4/10 Ocean Park

Thursday 4^th

We celebrated our escape from the tyranny of excessive fat-filled food aboard cruise ships by choosing the Jumbo Breakfast under the Golden Arches. $3.20 gets you a sausage meat burger with a heap of scrambled egg, hash brown (mmmmm calories) two large hotcakes with a tub of maple syrup (lumberjack food), butter, grape jam, a rather good coffee and two cigarette pack sized packets of Kleenex.

Today’s Silly Old Bugger story highlights the greybeard in Hong Kong who tried to empty the McDonalds tray into the ATM machine next to the door. I was distracted by guilt over eating all that food L

While we were there, we popped into the adjacent bakery to stock up on some lunch to take for our day at Ocean Park. We took the train and bus through the tunnel onto the island and across to Admiralty. The park is a huge sprawling place draped up the side of a mountain. The higher level is reached by an underground train or cable car.

The pandas were a star attraction and we found ourselves subjected to Extreme Temptation in the souvenir shop afterwards. So many delectable soft furry pandas. And no longer the excuse that we have too much baggage! We considered the relative merits of a cute looking specimen compared to the more functional one which turned inside out and became a pillow but had a strange looking face . . . as you do when you have been turned inside out! We eventually opted for the former but then faced the dilemma over whose panda it was . . I said we bought it for Lissa but a glimpse of smouldering dissent led me to recognise the merits (ground glass in my coffee) of the solution that Lissa can borrow it when J isn’t cuddling it.

The lower level of Ocean Park houses the huge Aquarium, Old China Town, Bird flight arena, children's play area and the Pandas.

 Red Panda

 Otter

 It's Halloween and there is decoration everywhere.  Special night time opening hours for special haunted houses and displays.

 

The higher levels have the thrill rides, the dolphin and seal show, jellyfishland, North & South Poles aquariums, and more.  The polar exhibits are in freezing great halls, which was very nice after the warmth outside.  The animals have very decent sized pools with viewing above and below the pools. 

Dolphin pool and the rides and view        beyond from almost the top of the mountain.

 Walrus

Arctic Fox

The penguins can swim under the floor in this section

Night time lights up

 

We decided to come down by cable car, hoping it might give us a good view of the fireworks below. We had no idea that we would first climb to the very tip of the mountain, above the precipitous drop down a cliff, and then sail out into the void for the looooong descent down to sea level. One tries not to notice that there is only 1 cable!!

The start of the fireworks was a welcome distraction. The display was blended with fountains illuminated with coloured lights, spouts of flame and smoke. Unfortunately, our arrival at the bottom came shortly after the end of the display so the entire crowd was already heading for the bus stop. There is no station anywhere near there.

The queue was immense but there was a steady stream of 629 buses. We made our way to the back of the queue and then watched as clumps of a hundred or so Chinese would simply blend into the queue half way down – we were hardly moving forward. Then a brave attendant marched down and yelled at the arriving stream, which dutifully resumed its trudge to the back of the queue. In Australia he would more likely have been pelted with beer bottles. Curiously, they would fill the bus seats, close the doors and then drive forward a hundred or so metres to the back of the queue, where they would stop again for people to board and travel standing up.

Finally, we reached the bottleneck leading to the bus loading area. This was where the serious jostling began. (A small percentage of ) the Chinese absolutely cannot help themselves and when the queue stops, the shuffling continues. Elbows and hips squeeze between the people in front and next thing you know they have wormed in front of you.

A persistent offender had the bad luck to try and get past J, who edged firmly up against the dividing chain while I put my hip in behind hers. This boxed the jostler into a corner and we kept her there, muttering, squirming and shoving J in the back, until we were level with the bus door, at which point she made her bolt round to the left. We stayed ahead of her and boxed her again.  We climbed aboard the bus with a triumphant feeling like Rocky Balboa at the top of the steps. Going home now! We must share a strain of kelpie in us? It certainly whiled away the time until we got our chance to board.

We picked up some very tasty sushi on the way home and were again happy to fall into bed after a loooong day on our feet. J was further bruised and sore from her massage and had threatened me with extreme violence the next time I spotted a VW and gave her a Pinch Buggy (google it).