A (2019) HalloXmas trip to Asia - Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo! - COMPLETED 5/1!!!

[Lesley Wake]

Now for something I was really looking forward to – Disney Dim Sum!

I loved the decoration in the Crystal Lotus restaurant, including the screen koi pond!

So, Hong Kong is known for its dim sum offerings, and of course Disney had to get involved in it! You can book this about 1 month in advance and you have to preorder the dishes (so they know how many to make). Officially its only for parties of 2 or more, but I knew I wanted to do it no matter what. I did hope to have another guest, the friend of Moana I mentioned who had recently transferred to HKDL, but unfortunately they scheduled a rehearsal at that time, so I was still solo. The waitresses actually asked if I still wanted everything – um, hell yes!

Then even have the cutest elegant toothpick display dish

I pretty much got one of everything! (And the waitresses know how to present it so you can really see it all!)

To start, Star Wars Baked Egg Custard Puff. A lovely slightly sweet starter!

Because it was Halloween, they had a special dish, Jack’s Party. Jack Shrimp Dumpling, Crabmeat Scallop Puff, Mummy Vegetable Bun. The puff was probably my least favorite item, though I still liked it for the most part; I’m just not a scallop person!

Baymax Bun – I think it had red bean filling?

Three Little Pigs BBQ Pork Bun. I already had tried these the morning before, but still yummy!

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[Lesley Wake]

Little Green Men Pork and Vegetable Bun. So cute and yummy!

Golden Minnie Shrimp Dumpling. Nice and Shiny!

Mike Bun with minced chicken and shrimp. I think this was a newer option!

Duffy and Shellie May Steamed Sweet Bun. Duffy was Red-Bean paste filling and Shellie Mae was green tea. I finally verified I would like red bean paste before heading to Asia (we have a lot of Chinese food options in our area), though I’m not a green tea fan. So I mostly ate portions of the Shellie Mae bao, not the filling!

I had to cover Shellie Mae while I ate her boyfriend though!

Obviously this was a lot of food! I had some parties sitting at tables near me that had more people but ordered less food – I probably didn’t do well for the American reputation of gluttony!

There actually were a few items I didn’t order due to my picky tastes.
-Mickey’s Double Layer Turnip and Taro Pudding
-Mickey’s Seafood Glutinous Pancake w/hot sauce
-Mickey’s Chilled Mango Pudding with fresh fruit
-Tsum Tsum chilled pudding (green tea, strawberry and coconut flavored)
-Star Wars Chilled Pudding (sesame and coconut flavored)
-Twin Fish Dumplings in Lotus Pond (I actually probably would have considered this but it also is the most expensive one and I knew I was already getting so much food)
-Chicken Little Steamed Longevity Lotus Seed Puree Birthday Bun

Here are some photos of these items from other sources (https://www.disneytouristblog.com/crystal-lotus-review/ https://seoulsearching.net/2018/03/15/crystal-lotus-disney-dim-sum-2018/)

Overall I really loved this meal! A lot of reviews say it is overpriced and not that good, but I disagree. I will admit the buns are more bao than filling, but I actually am weird and like it that way. And I am used to SoCal/Disney food prices, so was willing to spend more money for a unique experience! I definitely recommend making a stop there!

Anyways, at the end of the meal I knew I couldn’t eat it all. Thankfully they let me box up the leftovers, which I ended up snacking on for dinner!

Coming up - Travel to Japan, including a horrible travel mistake!​

 

[KEK1]

Love your wrap up of HKDL, looks like a fab trip!
Did you Have any issues landing in SH or HK and finding your way in/out if the airport?

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

The food looks yummy and is almost too cute to eat!!!!

I heard HKDL might be opening soon... Hope they do!!!

And hopefully DL is next on the opening list!!!

How's the fires behind your house??? Are they getting any better or still under evacuation warnings???

 

[GDubDIS]

That hotel is gorgeous, and the walk must have been so nice even though it sounds like it was a hot day. The dim sum is SO cute wow. I feel like if they opened a dim sum place like that in California or Florida it could actually do really well!

 

[vamassey1]

I left my bags at luggage storage, which was so cutely themed!

I have never seen such a perfectly themed luggage area.

I also loved the Explorer’s Lodge themed merchandise!

Me too!

And the Disneyland Hotel. Look familiar to a certain place in Florida?

Very much so! It's amazing how familiar it looks.

I loved the paintings in the hallways – it made it seem like HKDL was truly from Victorian times!

These are nice.

