Ocean Park

So this past week I have done basically just school work, which is why there hasn't been much to say. With that said, I decided to take a break from work and go to Ocean Park last Sunday. Ocean Park is an amusement park on the south side of Hong Kong Island. The theme is sea animals which they had mixed in with the rides. I went with Chase, Jennifer, Natalie, Matt, and his girlfriend who was visiting him from the states. The park is broken into two section, which are quite far from each other. In fact the only way to get between them is by bus or a long cable car ride. We arrived around noon so we got some hot dogs which I thought were decent for park food. The side of the park we started on was on the side of a mountain, so the main path was actually a huge escalator and everything overlooked the ocean. The first ride we all wanted to get on was a roller coaster called The Mine Ride. It was short and not that intense, maybe a step up from Cedar Point's Mine Ride, but it was built on the side of a step mountain so that was pretty neat. The awkward thing about the ride was that everything around was an American western theme, so it had "Mine Ride" painted on a wooden shed in an old western font. The problem was they also wrote it in Chinese which, I thought didn't quite work out to have the same feeling.

We then headed up to the top where there was a seal exhibit and watched seals play in the water for a while. The park mascot is a cartoon seal named Whiskers, so the seal exhibit was pretty large.

Next we went through a jellyfish exhibit. Inside the building it was very dark and they light up the tanks with different colors of light to highlight all the jellyfishes tentacles and blobs. It was more interesting for the artistic presentation then the jellyfishes themselves.

Afterwards, we rode The Dragon. This was an old steel roller coaster with several inversions. The track was very, very rough. I think it was the first roller coast that I have been on that had the station higher then the vast majority of the ride. The station was at the top of the mountain and the track was all down hill. The last part of the ride was actually a lift hill. It was pretty fun, but left most of our necks in pain.

We then waited for the dolphin show, which was packed. It was pretty good and actually had a mix of dolphins and seals. There was a story line with it. From what I gathered there was a little girl talking to her grandfather about how great it is that humans and sea animals can play together. The problem was most of the show was in Cantonese so I was lost most of the time.

Since time was starting to get short we got on the cable car to head to the other part of the park. This was a long chair lift ride that ran along the side of a very steep mountain. It was a somewhat foggy day so we could not see too far out, but the ride was so long we couldn't see the other end of the ride either so that left us with a bit of excitement.

The other side of the park is apparently the "main" part, but did not have that many rides. Chase and Matt tried some of the games but were very unsuccessful. After exploring that side for a while Matt and his girlfriend went back to the other side of the park because there was a couple of rides they wanted to get in before the park closed. The rest of use wanted to go see the panda house. There they have four pandas. Two of them were out that day and were actually quite active. They wondered around their artificial indoor environment, climbed trees, and ate bamboo. The lighting was really bad so I did not get very many good pictures, but it was a neat exhibit anyways. By that time the park was closing and it was getting late. We left and caught the bus back to central. It was a nice break from school work.

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