I woke bright and breezy at 3:15am and due to my unforeseen roomie, couldn't do much except toss and turn (quietly). I woke again at 8am, got myself together as quietly as possible, and went across the road to the metro. See, I’d never have to cross the stinkin’ road if I was put where I was supposed to be! Damn footbridge...

As it turns out, Disneyland is quite a distance from central Hong Kong (so am I, for that matter, but not as much) . I got the blue line to the yellow line and a second yellow line to the pink line. I think I walked under the bay at some stage, but it wasn’t signposted, so I’m only guessing here. Also, they don’t call the metro "the metro". It’s the MTR, but that makes me think of 'metro’ anyway, so I go with it. And they don’t call the lines by their colours, though I believe that would make the whole process infinitely more understandable.

Disneyland Station and the park entrance were, naturally, cheerful and rousing. There was a classic fountain with Disney characters in various states of joy (except Donald, obviously), perfectly (and thus, suspiciously) pruned hedges, lively marching music pounding from said hedges AND... dnn dnn dnnnnn... Nightmare Before Christmas material EVERYWHERE! Bliss... Can we just have a TimBurtonLand already?

I didn’t realise that the park didn’t “officially” open until 10am, or that the Hallowe’en Attractions weren’t open at all until 2pm, but I heard the opening ceremony from the cafe where I had breakfast (a jumbo sausage roll and fruit punch, in case you’re curious) . The first thing I did was to look for the Hallowe’en rides (they weren’t ‘rides’ as it turns out, but it’s shorter and more to the point than “attractions”, so I’m using it), but since they weren’t open, I took a raft to Tarzan’s Treehouse and led the charge up his stairs when the Chinese ahead of me got baffled by all the branches. It was just the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse with Tarzan characters, but it was pretty, and I had an informative chat with the gate-opening “Cast Member” back at the raft dock. By the by, Hong Kong Disneyland is so tiny that the raft to Tarzan’s Treehouse and Tarzan’s Treehouse itself are counted as separate “attractions”. And besides the new Demon Jungle, the Treehouse is really the only ride in Adventureland in which you actually move around the place.

I didn’t fancy sitting in a boat, driving a magnetic car or taking Dumbo for a spin, so I headed off to It’s A Small World to validate Laura’s assertion that it has a ceiling.

And I’m sorry to say folks, that yes it does .

I got abandoned in the last seat of my boat (the girl that sat beside me was kicked up the boat when the Cast Member heard that I was “single person”), but that made it all the easier to take pictures of the freaky little dolls. They should have just used the minor music from “Arabia” all through the ride and called it another Hallowe’en Attraction. They all look the same, they shuffle arthritically from side to side and they blink in perfectly unsyncopated rhythm. Now that I think about it, they’re just like the bloody zombies I saw later in the parade...

Anyway, at the very end, our boat got stuck and we sat there for ages, obliging the happy lady on the speakers who kept repeating “We are having a brief delay! Please remain in your boat! Your voyage will resume in just a moment! But you’ll already have died of optimism and cheerfulness! Hurray!” and I decided to update Facebook just as we got unstuck. So I lost my phone cover. And have you ever tried to explain to a Disneyland employee what a ‘phone cover’ is? We settled on “black, cloth bag for my phone”, but, to end your suspense, it was never found. Alas, alack. I travelled the length and breadth of southern Italy and Sicily to find that bag, and now it’s drowned with the zombie children in the clockwork castle...

I skipped the Mad Hatter's Teaparty, since I probably wouldn’t end up with any strangers that wanted to spin as fast as I did, and went to Space Mountain instead . It’s been turned into Ghost Mountain for Hallowe’en, but nothing about it was particularly scary. It was pitch dark, but I think we mostly just descended in tight circles that provided enough g-force to scare some of the girls into thinking their sunglasses might just fall off their heads. I was delighted to see that I had been completely cropped from our train’s photo. Just swiped my entire head off, they did. It made the decision whether to buy it or not much easier.

I went next to Buzz Lightyear’s something or other, which had a moving talking Buzz Lightyear inside the door! It was very clever. The body was animatronic, but the face was projected onto it somehow, so that it really looked like he was talking or looking at you, even when he moved his head. The ride was also pretty fun. You got into a teacup type thing on a conveyor belt, took a blaster gun from the dash, and spun your cup around shooting Emperor Zurg and his minions by aiming a little laser at the ‘Z’ signs. I only got the third highest rank, but it was a damn site better than those lily-livered pansies around me. Hmph.

I had a burger and chips after that, then got lured into The Golden Mickeys by the promise of a short queue. FOR ONCE, there was actually NO queue, since the auditorium had already opened. I pulled my solo traveller card again, and got a seat in the second row from the front . I didn’t know what the show was going to be like, but it was basically a live song and dance/mini musical, WHICH I LOVED. It wasn’t totally perfect, but it was so much fun. And you could see the Caucasians that kept returning as Belle, Ariel, Female Monkey No. 2, or Tarzan, Flounder, Strong Male Surfer and so on. But it was a pleasant surprise. It was also much better than the High School Musical float that I ran into outside. Considering how little that stupid movie has to offer in Ireland, I have to wonder what they could possibly see in it over here.

I decided to do some shopping after that, since there actually wasn’t much else I wanted to see (besides the yet unopened Hallowe’en Rides). I bought too much – BUT IT’S ALL SO WONDERFUL – and traded some money with a Chinese man for a locker to store it all in. The displays are so colourful, artistic and just plain fantastic, that you keep going in and looking at them, even though you know there are only about three large shops on Main Street (cleverly disguised on the outside as several different shops). I returned later in the evening for more things I didn’t need and – you’ll be delighted to know – managed to stuff them ALL into my backpack. For now.

