Shanghai Disney trial attracts thousands

Retail shop, restaurants, sculptures and artificial lake offer sneak preview of the wonders that will unfold in June

Still a month away from its official opening, Walt Disney Co's latest theme park resort in Shanghai is already a popular destination attracting thousands of Chinese.

A Disney store - the biggest park-operated retail shop in Asia - and restaurants in a public, commercial strip of the Shanghai Disney Resort opened on Saturday to long lines. Locals flocked to the area to stroll around its artificial lake and snap pictures with a fountain sculpture of Mickey Mouse on a steamboat. Disney also began trial operations for the park - its sixth worldwide and first in the Chinese mainland - over the weekend.