Ocean Park

Wes and a Panda

Early December provided us with a beautiful day to visit Ocean Park, Hong Kong's most famous theme park (well, at least until Disney came to town this year.) This was actually Annette's second visit to the park.. she had been there once before when she was very small. She vaguely remembers her brother Richard and sister Angela riding a scary roller coaster there. She may have been to small to ride the coasters last time, but no excuses were going to get her out of it on this visit.

Our first stop was the panda exhibit. Having visited the San Diego Zoo earlier in the year, we were able to compare the exhibits and found the Ocean Park version to be a little better. First off, it was air conditioned (Pandas can't stand the HK heat), and secondly we could actually see the pandas since the pandas were on a hillside facing us and didn't have a whole lot to hide behind. One panda sat happily chewing on bamboo while we snapped some pictures.


Panda

Next was the butterfly exhibit. Some landed on Annette.


Annette in the Butterfly Exhibit

The highlight of the day was the cable car ride, which took us across the southern side of the island and allowed us to get great views of the South China sea.


Gondola Ride

View from the gondola


After taking the cable car to the other main area of the park, we finally got around to riding the roller coaster. The line was very short.. we walked right up and were on within 5 minutes (could it be that the folks here don't like scary rides? or are the all home because it is 'winter'?) Anyhow, the roller coaster was great fun. We did three or so loopty-loops, which Annette missed out on because her eyes were glued shut.


Next was Annette's favorite part of the day - the reef aquarium. The aquarium has all kinds of marine life swimming around in a huge and deep tank - there are three walkways around the aquarium at different depths, so you can get a good luck at all the fish, turtles, sharks, eels, and so on. A separate shark exhibit had a tunnel that took us right beneath the menacing sharks.


The Reef

The Reef - downstairs

Shark!!!!

The most surreal part of the day came when we went to the dolphin and seal show. Right before the show, a 'mariachi' band took the stage and sang "La Bamba" in Spanish to the theatre full of Chinese folks. Not many of them seemed to know the words.


Surreal "La Bamba" Performance

Next, we walked around the park a little and visited the Chinese history displays.


Wes checking out the rides

Annette made friends with a seal

Boat

Annette at Pacific Pier

We saw this mural and had to take a picture. Could someone please explain exactly what is going on here? A naked guy bathing with a penguin next to a woman wearing a sweater bathing a duck?


What the?

One big difference from other theme parks we have been to were the squid and cuttlefish booths that were sprinkled througout the park. Now I've had calamari a few times and it is fine, but I don't think I'll be trying the cuttlefish any time soon. The smell emanating from the cuttlefish shack was one of the worst scents ever generated by mankind.


Mmm.. cuttlefish

Mr. Squid says "mmmm.. squid"


Ocean Park was in full holiday spirit, complete with a Christmas tree and Christmas village, complete with fake snow fluttering through the air (which turned out to be some sort of soapy foam). Of course we had to have our photo with Santa and his special elf.


Our Christmas Card photo