[/QUOTE]

Great photo of you. That food is almost too cute to eat.

Anyways, at the end of the meal I knew I couldn’t eat it all. Thankfully they let me box up the leftovers, which I ended up snacking on for dinner!

I love getting two meals out of one.

 

[missjackiemcg]

This sounds like a lovely low-key morning. I'm not sure I'd be adventurous enough to try all the options, but how stinking cute was everything you ordered!!!!! Baymax and Duffy & Shellie Mae were my absolute favorite ones. The amount of detail that goes into these is incredible; truly a work of art!

 

[PlutosRHM55]

It is giving me very Grand Floridian vibes, which I believe takes a lot from the Victorian era so it makes sense if that's what the Disneyland hotel is going for, they picked a good aesthetic to mimic.

The Dim Sum looks so delicious and so cool. I think it's so adorable that you covered up Shellie Mae while you ate Duffy. Precious. I'm an adventurous eater so I'm totally about the smorgasbord and potentially weird flavors to try so I'm definitely making a note of this even if it sounds out of my potential price range lol

 

[cindianne320]

YUM! What a unique lunch! I'd love that- even though I can't use chopsticks to save my life...

 

[disneyAndi14]

The Dim sum meal looks so cool. Duffy. And Shelly Mae so cute, I love it!! I would have covered her eye as well, haha

 

[DaisyNY]

What an adventure...following along!

 

[missangelalexis]

Omg the food looks so cute! I'm glad it was tasty too! What a fun meal!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Love your wrap up of HKDL, looks like a fab trip!
Did you Have any issues landing in SH or HK and finding your way in/out if the airport?

It was fun!

No getting lost in the airport...just a stupid mistake!

The food looks yummy and is almost too cute to eat!!!!

I heard HKDL might be opening soon... Hope they do!!!

And hopefully DL is next on the opening list!!!

How's the fires behind your house??? Are they getting any better or still under evacuation warnings???

It was super yummy - I just had to accept I would eat cute stuff, lol! I think HKDL just reopened yesterday! The castle looks so nice! I can't wait until Disneyland reopens. It's a weird conflict in me that I know why it's safe to not reopen things, but I do know Disney is pretty responsible, so I'm not as worried about them.

The fire thankfully is fully contained right behind my house. It's still going strong in the desert communities though and there were a lot of evac warnings for places over there. The hills just look so dry and pained right now! (Also worried about this winter and rainstorms leading to mudslides...)

That hotel is gorgeous, and the walk must have been so nice even though it sounds like it was a hot day. The dim sum is SO cute wow. I feel like if they opened a dim sum place like that in California or Florida it could actually do really well!

I could imagine if you like going for runs, it would be a nice route to take!

I would love if they did character dimsum! Or maybe something like once a week brunch at one of the hotel restaurants! I would totally go!

I have never seen such a perfectly themed luggage area.



Me too!

Very much so! It's amazing how familiar it looks.

These are nice.

Great photo of you. That food is almost too cute to eat.
I love getting two meals out of one.

It was funny how familiar the hotel looked! I know people like staying there, but it was more expensive, which is why I stuck to Explorer's Lodge.

This sounds like a lovely low-key morning. I'm not sure I'd be adventurous enough to try all the options, but how stinking cute was everything you ordered!!!!! Baymax and Duffy & Shellie Mae were my absolute favorite ones. The amount of detail that goes into these is incredible; truly a work of art!

I am actually super picky and didn't have issues with any of the dim sum fillings! Nothing spicy or too weird (though I guess I've grown up being around Asian food due to my parents liking it and also the area of LA I live in.

I've heard they now have a class you can sign up for at the Disneyland Hotel where you can learn how to make them! I would totally sign up for that!

It is giving me very Grand Floridian vibes, which I believe takes a lot from the Victorian era so it makes sense if that's what the Disneyland hotel is going for, they picked a good aesthetic to mimic.

The Dim Sum looks so delicious and so cool. I think it's so adorable that you covered up Shellie Mae while you ate Duffy. Precious. I'm an adventurous eater so I'm totally about the smorgasbord and potentially weird flavors to try so I'm definitely making a note of this even if it sounds out of my potential price range lol

Yeah, definitely based on the Grand Floridian!

Well, I didn't want to be rude to poor Shellie Mae, lol!

YUM! What a unique lunch! I'd love that- even though I can't use chopsticks to save my life...

Haha, I'm sure you'd be able to figure it out!

