an American carrier doing this in economy class?  They don't even always give you the full can of Coke, so I doubt they'd put out a buffet of free snacks for passengers to graze on for 13 hours.

Josh helps himself to some snacks during the flight.

The crew replenished the snack baskets frequently during the flight.

The thing that impressed me most happened repeatedly on both the flight to Shanghai and the flight home.  Recently, I have begun drinking warm water as my drink of choice.  It's calorie-free and keeps my hands warm as I hold the cup.  Each time drink service came by, I asked for warm water.  The flight attendants on both flights remembered my request for hours and brought me cups of warm water without my reminding them.  As far as I could tell, they never wrote down my seat number or anything, but they still remembered.

Overall the staff was kind and helpful (though it bewildered them when I was taking pictures of the snacks in the galley), and their English was what I'd call good enough.  It wasn't fluent by any stretch, but it was good enough.  My biggest critique is that the English announcements were difficult to understand.  It was almost as if they chose the flight attendant with the most seniority to make the announcements instead of the flight attendant with the best English pronunciation.

The verdict?  I would definitely fly Hainan again, and their service far exceeds what you'd expect for such an affordable price.  Here how I'd break it down.

Service A
Price A
English B-
Food B+
Entertainment A
Aircraft A+
Leg Room in Economy B+
Safety Video A+
Flight Attendants' Uniforms A- (I can't help it.  I'm a sucker for a well-accessorized flight attendant uniform.  I'm sure they're terribly impractical and uncomfortable, but I've found that the quality of an airline's service is directly proportional to the style and impracticality of the flight attendants' uniforms.)

Thirteen hours after leaving Seattle, we arrived in Shanghai, more well-rested than we expected to be (thanks to those empty seats on our flight that I mentioned in my last post) and ready to face the immigration officers that were the last hurdle in our visa exemption plan.  And it was a good thing we were rested up because immigration in Shanghai was not a cakewalk.  My next post will tell that story plus fill you in on the Toy Story Hotel!

Here's a little Toy Story Hotel Preview!

Chicago to Shanghai via Seattle

After frantically changing our travel plans hours before our trip was to begin, we quickly packed and hopped in the car headed to O'Hare a day earlier than we'd planned.  Once we were within an hour of the airport, I decided to look online for a place to park our car for eight days.  And lo and behold, we found we had made yet another travel mistake.  Evidently, unlike the airports in Indy, parking at O'Hare takes more than an hour's preplanning.

As I Googled "long-term parking O'Hare," I quickly realized that spaces are limited and fill up quickly.  In fact the only parking space (I don't mean parking lot; I really mean parking space) available anywhere near O'Hare for the eight days we'd be gone was $160 at a place called WallyPark.  I don't know if O'Hare parking is always like this or if it was because it was Spring Break, but the only other option started at $430 and wasn't close to the airport.  I had to use a website called SpotHero to reserve the one available space which was also a new experience for me.  Lesson learned.  Book your O'Hare long-term parking days in advance.

We got to the airport with some time to spare and noticed a cool looking eatery on our way to the gate.  When I read the name on the sign, I realized that this was an airport location of a Chicago restaurant I had pinned on "My Chicago 'Must Go' List" pinboard on Pinterest!  It was called The Publican, and we had just enough time to pop in for a snack.

We ordered pork rinds, French fries with a delicious aioli, and toasted bread with some sort of spread.  Though not as good as the Purple Pig, it was a nice way to start our week of vacation eating.

                               

From there it was on to Seattle via American Airlines.  Josh and I had used frequent flyer miles for our two tickets, but we had paid for the kids'.  Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't love domestic airline carriers (because they don't pamper you or treat you very well) and that I love domestic flights even less.  Give me a 13-hour flight on an Asian carrier over a 2-hour flight on an American one any day and twice on Sunday.  But, fortunately, I was exhausted, so the flight to Seattle went by quickly as I slept.

Here was my impression of Seattle from my one-night stay.  I've never seen as much athleisure wear on people in my whole life.  The entire airport was populated with people of all ages who must all possess frequent buyer cards at The North Face, Columbia Sportswear, and REI. I mean, seriously.  Whether the people were 4 or 94, they must have thought that their trip to the airport was going to require some serious trekking and mountain climbing in unpredictable weather.  I tried not to stare, but, you know, I was tired.  And I kept thinking, "My friends Patrick and Heather Ward would love it here."

