Friday, October 29, 2010

Hong Kong Series: Ocean Park, Shopping and Our Flight Back Home!

It has been three months since my trip to Hong Kong, but I have yet to finish my series of Hong Kong posts. I procrastinate like there are a million tomorrows  (a little something I mastered while at school), but I digress.


Ocean Park is a marine themed attraction dubbed as one of Hong Kong's most popular tourist destinations. It was incredulously hot and humid the day we visited Ocean Park so we deliberately avoided the outdoor rides (except the Ocean Tower) and enjoyed the air conditioned indoor attractions instead. I don't think we missed out on a lot though, as the rides were not at all that unique if you have gone to say, Enchanted Kingdom or some other theme park in the US.




Ocean Park Hong Kong is literally HUGE (I think they have seven themed lands) and getting from one part of the Park to another can be quite taxing. They have long elevators that go on forever, scaring the shit out of acrophobics like the boyfriend. Haha.




We started out at the Tai Shue Wan entrance, as this was the drop off point for the public buses. There was not much to see there but the Flamingo Pond, which was quite a disappointment. The flamingos were not as vibrantly colored as the ones I saw in Sea World, San Diego. You can see a photo of that here.




From Tai Shue Wan, we walked a ridiculous distance to get to Marine Land, which houses some of my favorite attractions. There are one too many Dolphin shows in this planet, but these adorable creatures never fail to get my attention no matter how repetitive all the tricks are. I'm a terrible swimmer, but I wish to swim with the dolphins some day like these two lucky fellas.





The heat made walking such a chore and boy was I glad to see some indoor air conditioned attractions at Marine Land!




Here is a description of Atoll Reef from the Ocean Park website: Step into the world beneath the ocean, without ever getting wet! Explore the Indo-Pacific marine ecosystem exactly as it looks under the water at the Atoll Reef. Designed as a panoramic coral island, the Atoll Reef spans four floors of aquariums and is home to around 2,000 fishes close to 250 species, including sharks, the Bowmouth Guitarfish (Rhina ancylostoma), Eagle Ray (Aetobatus narinari), Cownose Ray (Rhinoptera javanica) and Black Spotted Sting Ray (Taeniura melanospila), for which a second generation was successfully bred here at Ocean Park.  Trust me when I say that it is as amazing as it sounds! I truly regret that I was not able to take better photos because I let my exhaustion get to me.








Sea Jelly Spectacular was as amazing at it sounds as well. Watching the fluorescent sea jellies dancing to music in a dimly lit, air conditioned room was a very welcome escape from the heat and humidity outside. Again, I was not able to take good photos, but the jellies looked spectacular in blue, red, purple and green indeed!




After watching the sea jellies, we rode the Ocean Express from the Summit to get to the Low Land attractions. We could have chosen the cable car, but anything air conditioned sounded better at that time. The train ride was cool and quick, just what we needed to prepare us for more heat in the next couple of minutes!




I so wanted to try the hot air balloons, but it was closed for the day (cry.moan.wail!), so we moved on to other attractions. We went to see a sea lion perform tricks at Whisker's theater, but I wasn't able to take photos. How tired was I, really? At that point, all I wanted to do was to see the pandas and go home! 






These cute, furry creatures gave me one more pint of energy to see different kinds of goldfish before heading to nearest thing to home.








We called it a day at 4PM, quite early for tourists in a theme park. I just cannot reiterate how unfriendly the weather was! We spent the rest of the day shopping and eating street food instead. Check out some of my Hong Kong Haul that day:




I wanted to make a separate post on the all the awesome food  we had, but I was not able to take photos of anything. Oh, regrets! Most of my favorite stuff were in the street or in hole in the wall places. When you go to Hong Kong, please do justice to your visit and try the following:


1. BEEF BALLS, CURRY FISHBALLS AND ALL THE STREET FOOD YOUR STOMACH CAN TAKE IN!
2. TARO MILK TEA. The taro bubble tea in  Mega Mall is a hundred times inferior to Hong Kong's taro milk tea.
3.HUI LAU SHAN DESSERTS. I literally had them everyday when I was in Hong Kong!

I want to end my Hong Kong Series with this reminder: Go to the airport early if you do not want to miss your flight. The airport is so big that you have to ride a train to get to your boarding gate. We nearly missed our flight because we ate a leisurely brunch inside the airport and took a really long time to get to our boarding gate. That was quite an exhausting sprint, I tell you! 




Want to visit Ocean Park?


By Bus from ADMIRALTY: Take BUS 629 from MTR Admiralty Station. Take Exit B to OP Main Entrance. Fare is about  HK$10.60. Journey time is approximately 25 minutes.


By Bus from CENTRAL: Take BUS 629 from Central Ferry Pier to OP Main Entrance. Fare HK$10.60.


Buses departing from Central Pier No. 7 and Admiralty MTR Station leave at 9am, 9:10am and 9:20am. They run to the Tai Shue Wan Entrance via the Main Entrance, while the buses departing after 9:20am from Admiralty MTR Station run directly to the Tai ShueWan Entrance.

4 comments:

  1. ocean park is so huge, nakakahilo na ikutin pa. and i understand bakit umuwi din kayo agad. kapagod!
    dami nyo pinamili ha, hoarding ng eternity at elizabeth arden? Ü

    ReplyDelete
  2. that was the last attraction we went to kasi before flying back to manila, so we were so tired already. perfume was dirt cheap (perfect for pasalubong),hence, the hoarding! hehehe:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ahh HK! My first trip out of the country was to this place! Ocean Park was fun! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Lei: Me too! I was 5 when I first when to HK and even then, I enjoyed Ocean Park already. Haha.

    ReplyDelete

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