The Dim sum meal looks so cool. Duffy. And Shelly Mae so cute, I love it!! I would have covered her eye as well, haha

haha, glad to know I'm not the only weirdo!

What an adventure...following along!

Thanks!

Omg the food looks so cute! I'm glad it was tasty too! What a fun meal!

It was so much fun!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Part 2 – A horrible travel mistake!

After dim sum I was stuffed! And it was time to head back to pick up my suitcases and head to the airport. They do have a shuttle that connects the various hotels and maybe the train station, but I think it’s a 20-minute round trip and I just missed it. So I ended up walking, just not on the sea wall this time. It was nice to see the entrance to Explorer’s Lodge from a different view!

Bell services helped me quickly catch a cab back to the airport. I was pretty shocked at the amount of phones this driver had!

The entrance to the airport was…interesting. I don’t think you could have missed the news, but Hong Kong was a big hotbed of protests. Basically, HK used to be controlled by the British, which meant they had a certain level of freedom and laws that the rest of China did not. In 1997, based on a previous agreement, the British handed control back to China with the understanding that HK would keep a separate government and policies than the rest of China. That has been eroded over the 20+ years and there was finally one law that would allow China to extradite anyone from HK, including for things that would be illegal in China but legal in HK (such as Anti-Government rhetoric). Of course, this didn’t sit well with lots of people and massive protests started and are continuing as of writing this trip report. I honestly don’t know how it will/could be resolved.

Well about 2.5 months before my trip the protests had expanded and took over the airport for a couple days, causing a shutdown. In order to prevent access by protestors, the police were verifying everyone had a legitimate reason to be at the airport, so were checking itineraries and IDs just to enter the terminal! A bit stressful, though it went smooth enough for me!

I think I was a bit too early for check-in, so had to wait a bit for it to open, which wasn’t a huge issue. After I checked my bags I did check out the HKDL store in the terminal, which I had heard sometimes has good merch items!

After getting turned around a bit, I finally made it thru security/border control and headed over to the business lounge. I was flying ANA, but they don’t have a lounge in HK, so instead I had access to the SilverKris Lounge.

It was a nice enough lounge, though a bit dated in the colors. I believe I got a bit of snacks and ended up finding a nice quiet spot in the back, where I relaxed, and well… nodded off. If you notice, there is one important thing I didn’t do… see if you can guess!


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[Lesley Wake]

I don’t know if any of you guessed, but the important thing I didn’t do was SET AN ALARM! At most of these larger lounges they don’t like to constantly announce flights leaving as it disturbs people inside, so it is up to passengers to keep track of timing. Normally that isn’t a problem for me as I usually am hanging by the terminal. Not this time.

I eventually woke up and as I was getting up I decided to check the time, how long til I should head to the gate. My flight was scheduled to leave Hong Kong at 2:55. And it was… 2:40! WHAT! Holy crap!

I quickly grabbed up all my stuff and ran out of the lounge. Checking the departures board and “FINAL BOARDING” in big red letters! Of course my gate was halfway down the terminal! I pretty much ran/sped walked down the various moving sidewalks, pushing (politely) through anyone. Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave me…

Thankfully on my second to last sidewalk I saw a flight attendant walking down the hallway with a sign with my flight number! Phew! She scanned my boarding pass and I still quickly rushed to my gate. Normally they would be pretty annoyed but I was so flustered and explained I had fallen asleep, so they knew it wasn’t like I was shopping causing the delay!

Wow! I honestly don’t know what would have happened if I had missed this flight. I think ANA had some red-eyes, but I would have needed to get in contact with so many people on the other side (the car pickup service, the hotel, etc) and I wasn’t sure if I had the proper contact methods.

Well, at least I made it on! Though I don’t think my heart went back to normal until halfway through the flight!

For the actual flight itself – nothing super memorable. I know I watched a couple movies (including Godzilla…I thought that was appropriate). The seats weren’t totally lay-flat, but did get pretty far (more than a typical domestic first class in the US). The business cabin was also fairly empty and I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me. I think I ate some sort of chicken, maybe teriyaki? But as I said, I didn’t take many photos as I was still so stressed from almost missing the flight!

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[Lesley Wake]

But anyways, I had arrived in Japan!

Customs and immigration was pretty painless. I think there was a decent line, but it went quickly.

So Tokyo has 2 major airports, Narita and Haneda. Haneda is pretty much in the city, while Narita is about 1.5 hrs away. Obviously Haneda is more convenient in the transport respect, but I was fairly limited and Narita was the option I used.