We found the hotel shuttle and made our way to the Marriott for the night.  The next morning, we shuttled to the airport and went to the Hainan Airlines counter to check in.  It's a really good thing that we changed our tickets, because no fewer than three different agents went over our itinerary with a fine-toothed comb to be sure it met the criteria for the 144 hour visa exemption.  After watching a lengthy discussion in a language we don't speak that included the use of a calculator (to calculate the hours we'd be in Shanghai and make sure then number was less than 144?) and the consultation of a supervisor, we got the nod of approval.  We were good to go!

As we boarded, we began to realize that this flight wasn’t going to be anywhere close to full.  As it turned out, the 787 Dreamliner was less than half full, meaning that Kinley was assigned a middle row of three seats all to herself!  Josh, Knox, and I were to her right in a row together, but I later moved to another empty row to stretch out and sleep.  There were MANY empty rows, so several other passengers had the same idea. 

I think the last time I was on an international flight that was this empty was a 1993 British Airways flight from Harare, Zimbabwe, to London.  Airlines today, especially American ones, oversell flights, so a string of empty seats is rare.  And international flights with multiple rows of empty seats are like unicorns in my experience.  Ok, maybe not unicorns.  But at least a giant panda in the wild.

(See what I did there?  Pandas are Chinese.  And we were on a Chinese airline on our way to China.  Yeah, I get kind of proud of myself sometimes.  Clearly, I'm still jet-lagged.   Cut me some slack.)

I’ll admit that I was a little bit worried about flying a Chinese airline.  Would there be any movies in English?  Would the English movies be ones I wanted to see?  How would the food be?  Would the flight attendants be able to speak and understand English?  To find out the answers to those questions, you'll have to read my next post!

My Traveling Shoes Are Sheepskin-lined Flats

Alternative titles for this post that I considered:
Our Bargain Spring Break Is No Longer A Bargain
Always Read the Fine Print
Even Travel Bloggers Make Travel Mistakes Sometimes
Well, Maybe We Should Have Gone to Florida After All

My choice of shoes for this trip

I confess.  I couldn’t bring myself to travel in heels for this trip.  I was just too tired.  What was supposed to have been a relaxing weekend preparing for our Spring Break trip to China ended up being a stressful and mostly-sleepless 37 hours for Josh and me, so I decided to don my UGG zebra-striped sheepskin flats.  The good news is that we didn’t have to cancel.  The bad news is that our trip ended up being a more expensive option than it would have been to fly to Florida and take a Caribbean cruise (which was our original plan before we booked this trip.) 

What happened?  Well, even though we had read on several travel blogs that we could use the visa exemption plan to avoid the time and expense of getting real Chinese visas, Josh had a funny feeling about the whole thing.  On Friday night before our trip was to begin on Sunday, he did some more digging on the internet, and at 1:00 am on Saturday we realized that our flight plan DID NOT qualify for the 144 hour visa exemption plan in Shanghai.  Since we don't have Chinese visas (and at this point, even if we had been willing to shell out the extra $560 to buy them the consulate was closed for the weekend), qualifying for the visa exemption was the only way we could enter China.

At first, we toyed with the idea of sticking with our plan and hoping for the best, but then we realized we’d have to hope for no fewer than three different checkpoint agents to bend the rules and let us through.  That didn’t seem likely.  So at 1:00 am, Josh used Skype to call Shanghai immigration.  He managed to get an English-speaking officer who confirmed his suspicion that because our flight stopped in Beijing to change planes before going on to Shanghai, we did not qualify.  Evidently, you only qualify if your first stop in China is Shanghai, even if all you’re doing in another Chinese city is changing planes.  So at that point, we had a choice to make.  Did we cut our losses and cancel everything or did we try to change our flight to go straight to Shanghai?  

Josh uses Skype to call Shanghai.

                           

Josh was leaning toward forgetting the whole thing and staying home, but our park tickets and hotel stays at both Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland were prepaid.  I was in favor of at least attempting to change our flight, and then Josh remembered an email we had gotten from Hainan Airlines a couple of weeks earlier.  The airline had slightly changed our flight times (by a mere 10 minutes), and the email said that because of the inconvenience we could ask for a full refund.  That would take care of the cost of the plane tickets, but we’d still be out the Disney tickets, hotel stays, and the cost of a prepaid character dinner in the Shanghai Disneyland castle.

Before we gave up, I suggested that Josh call the airline and convince the airline to change our flight instead, by kind of implying that the time change was a major inconvenience for us.  We wouldn’t outright lie, but we would try to use the situation to our own advantage. 

