Ocean Park24-06-09Today me and Antonia planned to go to Ocean Park with Tina and Johnny. We set the alarm last night for 7.30am so we could wake up early and get there for 9.30am and spend the whole day there while Tina and Johnny would meet us in the afternoon. The alarm didn't wake us and we woke up at 11am, confused and disapointed. Aparently there was a big storm while we slept but by the time we woke, it was nice and sunny, perfect weather for the day out.
Tina and Johnny were in dispute over if they was going or not, Johnny doesn't like the sun, no he's not a vampire, he's just a bit of a pansy and likes it indoors with aircon. It took nearly an hour for them to make up their mind but all was well and we all arived at Ocean Park around 1pm.
Wellcome, one of the supermarkets out here in Hong Kong are currently running a promotion with Ocean Park. If you spend over $300 instore you get a 30% off voucher at Ocean Park, we had two off these so could our tickets for under $200 which is very cheap. The tickets came with a design on the back. While we got out tickets, Tina and Johnny went to get annual passes allowing unlimted visits for a year.
When Tina and Johnny got their tickets sorted and passes to get in, we went to the gates to finally get into the park. We all got our tickets, Antonia took longer, searched her pockets, bag and then spun in circles. She'd lost her ticket. I ran around the area looking for a ticket, no luck, I assumed some lucky kid had picked it up and got free entry but then I saw a cleaner. I asked and looked in his collection of rubish, thankfully, Antonia's ticket was resting on the top of the small pile of litter. We hurried into the park before Antonia could lose anything else.
By the time we had got into the park it was already early afternoon. Throughout the day various shows take place around the park. At 2pm there was a Sealion show so we decided to walk towards that and try catch it. On the way to the theatre, we passed a strange clown and some interesting bushes.
We made it to the Sealion show with time to spare. We managed to get good center seats and waited for the show to start. I took a few videos of the show along with some pictures, hope you like Sealions!
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I really enjoyed the Sealion show, at one point they asked for helpers up on stage, I threw my hand in the air without realising they asked for kids to help, I was defintly the oldest with my hand up.
Near the Sealion arena are a few carnival games, your typical hit the target or throw the ball type games. I decided to try one game and win Antonia something, Johnny decided he should try to and joined me.
The game was simple, throw the ball and have it land in one of the colored jars. There was three types of prize, small, medium and large. I got a large bucket of balls and gave some to Johnny as he had none, we then started. After a short while of playing the ball was bouncing around one of the colored jars, we all stopped and watched as the ball finally rested in the top. The game owner rang a huge bell and shouted out grand prize! I managed to win the large prize, Johnny didn't look impressed as he didn't manage to win.
The sun was really baking us around this time so we needed to cool down, we walked back the way we came, trying to keep in the shade. We was heading for the Pandas as it was air conditioned inside. On the way I saw an icey snack that I wanted to try, a snow cone. The guy making these was really cheery, he looked like he was having way to much fun.
I'd never had a snowcone before, I thought it would be soft, sort of like a slushy but it was hard ice with syrup over the top, in the bottom of the cone was sweet fruit and the rest of the syrup. The juice was nice but the ice was way too hard to enjoy.
Before we went to the Panda House we stopped by the Gator Marsh which is really just a tank with Chinese Aligators and some fish. The Aligators didn't really do much and I still don't know why they didn't just eat the fish.
Right next to the Gator Marsh is the Panda House, Johnny left to go here first because he couldn't stand the heat, when we joined him inside we could understand why he left, it was like walking through a fridge, very nice and cool.
The main part of the Panda House is a main enclosure for the Pandas and other animals. This place is in what looks like a giant green house but it's not made of glass and thankfully, doesn't trap heat.
As we got into the main part of the Panda House, we saw a huge crowd looking into a pit. I ran over thinking it was the Pandas, it wasn't. I didn't catch the name of these things, reminded me of Racoons.
A short walk from where this crowd was another crowd gawing at the two Pandas, Ying Ying and Le Le. I didn't watch these too much as they just looked like they was sitting around have a chat, boring, they should have been dancing or something. Still, it was cool to see some real Pandas!
Once we left the Panda House we arrived in a small courtyard with some aquatic animals. In the courtyard were several displays made to look like giant standing lanterns, the middle was made of perspex or something similar allowing the visitors to write a message/make a wish with board pen. I noticed someone had wrote "The Jonas Brothers" and "Hannah Montanna" over one of them, tempted to add a few words of my own after that, I left it alone.
In the courtyard was a small pond with turtles and fishes swimming about. I couldn't touch these turtles and they didn't look as cool as the ones I saw in Kowloon park. There was another encosure but it was empty as it was being fixed.
The path from the courtyard leads into the Goldfish Treasures building, a small hut filled with fish tanks containing many different types of Goldfish. I didn't know there were so many so was happily surpised to see new types of goldfish I had never seen before.
Most of the goldfish in here looked deformed but were interesting in their own ways. It would have been cool if they trained these up to swim through hoops or something.
In another tank was a really strange looking fish, I think it was a mutant because it was all on it's own and looked very angry. I liked this fish and took a few pictures of it.
As we left I saw a really cute fish, I only took one picture but it turned out really well, I love this picture.
Oh and there were some Koi Carp outside that no one really paid much attention too.
