Family - a day in Disneyland

With the HK weather improving in January, it was time for another trip to Disneyland!


As you can see, Gordon was really eager to get inside.


We were actually quite lucky in that we got there just in time for the afternoon parade. We managed to get some seats by the side of the road and I managed to capture this great picture while we waited for the parade to start.


Of course, the problem with that plan was that little children tend not to have the patience required to sit and wait.


A rare picture where Gordon is looking at the camera.


And here is Gordon defending the Earth from Zurg and his diabolical plot to capture all our energy!

Gordon - in and about

After so many pictures of our holiday in Japan, its time to bring things back down to Earth. The more observant of you will have noticed that there weren't any pictures of Gordon in Japan. This is because we didn't take Gordon with us.

So, as an apology to Gordon, here are some pics of the little tyke at home.


Normally, Gordon doesn't like me touching him. Luckily for me, the nice shiny camera has him distracted.
:)


You have no idea how precious this picture is. I'm holding Gordon and hes actually smiling!!


I get the feeling he is standing there and wondering why the scooter isn't moving.


Thomas the tank engine gets another young male fan.


For some reason, he looks positively vicious in this pic. I'd better remember to stay on his good side...

Gerry in Japan - Tokyo

As you can probably gather from the previous posts, we didn't actually spend much time in Tokyo itself. This was mainly because there were more interesting family activities outside of Tokyo itself. Which isn't to say that there wasn't anything to do in Tokyo or that we didn't spend any time there.

On the last day, we went to a Toy Kingdom where, after paying the entry fee, Gerry was allowed to spend several hours playing with whatever he liked inside the Kingdom. There were a huge variety of different toys which he could choose from. However, he didn't actually get to see most of them as he was captivated by the toy trains right from the start and didn't want to leave after he got started.


Here you can see him pushing his trains around. The trains themselves are battery powered but he preferred to push them manually. Never realised that he was a control freak until now.


To be fair to Gerry, the toy trains were actually the most popular section among boys - which you can see reflected in this picture.


Gerry with the full setup. Other than the elevated ring section, Gerry built the entire thing himself.


And after a hard day of playing, what better to top it off than a snack! Gerry is eating a crepe filled with cream and chocolate (and his mouth doesn't stay that clean for long!).

Gerry in Japan - Mount Fuji

The main reason that we chose to go to Japan with Gerry is because of the Fuji-Q Highland theme park. It sits pretty much at the base of Mt. Fuji and is a pretty big themepark, the main highlight of which (for Gerry at any rate) is the Thomasland mini-theme park inside it.


Here we are at the base of Mt Fuji which, for those of you who aren't aware, is an active volcano.


This is Percy. I wouldn't have known that 3 years ago.


One of the cool things about Thomasland is that it has mini versions of popular adult rides. Here you can see Gerry after a brief plunge down a water coaster!


And here is Gerry on a roller coaster. Its worth mentioning that I am suffering from hat hair and that the ride isn't actually that fast.


The theme park also had a lake which had frozen over. This was Gerry's first time to go ice skating and, despite a couple of falls, he really enjoyed himself.

Gerry in Japan

Some more pics from our recent trip to Japan.

On the second day that we were there, we headed out to a small island with a theme park. I can't remember the name of the place in English but cest la vie!


This is him at the entrance posing with the theme park mascot. This picture is actually proof of how friendly Japanese people are. The customer service lady spotted us taking a picture of Gerry and grabbed the plushie so that he could take a picture with their mascot. How cool is that!


One of the many rides at the theme park there. These rides seem to be quite popular in Japanese theme parks and are kind of like mini dodgem's but without any crashing.


One of the more fun activities at the theme park was this giant needle which you could ride up in. Once it got to the top, it would come slowly down, spinning in a circle, so that you got a pretty good view of the entire island. You can probably imagine how difficult it was to get Gerry to look at the camera instead of looking outside.


And of course, how could any trip to an island be complete without a small boat ride.


The theme parks version of the Mad Hatters Tea Cup - this one themed to the Power Puff Girls (don't ask me how I know that).

Gerry in Japan - Mother Farm

The Meister is back!

At last, my internet connection has been restored to me and I can finally start uploading photos of our "recent" trip to Japan. I say Japan because, although we stayed in Tokyo, we didn't actually spend all that much time there. Most of our time was spent on the road going to various remote locations with activities for kids.


The first place we went to was a farm called Mother Farm. I say farm but the reality is that the place is so clean, it really doesn't feel like a farm. I would say it was cleaner than my own home but I'm afraid of upsetting the maid...


One of the animals at the animal farm. This picture was taken when Gerry still liked that particular animal. At some later point in time, when Gerry was getting close for another picture, the thing sneezed and blew snot all over Gerry. After he had gotten over the shock (and was done crying), he firmly declared that this animal was naughty and that he wouldn't play with it anymore.


This was taken right after one of the fun activities at the farm. Basically, this was a pig race and each child was assigned to one pig and was responsible for driving the pig across the field and into the paddock. Gerry didn't win but he had a great time slapping the pigs backside and telling it to hurry up!

Aww - a cute widdle wabbit!

One of the shows the farm had was a sheep shearing show. This was actually really well done and the guy doing the show had a lot of charisma and was a good entertainer. Shame that the entire thing was in Japanese...

An observation on Japanese people

Woo - back from a long holiday in Japan (and boy oh boy, is Tokyo expensive!). I'll post some pics of my trip next week but first, I wanted to share an observation I had while I was there. Japanese people have a reputation for being very well mannered and from what I could see in Tokyo, this reputation is very well deserved.

One of my pet peeves in Hong Kong is the lack of even basic manners which you regularly see on trains. One thing which I noticed while in Tokyo was that on the platform, everybody waited until passengers had gotten off the train before they got on the train. I have NEVER seen that in HK (there have been plenty of times where people in one particular section have been willing to wait but even when that happens, you will see people in another section try and push their way onto the train past people trying to get off). Granted, we were never on the trains during rush hour (I have heard enough about Tokyo rush hour to know to avoid it) so I don't know how things will change during rush hour but still - wow!

The amazing thing is that this level of manners seems to extend to other areas of their life as well. While we stayed in Tokyo, we actually spent most of our time in the countryside surrounding Tokyo and as such, we hired a car to make things more convenient. I have spent many years complaining about the lack of manners which HK people show on the road. However, this has always been based on a comparison with Glasgow which is a bit unfair to HK in that Glasgow is a relatively small city in comparison.

Tokyo, on the other hand, is a city which gets gridlocked during rush hour and is a much fairer target for comparison purposes. Unfortunately for HK, this comparison doesn't favour HK either. While driving around in Japan, it was amazing to see that people actually had good road etiquette even while we were stuck in a traffic jam.

I'm not going to comment on any other aspect of Japanese society, but when it comes to basic manners and regard for other people, Japan seems so far ahead of HK that its embarrassing.