At this point, you need to know that my husband is kind of an airline/air travel/airport nerd.  He completely geeks out over learning which airports are hubs for which airlines, which kinds of planes each airline flies, which routes are owned by which airlines, and other geeky stuff like that.  When he’s bored in meetings, he makes lists of things like “Types of Aircraft I’ve Flown” and “Airports I’ve Flown Through” to keep himself awake.  The lists are lengthy.  It makes him a useful travel companion.

So it didn’t surprise me that he had already found a Hainan flight that went directly from the US to Shanghai with no stops.  It left from Seattle on Sunday at noon, but the only cheap(ish) one-way flight to Seattle from Chicago (where our return flight would deposit us) left on Saturday at 5:50 pm.  Factoring in a three hour drive to the airport plus parking plus allowing time before the flight, we’d have to back up our plans by almost a full day to make that happen.  But it was better than cancelling altogether.

At about 1:15 am Saturday, Josh called Hainan and got an English-speaking agent who told us that he would look into the possibility of changing the flight without additional charges and let us know.  We were like, “Let us know?  What does that mean?  If we’re going to change our flights altogether, that means we’ll need to leave for Chicago in 11 hours.  We’re not even packed because we weren’t planning to leave until Sunday!  We have to know ASAP.”  He told us he would “expedite the request” and call us back soon.  It was 1:30 am.  We decided to try to sleep.

At 3:08 am we were jolted awake by the ringing phone.  Unfortunately, Hainan could not honor our request to change the ticket.  Sticking with our original itinerary (which, of course, wouldn’t get us through Chinese immigration) or cancelling were the only things they could offer us.

But then Josh had a brainstorm.  What if we took the cancellation and refund offer and then just rebooked a brand new ticket from Seattle to Shanghai to Hong Kong to Chicago?  The tickets were clearly available for the same cheap price on the Hainan website, and we’d only be out the extra cost of a ticket for each of us to Seattle.  And, it turned out that Josh and I each had enough frequent flier miles to cover our tickets meaning we’d only have to pay for the kids’ one way tickets to Seattle.   

We told the agent our new plan, and she got to work while we waited on hold.  For two solid hours.  You read that right.  Two hours.  I’ll spare you all of the details because our problems weren’t solved yet.

At about 5:00 am, we were ready to purchase our new tickets over the phone with the agent.  Josh gave our credit card number, and then the agent said, “Wait.  This is an American credit card?  There is a 48 hour waiting period if you book with anything except a Chinese credit card.”

“What?  But we don’t have a Chinese credit card.”

“Well, I can hold these tickets for you until 11:00 am if you can appear at the Hainan counter and pay in person.”

“Where is the nearest Hainan counter?”

“Seattle.”

“But that’s 4000 kilometers away from us!  It’s not possible!”

“I’m very sorry.  Let me try to get approval for the American credit card.  I will need to put you on hold.”

So there we sat. On hold.  For another hour. Josh took a little nap, and I started packing in case things ended up working out.  The agent would periodically check in with us to make sure we were still waiting and to tell us that she was pushing the payment department to accept our card. 

Josh takes a nap while on hold with Hainan Airlines.  You can see that the clock reads 5:53 am.

When the agent finally came back with an answer, she told us that there was nothing she could do about the credit card issue to buy a new ticket.  But she had convinced the payment department to take our card if we only changed the tickets rather than cancelling and rebooking.  The plus side was that this would allow us to take our trip.  The down side was that the change fees plus the one-way tickets to Seattle more than doubled the original price of the tickets.

Josh and I sleepily stared at each other. What should we do?  Was it really worth it if the trip was no longer a cheap price? Would we regret cancelling more than we’d regret spending the extra money?  After several minutes of flip-flopping back and forth, we decided to bite the bullet.  At 6:38 am, we hung up the phone with our new reservations.  We had been on the phone for three and a half hours and had slept only from 1:30-3:08.

We calculated how long we needed to pack, shower, drive, and park, and decided we could afford one more hour of sleep.  But there was no way I was going to be traveling in high heels after this sleepless night.  Sheepskin-lined flats would have to do, blog or no blog.  You'll forgive me for that, right?                    

Planning for Shanghai Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland

For those of you who aren't Disney fans and can't remember which park is Orlando and which one is in Anaheim, I'm assuming you might not know that there are actually twelve Disney parks on the planet.  There are four in Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort (The Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and Animal Kingdom), two in Anaheim at Disneyland Resort (Disneyland Park and Disney's California Adventure), two in Paris (Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park), two in Tokyo (Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea), one in Hong Kong (Hong Kong Disneyland), and the newest one in Shanghai (Shanghai Disneyland).

