(apologies for the slow updates because i just simply chug my pictures first then save the post as draft, only to blog and publish it afterwards. I'm just damn good at procrastinating, I'm really surprised that I managed to pass school. haha)
So our third day at Hong Kong, we planned on going to Ocean Park. I was warned beforehand that I am SOOO going to hate it because there's just sooooo many Mainland citizens there. I was warned by my colleague, who's a Chinese, and even though he's a Chinese (of course, Singaporean CHinese), he can't stand that place because tooo many China Chinese. IDK how he figured out that i have this hate-relationship with PRCs though.
So anyway, as usual up in the morning at 8 and met the rest at 9am at lobby, walked to Chung King Mansion to have our breakfast. Seriously, why does food joints in Hong Kong that are halal all open in the afternoon ???
Well again, it's just a small outlet. It's about the two shop sizes big (I think it's equivalent to the size of one normal shop at Peninsular). They prepare their food at one shop and the other small shop is for customers to dine in. Luckily we all could squeeze in. We had erm... prata, again. Prata Prata Prata. I really wouldn't mind if they had egg prata hais! And yeah, remember to ask for curry gravy!
The curry is SOOO DISAPPOINTING. It has alot of meat, ok that i dont really mind because i'm a carnivore, ROAR! but it's soooo oily! look, just look at the oil! there isn't even any gravy la. i just dipped abit of the oil... opps i mean gravy, and had to stomach the whole thing plain. The gravy is not really tasteless though, there are traces of spice and all that but i just can't help it, it's too oily and unhealthy to even force it down my gastrointestinal tract!
Rating: 4/10
Opposite the food outlet is a grocery shop. the owner had cat as a pet! first time seeing a cat in Hong Kong.
So then we made our way to Ocean Park. Directions to most tourist attractions can be found on Tourist Maps provided at the airport though. We took the MTR to Admiralty Station, just one stop away from Tsim Sha Tsui station. Anyway, Ocean Park is at Hong Kong Island. Once at Admiralty Station, just follow the signboards at the MTR station that leads to the exit where you can board the bus to Ocean Park.
At the bus stop (more like interchange actually), there are "agents" who are selling Ocean Park tickets. They asked us where we are heading to, so we said Ocean Park. And she offered us a much cheaper tickets to Ocean Park. We hesitated actually for fear of being conned. But she was soooo convincing. She even gave us our name card, her agency where she worked at, just to convince us that it is not a fake ticket. Well i know that all these could be genuinely fake, but we just risked it. So anyway, the tickets we bought from her are HKD20 cheaper than the original price. Original ticket prices are HKD280, so in total we saved HKD140 for 7 adults.
So we took 629! It only costs HKD10.60 for adults. HKD10.60 is equivalent to SGD1.70. Dirt cheap right!!! For such distance I certainly feel that it is cheap. (or maybe it isn't so cheap. i have no idea, it's been ages since i last took public transport in Singapore. Note: I am a motorcyclist.)
So we passed by a short traffic jam, passed by construction sites, and even went through a tunnel that's probably half as long as the KPE tunnel in Singapore.... erm I compared with KPE tunnel because that's the only tunnel I pass through every single day so I roughly know how long the journey is heeeee~
ouh we even passed by a tiered cemetery! Space must be really constraint since they can have cemeteries overlooking the expressway! I hope no Chinese ghost stand at the side of the road and flag for a vehicle to hitch a ride man~
And so we are here! the morning crowd was already pouring in. Luckily, we managed to go into the park. SO hurray! we saved HKD140 on the tickets!
My cousin said that there were two sides to the park, and to get to the other side, we had to take the cable car. On the way to the cable car, there is this stretch of "Old Hong Kong" where the displays are set to resemble Hong Kong back then. Which era, i had noooo idea. I just know that it's old since they have those oldskool push carts, and everything look so nostalgic lah!
SO you get what I mean?
SO prior to the cable car ride, we had to take a photoshot. The cable car could only seat 6 person, so we had to split. The windows can even be opened. But we kept it close as it was quite windy and breezy. Sadly for me, the urge to pee had to come when I was just few minutes inside the cable car. So i couldn't really focus on the cable car ride most times. The scenery was wonderful though plagued with fog.
we are on the other side of ocean park!
The first ride we took. It was a "boat" ride where we WILL get wet. everyone took the ride, which made it fun. But we thought, well how bad could it be right. Only my dad bought a poncho to shelter himself from getting wet. After the ride, all of us were wet! it's soooo not fair, there were waterguns everywhere, that was why the radio said "YOU WILL GET WET".
Me and my cousin took the scary roller coaster after that. it looks scary la but really, it's nothing. it looks scary just because there were several rounds of upside down parts. BUT IT WAS FUN! there were several roller coasters with that roundabout thing. Worth the try!
Next, we went to the north pole/south pole aquarium. Something like that lah, forgot what it's called.
i think i was the only one who was interested with this mammoth picture and the fossil that was on the ground.
With some of the aquarium's props. The dogs look so cute!
Next in the aquarium, there is this pearl like prop that has a lever next to it. it's something like a question-and-answer kinda thing. It first shows the question, then you have to pull the lever down and the "pearl" will rotate to show the answer. It's cool. Questions that have never crossed my mind about the antarctic animals!
See how the aquarium is structured? It looks like you're in the ... i dunno, north or south pole? haahaaa
This part of the aquarium is sort of dome like, and the acrylic panel is quite thick so the animals look magnified. It's within the seal enclosure. And guess what i saw in here ...?