The Panda/Goldfish house path leads right into the shop as an exit. We was in here a while looking around and I took a few photos of the random bits on display. I bought Antonia a cute round panda plush toy before leaving, forgot to take a picture of it though and stuffed it in a huge bag with the duck prize.
We was getting hungry after all the walking and decided to head to the other side of Ocean Park to eat. Ocean Park is split into two main areas, Lower and Upper ground. The Upper Ground is only accessable via the Cable Car which goes over the mountain and gives a great view of Deep Water Bay.
Near the Cable Car station is a snack stand that sells Octopus Tentacles. I hate these, I've never properly tried them but just dislike them. Johnny got some and I was forced to eat one of these.
To my surprise, the taste wasn't too bad but it just felt like I was chewing a tire. I didn't enjoy it and actually wanted to spit it out into the bin. Before the Cable Car station are more carnival games. Johnny wanted to try and win Tina something so he tried his luck at his best game, Shooting Hoops.
Johnny didn't do so well and only won a keychain, which Tina didn't even want, oh dear. He tried again on a game next to it where you have to throw bean bags at targets to win. The game was themed as a Tiki Island, the targets were teeth in a statue and you had to knock at least 3 to win a small prize. Johnny had 9 attempts and didn't even hit one tooth, I felt bad for him, we left quickly for the Cable Car.
There was no queue for this which was quite surprising, we took seperate cars and started our cale car ride up the mountain.
Again, I took lots of pictures and some videos of this ride so please enjoy!
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The whole journey took around 15 minutes and I enjoyed every second. The view was great, you could see far out to see and the whole bay. Passers by noticed me filming or taking pictures, most were friendly enough to wave or even shout hello which I thought was nice. As we got off, we saw the queue for the cable car going back down, the queue was at least half an hour long with way over 100 people in line, madness!
Feeling hungry, we went to the Bayside Restaurant under the cable car station. This place was really nice, quiet, air conditioned and had great seats looking out over the bay.
I decided to get a Broiled Beef and Antonia got some fish dish.
I really enjoyed my food, it was damn good for such a low price and in a theme park. The sauce the beef was in was quite spicey and it was thick, tempted to go back up there to eat it again. Antonia said hers was 'very tasty which was surprising for grilled fish'.
A short walk from the cable car station and restaurant is the Sea Jelly house, filled with many kinds of Jellyfish. Sadly, my camera sucks in low light situations so I couldn't get many good shots of the cool Jellyfish.
Near the exit is an interactive projector game. These are projected onto the wall and let you interact with the projected objcects, in this case, you could hit and change the direction of the Jellyfish floating about. I took a video.
By the time we finished in the Jellyfish house it was nearly time for the Dolphin show. We hurried through the park trying to find the Ocean Theatre. We made it with 15 minutes to spare so got some decent seats, there was a band playing while people were seating which was nice.
The main attraction of the Ocean Show used to be a killer whale, I was really looking forward to seeing this but just a few days before I got to Hong Kong, I learnt it had died a few years ago, a huge let down but dolphins are still cool. I took quite a few pictures and a video.
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Right near the end of the show they had people from the audience to do some tricks with the Dolphins and Sealions as part of the show. One girl was terrified of the Sea Lion, everyone was laughing at her, she was a nervous wreck. You have to watch the next video to see what happened, I couldn't stop laughing which is why the camera is shaking so much, I know it's bad...
By the time the Ocean Show had finished it was past 5, the park closes at 6 so we only had an hour to do some rides. we first did the swings which wasn't that interesting. It took ages to start and when it finally did, it was stopped because of a group of kids spinning and kicking each other midair.
Johnny was getting fed up of the park at this point and wanted to leave, I don't think Tina wanted to leave so soon but they both went off. After they left me and Antonia went for the rollercoaster, we had to hurry as it was very close to 6. We made it JUST in time for the last ride of the day.
This rollercoaster was terrifying, not because of all the loops and drops, because of the dangerously low speed. We both thought the train would come off the tracks during the loops, it was really bad, it took a good few seconds to do just a small loop!
By the time the ride had finished the park was closing, we made our way to the exit. We was too late to take the cable car back down so had to head for the other exit on this side of the mountain via a long system of escalators. On the way, we saw another part of the park with a lot more rides and attractions. Because we got there so late, we had to miss these out so if you go, get there for opening time.
There are 4 tall statues at the other enterance to the park. A few kids were playing in this area and trying to climb on the statues. Antonia suggested I go climb up for a photo so I ran up and stood on the elephant statues head, the kids saw this and shouted, "I want to try that too", as that was said, a few worried parents ran up to grab their children giving me evil stares in the process.
We had to wait a while for the bus to arrive and take us to the main enterance. If you go, make sure you get this bus around 6 as the one at 6.30 only runs if there is enough people waiting.
We got back to the main enterance and was picked up by the driver and taken home. Antonia's father invited us both out for a meal at the Country Club. I had to dress smart and was quite nervous but the dinner was really good, spoke a lot more with the father and had a nice evening to round off a great day.
I really enjoyed Ocean Park but think we could have done more if we went there earlier. If you plan to goto Ocean Park, get there at around 10 and maybe start from the Tai Shu Wan enterance if you're more interested in the rides.