(For my tips on visiting Disneyland Paris, click here.)

Until the new Shanghai park opened in June of 2016, Josh and I had been to every Disney park that existed.  We love Disney, and we really love exploring the differences in the international parks.  Often, we visit international Disney parks after we've been out of the country for a long stretch of time and are longing for a little bit of home.  Our first international Disney park visit was to Tokyo Disneyland in 1997.  Josh and I had been on a mission trip teaching English with Let's Start Talking for six weeks, and a little bit of Americana sounded like the perfect antidote to culture fatigue.

After similar missions in Thailand, we visited Tokyo DisneySea in 2002 and Hong Kong Disneyland in 2008, and we visited the parks in Paris for the first time while we were living in Italy for a semester in 2007.  Kinley has been to all the parks except Tokyo Disneyland, but Knox hasn't been to either of the Tokyo parks.  (I know, I know.  Cry me a river, right?)

Josh and I knew that we wanted to go to the new Shanghai park, but we didn't have a plan or a timeline for how or when we'd get there. So when the opportunity unexpectedly arose (as I posted in my last post), we were 100% on board.  So were the kids, of course.

As we have been planning our trip, a few resources have been exceptionally valuable.  At first, all we could find were videos that pointed out some shocking cultural differences in Shanghai.  (If you don't have the desire or the patience to watch the whole 3 minute video, you can start at 2:46 for what I think is the most, ...ummm...., culturally different part.)

Things were apparently so bad in the soft open period leading up to opening day that the Shanghai municipal government issued an etiquette guide reminding people not to do things like "lie on the ground" when visiting the park.

After some digging, we found this video that helped us feel less hesitant about our trip.

And then I found a podcast called Disney Dream Girls.  Podcasts numbers 141 and 144 were all about Shanghai Disneyland, and the couple interviewed on the pod had just been there in late December of 2016.  Both podcasts were incredibly valuable for helping us plan out our two short days in Shanghai.  

Another helpful website was the Disboards website .  This is basically a Disney discussion board that tends to focus on US parks, but it has an "Other Lands" section as well.  This was the same site we used when we found out that booking a Paris Disneyland trip through an Irish company was cheaper than booking the same trip through a British or French company.  There are all kinds of little tips and answers to questions on there.  And while there isn't a dedicated page for Shanghai, trolling the Other Lands page yielded a lot of good info for us.  And if you like numbers and facts, this article is pretty cool.

When we go, we are most interested in the attractions at both Shanghai and Hong Kong Disneyland that aren't in the US parks as well as the attractions that are in US parks that have been added since our last trip in 2012.   Now, we'll ride everything we can ride and experience everything we can squeeze in, but here are our must-do lists for both parks.

Shanghai
TRON Lightcycle Power Run
Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure
Voyage to the Crystal Grotto
Jet Packs
Camp Discovery
Hunny Pot Spin
Soarin' Over the Horizon (We haven't been on it since the ride changed from its California theme.)
Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (We haven't been to WDW since this opened.)
Hong Kong
Hyperspace Mountain (Star Wars + Space Mountain = AWESOME)
Iron Man Experience
Mystic Manor (This is NOT a version of Haunted Mansion, I'm told.)

At Shanghai Disneyland we'll be staying at the Toy Story Hotel, and at Hong Kong Disneyland we'll be staying at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel.  At Hong Kong we usually stay at Disney's Hollywood Hotel because it's less expensive, but with the short length of our stay and the deal we got on the flights, we decided to go big. We've never stayed at the Grand Floridian or the Disneyland Hotel at any of the parks, so we're super pumped.

It's going to be a quick trip - not even a full week - but it's going to be great!  Another Boyd-style adventure!

What to Do When Flights to Florida Are More Expensive Than Flights to China

If that ever happens to you, YOU GO TO CHINA!!!!!!!!  I'm so excited that I can hardly type!  Our family is taking a pretty-much-spur-of-the-moment spring break trip to both Disney parks in China! We're first going to the newly-opened Shanghai Disneyland, and then we're taking our third trip to Hong Kong Disneyland!

