dolphingirl47
In Search of the Tag Fairy
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2007
- Messages
- 31,283
Prologue
I had an obsession with everything China from my mid to late teens. I was fascinated by the history, architecture and culture. I was reading endless books about China or that were set in China. I collected as many Chinese things as I could. For me China was this mythical fairytale land just like Agrabah or Atlantica and I had about as much chance to ever set foot into China that I had visiting Agrabah. This was in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests with China being virtually closed to Western tourists. As few years later, family friends went on a tour to China using a tour operator that was sponsored by the Chinese government. They came back absolutely glowing about their experience, but also with plenty of tales about endless red tape and how difficult the whole process was. It was definitely unlikely that I would ever get to visit this amazing country, especially considering that I did not even own a passport and nobody in my extended family had one and therefore had ever left Europe.
Japan was a different matter entirely. I was raised with Hello Kitty and Japanese cartoons and as such, Japan seemed a lot less exotic to me. However, Japan also seemed a lot more accessible. After watching and reading Memoirs of a Geisha, I started to take more of an interest in the culture and history of Japan and started to feel that this was a place that I would love to visit at some stage. By that time, I was married to Graham and he was not quite so keen. There were so many other places I wanted to see in the world, so I never did more than half-heartedly look at this.
For years, the closest I would come the China and Japan was eating the food from these countries and visiting their respective pavilions at the World Showcase at Epcot. Incidentally, those two pavilions have always been my favourites and I have happily walked around them for hours. It was my love for Disney that made me look at those countries again. In 2006, I started to work for Emirates and in those early days, we had leaflets on our staff notice board with an opening offer for Hong Kong Disneyland. I was still on probation for the duration of the offer and therefore could not make use of it, but I always said that I would take up the opportunity if it ever presented itself again. In 2008, I got the Disney bug good and proper. Disney had been some part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it was only then that anything Disney became an all-consuming passion. With this the dream to see every Disney park in the world was born.
I did not think all that often about this until our Panama Canal Cruise. More or less by accident, we ended up in a lecture by George Scribner, who is an animator, director and imagineer for the Walt Disney Company. I attended a number of his lectures during the cruise and he was talking in the most general terms about working on Shanghai Disneyland. At that stage, little more than the fact that there would be a Disneyland in Shanghai had been announced and as such, he was not able to go into any detail. However, with the little he was able to share, he was able to convey just how special this would be. We also had the pleasure to chat with him for a while at the Outlook Cafe and this only reinforced that Shanghai Disneyland would be somewhere that I just had to visit. For this I was even willing to make an exception to my rule that I would not visit any country where I would need a visa for.
About a year later, news started to come out about Shanghai Disneyland and this only made me more convinced that I had to see this for myself. The next piece in the puzzle was the fact that we jumped ship from Disney Cruise Line to Royal Caribbean and this opened up a whole new world for us. We then booked a cruise on a brand-new ship that was ultimately heading to China so that was a good enough excuse to finally make a trip to China happen. We got as far as planning out the trip down the trains we would take. The plan was to visit Beijing, Xian and Shanghai before getting on the ship in Hong Kong and ending up in Singapore.
Things quite often happen differently than originally planned. While we were on the same ship that we had planned to do the Far East cruise on, we booked a Transpacific cruise for spring 2017 instead and we did not feel that we could do two such big trips so close together. So, the China trip was indefinitely postponed. We had been thinking about a trip for autumn 2017 for a while and nothing really inspired us. The decision was finally made while we were on the Transpacific cruise that we would head to China and take a short cruise to Japan from there.
Did I mention that things often work out different as planned? The plan this time was to fly to Hong Kong, spend a few days there before flying to Beijing, then take the train or a plane to Shanghai where we would then get on the ship. The day my leave was approved I texted Graham the good news and he texted back “Beijing Tokyo Shanghai”. I did not need to be asked twice. I texted back “Yes Please”. This is how it ultimately happened.
I have to say, I had some misgivings. I did at one point wonder if we were trying to do too much, but Graham pointed out that we were essentially doing a cruise by air. This made perfect sense. Nearer the time, I was very excited, but I was also worried how big the culture shock would be and how much the language barrier would affect us. Well it was certainly an adventure in many respects, but an amazing experience. Somehow, we had ended with another holiday of a lifetime. When I was asked after the trip on how it had been, my reply was that I had a wallet full of Yuan, a pocket full of Yen, a camera full of photos and a heart full of affection, memories and longing for China. This about sums it up.