There are a variety of options to get into the city and to Tokyo Disney Resort, with the most popular one being the Airport Limousine Bus, which drops off at all the major hotels. Unfortunately it stopped running before I would have arrived, which was pretty annoying. Public transport is technically an option, but it would involve transferring trains and with my suitcases I did not want to deal with that! It’s not a cheap travel via taxi (around $150), so instead I booked one of the airport shuttle services, Green Tomato, which was around $60. It was a shared shuttle, so ended up being me, another solo young woman from the UK, and a family of 4.

I ended up being the first stop (though it wasn’t timed quite right as we arrived at the Tokyo Disney Resort right when the parks closed, so traffic was annoying around that loop). It also probably made the kids jealous when they saw Tokyo Disney!

But we arrived at my home for the next 4 nights – the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay!

Some more explanations – there are official Disney hotels at Tokyo, which are very nice, but very expensive! For Tokyo Disneyland Hotel or MiraCosta, we are talking >$600/night! The Tokyo Ambassador Hotel has the potential to be cheaper, but we are still around $400/night. And The Tokyo Celebration Hotel can be much cheaper (~200-300/night) but is about 20 minutes away from the resort. The hotels do have some benefits, including 15 minutes early entry, ability to buy park hoppers, free monorail tickets, etc, but for me, none of those outweighed the cost.

However, there are several other options, which are still on the monorail line and literally across the street from (the backside of) the parks. Of those, most of the guides recommend Westerners to go with the Hilton or the Sheraton. I did look at both of those and was able to get a very good price via Priceline, around $185/night; I could have had a cheaper rate, but I picked an upgraded room. I did initially have a lower price around $120 average, but I modified my dates to include a Saturday night, so the average went up. Hilton was more expensive at about $220 average. So, anyways I ended up at the Sheraton! (Also, these prices are considering you are basically as close as the Contemporary is to Magic Kingdom!)

Checking in there was a longer line, however I think there were a lot of people returning from the park who were doing weekend staycations. I did spy an awesome Captain Jack at the check-in desk!

For my room, I had a Park Wing room. The Park Wing is newer and definitely had some upgraded amenities and a nice style. Though it was a decent walk from the elevators/lobby, so that was annoying with suitcases and carpeted flooring! But overall, I was pretty happy! (The beds weren't twin sized, but also not queen/full sized; somewhere in between.)

This bathroom – it was huge! I mean there was the bathroom, including smart toilet (though to be fair, those were pretty normal to find in Japan). And then the shower/ bath room, which had a shower head and HUGE tub! I guess the Japanese guests like to rinse off and then take a bath?

Gotta have some shoe cleaning tools…

My view – the big hotel is the Hilton, and I could see Tokyo Bay behind it. Though the Park Wing doesn’t have balconies (the main building does).

Anyways, at this point it had been a long day and I just wanted to crash! I ended up eating the rest of my Dim Sum leftovers and then to bed!

Coming up – First day in Japan​

 

[PlutosRHM55]

To begin I have to commend you for being able to sleep in public places because I do not have the ability unless I'm beyond tired. Also, especially at airports, even when I'm there with ample time to do whatever, I'm so afraid to fall asleep and then miss my flight so yours was a cautionary tale here, but thank god you still made it lol

I've been meaning to look more into what was going on in Hong Kong because it was being brought up a lot, but thank you for giving us a run-down. I didn't even realize it had been going on THIS LONG. Shows how in touch I am with the world.

Your little food plate actually looks really good. I'm sorry you were so stressed cause of almost missing the flight, I totally get the feeling though. But you got there safe and sound.

Sheratons always are so much nicer than people give them credit for. Definitely the right choice financially and for how nice it was. So excited to finally hear about your first day in Tokyo!!!!

 

[NancyLuvsMickey]

Glad the fires in your neighborhood are under control... Hopefully you have a mild winter without any mudslides... Seems like if it's not one thing it's another... Mother Nature really needs to get her meds adjusted...

Dang, you were cutting it close catching your plane!!!!

I can't wait to read all about Tokyo Disney!!!!

 

[missjackiemcg]

As soon as I read the words, "I nodded off," I was certain your next update would be about missing your flight!!!!! I'm SO glad you made it though, and didn't have to find out what happens when you miss a flight like this!!

Those are great prices for such a close hotel! I have gotten some pretty good prices on Priceline for trips we've taken, but wouldn't have even thought about it for international travel. That's a great tip!

 

[KEK1]

Oh goodness! Glad you didn't miss the flight!