In front of Hong Kong Disneyland on our first visit in 2008

And again in 2010

How in the world did this come about?  Well, in the middle of February, we decided we should start thinking about how to spend our spring break, and we first looked into cruises out of Fort Lauderdale.  For about $2700, we could do a seven-day cruise on our favorite cruise line, Holland America, including all of our meals.  Unfortunately, we'd have to drive 18 hours each way since plane tickets from Indianapolis were about $600 each.

Now, at the time, Josh happened to be in serious research-avoidance mode.  That meant he didn't want to do research related to his job, but he was THRILLED to have an excuse to do research related to anything else.  He went to a website called Skyscanner which has a super cool feature that enables you to put in your city of departure and then put in "Everywhere" in the destination box.  It will give you every single flight to every single country that is available for your dates.  You click on a country, and the flights are listed cheapest to most expensive.

Josh did this on a lark, and there they were.  Round-trip tickets to Shanghai from Chicago for $495.  Yep.  You read that right.  $495.  Round-trip.  We could fly to China cheaper than we could fly to Fort Lauderdale.

So that's exactly what we're doing!!  Now, to be fair, we're not actually paying $495.  In order to buy that fare, we'd also need to shell out $560 for Chinese visas (the stamps that say you're legally entering the country, not the credit cards).  But we did some research and learned about a special visa just for visits to Shanghai that last no more than 144 hours, and it's FREE.  The catch is that you have to stop over in another country on your way home.  Now, I know what you're thinking.  Hong Kong isn't another country,  It's China.  But China doesn't see it that way (and neither, frankly, do the people of Hong Kong).  Hong Kong is what's known as a Special Administrative Region or SAR.  And as such, it counts as another country for the purposes of our free visas!

Of course, altering the base ticket meant that we had to buy a more expensive ticket (about $680 per person) that had a stopover in Hong Kong on the way home.  And since we were going to be there, we decided we might as well go to Hong Kong Disneyland as well!

To prepare for our adventure, we've been doing lots of online research.  Shanghai Disneyland just opened in June of 2016, and many of the posts we found about it dealt with the first few days the park was open.  Naturally, there were long lines, gobs of people, and several snafus.  But with enough digging, we found other posts that dealt with more recent visits.  Those unanimously praised the park and have been very helpful.  In my next post, I'll write about some of the sources we've used and what we plan to do while we're gone!

Six Reasons to Love Brazilian Beach Life

As I mentioned in my Rock/Stinks: Brazil Edition post, the beaches here are one of my favorite things about this beautiful South American country.  Since we're here doing mission work, we don't actually get to spend that many days at the beach.  Our days begin at 9:00 am with our team devotional time, and we have one-on-one sessions practicing English conversation skills with local people until 8:00 at night.  So when we do have days off, we make the most of them by enjoying some beach time.

The town where we're staying is called Natal, which means Christmas in Portuguese.  It's named this because it was founded by the Portuguese on Decemeber 25, 1599, and it is a popular tourist destination for southern Brazilians during their winter (which is, of course, North American summer).

And while it may seem like a beach in Brazil is not that different from a beach anywhere else, there are some things here that are particularly enjoyable to me.  You will, no doubt, notice that several of these things involve eating.  But I'm not ashamed. I'm also not the type of girl who skips a meal, so beach food suits me just fine.  In fact, about the only thing that can make me tear myself away from whatever book I happen to be reading at the time is the sight of a Brazilian beach food cart being lazily pushed along in the sand in front of my umbrella-shaded lounge chair. And I'm not above being that crazy American lady chasing the crepe cart down the beach, waving her arms madly and shouting in a bizarre combination of English and Portuguese.  You'd chase it, too, if you tasted one.  I promise.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Reason number one is beach cheese.  Yep, you read that right.  Beach cheese.  I don't actually know what they do to this stuff, but whatever it is, it's delicious.  It's like little skewers of yumminess.  The char-grilled cheese gets warm and kind of crusty on the outside, but somehow it doesn't melt.  It reminds me a little of that Greek cheese you can flambe, but it's not quite the same.

Grilled cheese cubes, straight from the grill cart, is a treat!

                                                                                       The char-grilling creates a delicious crust on the cheese.

Skewered, grilled cheese (left) is an even bigger treat when accompanied by grilled garlic bread!