THE SEAL'S BUTT. THE SEAL'S BUTT! chet! how uncensored. and the seal is taking a dump! Look at it's poo! haaaaa~ didn't know that their poo looks like those of a human's faeces eh? eh but wait, isn't seal a type of mammal? ahh, i think i get it now ....
Just in time for the cleaners to vacuum the aquarium floor. there was one point where the seals were playing around with the person trying to clean the floor. how cute! well it's the first time i witnessed such things, as in, a human in the aquarium doing some cleaning.
this glass panels look so cool! i like!
Outside, there is this part where you can interact with a screen and a microphone. all you have to do is talk into the microphone and the animal that you select will "interpret" what you said in their own, unique animal language. cute! there were only 3 types of animals to choose from though.
More of the sea creatures. FYI, the enclosure's temperature was brought down to as low as 10 degrees celsius to accomodate the original environment that the animals survive in. It gets pretty chilly in here. There is even a clear glass (or was it acrylic) floor, like the small portion of the clear floor you saw in Singapore's SEA Aquarium.
I really, just really really love the penguin's enclosure. There is this one dominant and VAIN penguin who always posed for the camera. the one who's swimming, that's him! or her, or whatever its gender is.
Then it was waiting for my little cousin's O level results! because O level results were getting released earlier and earlier, the release of O level results within the first two weeks of January was seriously shocking for us as we thought that O's results won't be released until end January or early February the latest. So my cousin got his teacher to send him his results by MMS. and he was so happy! his face and mood totally changed after that. He was soooo tensed before that, probably just to scared to enjoy for fear of disappointment. So anyway, he scored waaaaay better than me, with an L1R4 of 11 and L1R5 of 14. Congratulations adik! he scored more As than me man! I only had an A for Malay Language, which shocked me because i never passed a B3 in my whole secondary school life.
So there weren't only marine creatures at Ocean park, but birds as well.....
ok this, THIS is the ride that made us wet! but i just love the backdrop, set against trees and such, it doesn't really feel artificial.
This two birds were kissing before that I SWEAAAAAR !
Some geography classes, anyone???
They should rename Ocean park to "Ocean Park and ... erm.. animalium" or something. It's not purely a Zoo but it's neither an ocenearium. How? eh ya, this money, mini monkey, midget-y monkey, look so cute right! and it moves like a sloth!
How about some turtle? Sakinah's long lost relative hehehehe
The hercules beetle! the most strongest beetle it can lift 7 double decker buses! wootwhoot!
Red eyed frog. It's inside a dark tank because the frog is nocturnal or something. Well the frog didn't move around much so i had to look out for this frog. i thought "RED EYE FROG" meant that the frog has red, glowing eyes but i was wrrrrooooong. it only had red eyes, duh. that's why it's red eyed frog right, not red GLOWING eyed frog. sheesh zue, seriously?
How a swamp/mangrove will look like if there was a glass panel halfway.
How about some creepy crawlies anyone? Goosebumps rising lah when i was in here!
See lah see lah, how to not get scared. This is a tunnel spider. it builds tunnel-like spiderwebs... but, the webs don't resemble tunnels le....
Inside this enclosure, i was always been left behind, wayy wayyy behind because i always just get too engrossed with the the information boards and see how these animals (except the creepy crawlies) are like.
I really can't stand this part. Bats, and giant ants, and spiders, and scorpion structures! i know they are fake la, but it looks sooo real, with the hairs and all. erks!
We took the Ocean Park Tower after that, to look at the scenery of HK Island from Ocean Park. The queue was long but it's not really a long wait as the tower can accomodate lots of people at one go. The attraction took less than 10 minutes i think.
The view from inside the cabin. Nice isn't it? If only we can have a clear, unobstructed view of the sea in Singapore. hais~
Panorama shot; FAIL. gah~ all thanks to the jerk by the cabin!
After which we walk, and we walk, and we walk, till our legs couldn't take it any further. The park is just too big in my opinion. By the time we knew it, it was already close to 6.30pm and we had to take the cable car down to the main part of the park.
At one of the part where we had to take a loooong escalator down to get to other parts of the park.
In my opinion, Ocean park can't really be covered in a day if you're to spend a long time inside the aquariums and such. I didn't get to see the dolphin feeding session, and i missed going into the oceanarium so i won't be able to compare the oceanarium in Ocean Park to the ones in Underwater world and SEA Aquarium in Singapore. We didn't manage to get on all the rides as well as it was getting late.
The wait to take the cable car back to the bottom part of the park was horrendous. The queue was sooo long but i doubt we waited for more than 30minutes for the cable car. The queues to the rides was also not so long. but Ocean park was sure crowded though even though it's the second week into the school term.
Anyway, point to note is that Ocean Park doesn't serve food to cater to Muslims. So i really suggest Muslim visitors to pack tidbits or their own lunch into Ocean Park. They don't check your bags though. But be considerate and don't litter around la okay?
The map did state that there are "indian cuisines" being served but i doubt that the "indian cuisine" is halal. that is one point of Ocean park that i hate. It already felt so China-ish, it's not really international friendly as well. They mustn't stereotype indian cuisine as halal, should they?
Anyway, I didn't buy anything from Ocean Park, which was a major disappointment. The folks decided not to patronise the gift shops because they thought the stuffs there aren't so appealing compared to Disneyland.
Well, that's what they say, "different strokes for different folks".
Till then,
lotsalove.
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