After all that excitement, I queued for the Victorian Hotel which was – hurrah! – open for queuing. It was a long and sweaty wait, so I listened to my Hallowe’en playlist on my iPod (and some Wall-e, because I heard it on a speaker and couldn’t get it out of my head) . I was behind two girls, one of whom had a hoodie with bear ears on the top. Awesome. We three were the first in our group to enter the Hotel, which was a series of dark, spooky corridors and loud, scary Cast Members decorated as dead people and jumping out at you. Bear Ear Girl took the approach of “roar first, jump later” and actually managed to shock some of the ghoulies before they got to us. The only one she missed was some sort of horrible banshee that rose suddenly out of a bed and shrieked at you, before disappearing into the covers once again. I wanted to wait to see how it was done, but a freaky dwarf snarled and shoved us into a rickety elevator. Once we were back outside, for the laugh, I jumped at the two shrieker girls behind me and nearly gave them heart attacks. That’s the last time they’ll roar in a westerner’s ear, I tell ya.

Next was Alien Invasion, which was my least favourite of all the rides today. I queued for about an hour, which I spent most of treading on the toes of the man behind me, or coughing rudely in his girlfriends face so they’d (literally) get off my back . Another drawback to solo travel: lack of width in a queue. It’s why the Chinese got used to travelling in tour groups. The aliens were a bit too top heavy to make their jumping-out appear sudden and terrifying, but I was also on bad terms with Mr. And Mrs. Behind Me, so that may have detracted from it too. The scariest moment here was when a girl with a disfigured face unexpectedly grabbed for my ankle from under a desk.

From there, it was on to the Demon Jungle, which had a short ‘n’ sweet queue (except for yet another back-leaner, who – pro for solo travel (ST by now, I think) – I got to leave behind with his girlfriend when the Cast Member at the entrance asked if I wanted to be first or last). This one was good fun – things rocking and shaking, creeps jumping out from behind walls and boards. There were two highlights: 1) a black wall with neon symbols all over it, and 2) a black wall that sparkled like dark diamonds. Both of these walls somehow managed to conceal an absurd amount of scary people, actually disguised as the wall so you never knew what’d run into you . There was also a section of large, furry tikis that were far too ambulatory for my liking.

I had acquired a plastic Jack Skellington fan, with a Hallowe’en Hunt on the back, on my shopping diversion. I decided now to go and find the four stickers I needed to feel like I’d achieved something during my day. This involved a lot of walking around Fantasyland (and looking for “Mung Po something something [Cha Cha Dessert]” on all the menus). I also ran into Jack Skellington and simply had to have my photo taken with him (that’s not strictly true – the characters appear in different areas around the park and – wonder of wonders – the Chinese form queues to get their photos taken with them. I was too footsore to bother queuing for any others, even when Sally appeared with Jack sometime later in the evening). The good news is that I found all my stickers and am now an Achiever. So there.

It was dark at this stage, and after taking a few photos and looking at some Disney art history and a Toy Story zoetrope (amazing, amazing device), I had myself a Jack Skellington cupcake. As I stood under a lamp, pondering what on earth to do with myself until the Glow in the Park Parade, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Bear Ear Girl! Or Kerri, as it turned out, and her mother (which was not at all what I’d expected from the youthful face on her). She asked me if I’d been to the Demon Jungle yet, so I said no and off we went . It was much funnier the second time round, especially since I knew what was coming and they didn’t. This rounds memorable moment occurred when Kerri took on the terrifying tikis and her cowardly mother held up everyone else by standing back and screaming. The tikis were so confused that they all came out of the wall and surrounded Kerri, hauling her off to the next section, before I could finally push her mother onwards.

We parted ways after that brief moment of alliance, and I pulled up a kerb 50 minutes early for the Parade. This was because I had to put ST to work again, since the kerbs were already almost full of loiterers. The parade was short, but pretty cool. I think Tarzan and Female Monkey No. 2 were drafted again, possibly as waltzing zombies. It started with an enormous Jack Skellington on a very large pumpkin. There were some dancing pumpkins, vampires, Disney characters pretending to be cute zombie-skeletons (at least, that’s what it looked like to me), Maleficent in a giant castle and several other things I forget. The “Glow” bit comes from when they halt the parade, turn off the spotlights, and everything suddenly glows in an ultraviolet light you didn’t even realise was there! Jack Skellington's face appeared on everything the first time it happened, the waltzing zombies grew neon masks and turned into professional dancers the second time, and Mickey’s pirate ship glew (wink wink) too, but I was behind it at that stage and couldn’t possibly decipher what was happening (ever hear Mickey and Minnie chatting in Cantonese? Yeah) .

I was exhausted by then, and broke too, so I didn’t have any qualms about giving up my “I’m staying 'til 11pm!” plan for the “I’m taking the MTR back and collapsing into bed.” option. I met a few stormtroopers and a Darth Vader in Central, and there was a man with an axe in his back on the way back from Disneyland. Besides them (and they were foreigners, come to think of it), there were mainly gothy types, or people in wigs. The Hong Kongers may like Hallowe’en, but they haven’t quite got it down yet. My “flatmates” – for wont of a better word – don’t seem to mind, and are all gone out celebrating. I was meant to be asleep, but I got carried away with all this reliving of the moment. I’m still actually exhausted though, so please excuse any errors and accept the following notes placed here instead of their proper chronological order in this text:

-Today I met an ATM that told me to “Please take my advice.”

-I saw a woman with a t-shirt proclaiming “Yes! We love snakers!”

-I heard a muslim woman requesting the use of a nonexistent Prayer Room

-And ... I came across Cast Members with the following nametags

Males: Calvin, Barry, Wilson and Harvey.

Females: Laretta, Melody, Sakura, Yip, Casper, Xavier and Paper.

Adieu, and Happy Hallowe’en!