Reason number two to love Brazilian beaches is what we affectionately call Beach Crack.  I think the actual name is Bala do Coco, but it's so addictive that we call it Beach Crack.  Ladies who make it walk along the beach selling little bags of the candies which taste kind of like a non-sticky coconut divinity. Or if you're familiar with Kentucky pulled cream candy, it tastes like that but coconutty.  (I just made that word up.)  You can also buy it in chocolate-coconut flavor, but the plain coconut is the best, IMHO.  You can buy three little baggies on the beach for R$ 10 (which is about $3), so we stock up.  And in case I ever decide to try to make it at home, I got a reader of mine to translate a recipe from Portuguese.  It's included at the bottom of this post.  (Thanks to my friend Sarah Cavalcanti Josua for translating it from Portuguese!)

Bite-sized pieces of bala do coco

A lady selling bala do coco on the beach

Reason number three is the crepe cart. People, Nutella+bananas+fresh crepes made right in front of you on the beach = Heaven.  How is this not a thing in the US?  Because it totally should be.

 

Reason number four is fresh grilled fish right on the beach.  Like, without moving from your lounge chair.  It's so delicious.  (Can you see a theme here?  I guess all I really do on Brazilian beaches is eat.)  On beaches here, you can use lounge chairs and umbrellas for free as long as you order food and drinks from the owner, so we pick a spot to plant ourselves on the beach based on the menu.  My favorite fish to order is called dorado.  I'm told that this translates to mahi-mahi, but it doesn't taste like it to me.  It's much steakier.  (I'm just making up all kinds of words today.)  Anyway, it's a great way to take a break from all that lounging and reading and bala do coco eating.

 

Reason number five is the availability of relatively cheap one-on-one surf lessons.  You can certainly take surf lessons in the US, but a 2-hour private lesson in Hawaii will set you back about $150.  Compare that to about $35 for an hour-long one-on-one lesson here, and you've found yourself a bargain.  Kinley took a lesson when we were here in 2014, and she took two lessons this year.  The instructors don't speak much English, but they're still able to get the basics across.  The lesson starts on the sand to help the student learn how to balance, and then it's time to try out your new skills in the water.  Kinley was able to catch some waves all three times she took lessons, but doing it on her own after the lesson was a different story.  During the lesson, the instructor would paddle her out past the breakers so that she could surf back in.  But when you're on your own and paddling for yourself, you expend so much energy getting yourself out beyond the breakers that you don't have any energy left to surf back in.  It's a service that's worth every penny.  Knox preferred to spend his time boogie boarding both years which was also a cheap way to enjoy the waves.

Pictures from 2014

         

Pictures from 2016

      

Reason number six is the lack of body self-consciousness or body shaming.  Some Americans may find this plethora of unabashedly-exposed bums and boobs off-putting, but in Brazil, the people I observed on the beach weren't afraid to wear whatever bathing suit they liked.  No matter the size or age of the person, the bikini was teeny.  Just being around people who were so comfortable in their own skin was liberating enough that I even considered buying a bikini for myself.  And let me tell, you, if you're in the market for a new swimsuit, there's no better selection than in Brazil.  These people are serious about swimsuit options.

                   

 Consider this beauty that I saw in Rio.  Where but Brazil would you find an emerald-encrusted swimsuit?  But my favorite swimsuit shop in Brazil is much more affordable, if only slightly more practical.  It's called Agua de Coco, and I'm obsessed.  I didn't buy a bikini, but I did treat myself to a dress and a one-piece swimsuit.  Unfortunately, I can't seem to shake my own American self-consciousness about my 45-year-old tummy and thighs long enough to shell out the cash for a Brazilian two-piece.  

But that's ok.  I'll just keep sitting under an umbrella with a book and a skewer of grilled cheese, enjoying the view while waiting for the next crepe cart to stroll by.  And I'm good with that.

Recipe for Bala do Coco (aka Beach Crack)

200 mL coconut milk

200 mL water

1 kilo sugar  (Yes, really. 2.2 pounds of sugar.)

Use an aluminum pan, and also prepare a marble slab for later.  It should be cold and could be covered with waxed paper.  Combine the ingredients in the pot off the stove.  Mix thoroughly.  Scrape the sides of the pot well.  Put it on the heat and don't mix it.  It will grow and then reduce in size.  When it bubbles, turn down the heat.  It will turn yellow.  Test it with a spoon.  Put a bit in a cup with water, and swirl the cup.  It should string.  Try to break it like glass. If not, it's not ready.  Butter the marble.  Pour the mixture onto the marble.  It should harden.  When it is able to be handled, you need to pull it until it's white.  Then you can cut it into pieces.  It should soften after you cover it in a container.  Good 5 days on the counter, 1 month in the refrigerator, or 1 year in the freezer.