I had an obsession with everything China from my mid to late teens. I was fascinated by the history, architecture and culture. I was reading endless books about China or that were set in China. I collected as many Chinese things as I could. For me China was this mythical fairytale land just like Agrabah or Atlantica and I had about as much chance to ever set foot into China that I had visiting Agrabah. This was in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests with China being virtually closed to Western tourists. As few years later, family friends went on a tour to China using a tour operator that was sponsored by the Chinese government. They came back absolutely glowing about their experience, but also with plenty of tales about endless red tape and how difficult the whole process was. It was definitely unlikely that I would ever get to visit this amazing country, especially considering that I did not even own a passport and nobody in my extended family had one and therefore had ever left Europe.
Japan was a different matter entirely. I was raised with Hello Kitty and Japanese cartoons and as such, Japan seemed a lot less exotic to me. However, Japan also seemed a lot more accessible. After watching and reading Memoirs of a Geisha, I started to take more of an interest in the culture and history of Japan and started to feel that this was a place that I would love to visit at some stage. By that time, I was married to Graham and he was not quite so keen. There were so many other places I wanted to see in the world, so I never did more than half-heartedly look at this.
For years, the closest I would come the China and Japan was eating the food from these countries and visiting their respective pavilions at the World Showcase at Epcot. Incidentally, those two pavilions have always been my favourites and I have happily walked around them for hours. It was my love for Disney that made me look at those countries again. In 2006, I started to work for Emirates and in those early days, we had leaflets on our staff notice board with an opening offer for Hong Kong Disneyland. I was still on probation for the duration of the offer and therefore could not make use of it, but I always said that I would take up the opportunity if it ever presented itself again. In 2008, I got the Disney bug good and proper. Disney had been some part of my life for as long as I can remember, but it was only then that anything Disney became an all-consuming passion. With this the dream to see every Disney park in the world was born.
I did not think all that often about this until our Panama Canal Cruise. More or less by accident, we ended up in a lecture by George Scribner, who is an animator, director and imagineer for the Walt Disney Company. I attended a number of his lectures during the cruise and he was talking in the most general terms about working on Shanghai Disneyland. At that stage, little more than the fact that there would be a Disneyland in Shanghai had been announced and as such, he was not able to go into any detail. However, with the little he was able to share, he was able to convey just how special this would be. We also had the pleasure to chat with him for a while at the Outlook Cafe and this only reinforced that Shanghai Disneyland would be somewhere that I just had to visit. For this I was even willing to make an exception to my rule that I would not visit any country where I would need a visa for.
About a year later, news started to come out about Shanghai Disneyland and this only made me more convinced that I had to see this for myself. The next piece in the puzzle was the fact that we jumped ship from Disney Cruise Line to Royal Caribbean and this opened up a whole new world for us. We then booked a cruise on a brand-new ship that was ultimately heading to China so that was a good enough excuse to finally make a trip to China happen. We got as far as planning out the trip down the trains we would take. The plan was to visit Beijing, Xian and Shanghai before getting on the ship in Hong Kong and ending up in Singapore.
Things quite often happen differently than originally planned. While we were on the same ship that we had planned to do the Far East cruise on, we booked a Transpacific cruise for spring 2017 instead and we did not feel that we could do two such big trips so close together. So, the China trip was indefinitely postponed. We had been thinking about a trip for autumn 2017 for a while and nothing really inspired us. The decision was finally made while we were on the Transpacific cruise that we would head to China and take a short cruise to Japan from there.
Did I mention that things often work out different as planned? The plan this time was to fly to Hong Kong, spend a few days there before flying to Beijing, then take the train or a plane to Shanghai where we would then get on the ship. The day my leave was approved I texted Graham the good news and he texted back “Beijing Tokyo Shanghai”. I did not need to be asked twice. I texted back “Yes Please”. This is how it ultimately happened.
I have to say, I had some misgivings. I did at one point wonder if we were trying to do too much, but Graham pointed out that we were essentially doing a cruise by air. This made perfect sense. Nearer the time, I was very excited, but I was also worried how big the culture shock would be and how much the language barrier would affect us. Well it was certainly an adventure in many respects, but an amazing experience. Somehow, we had ended with another holiday of a lifetime. When I was asked after the trip on how it had been, my reply was that I had a wallet full of Yuan, a pocket full of Yen, a camera full of photos and a heart full of affection, memories and longing for China. This about sums it up.
