^ Above image courtesy www.wikipedia.org, user Leonardolo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rides_in_HK_Ocean_Park.jpg.
HK Part IV - Ocean Park
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On to Part V ->
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On the south coast of Hong Kong Island, sitting on a peninsula that juts out into the sea, is a fantastic entertainment complex known as the Ocean Park. A combination aquarium, amusement park, and conservation center, the park covers 226 acres and is split in twain by a large mountain. The park boasts a good number of rides and attractions, as well as a sizable community of animals, and the park is worth a visit by anyone who is spending a decent portion of time in Hong Kong. In addition to the fun activities, rides, and shows inside the park, the views you get from the location are incredible, further making an already fun day even better.
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The park is located just east of Aberdeen, and once inside you realize it actually covers two different areas. The first is called "The Waterfront", and includes the main entrance to the park, the local wildlife examples (including pandas, birds, and reptiles), and the Kids discovery area. The Grand Aquarium is also found in this area. In addition to the lower terminals of the cable car and the funicular railway, there is a short section called "Old Hong Kong" that is a garish and cheesy re-creation of a traditional Hong Kong. We strolled around in here and saw the various animals and exhibits, enjoying the fact that by going in the middle of the week in October, the park was fairly uncrowded.
Despite all of her travels around the world, Kelsey had never before seen a real life panda bear. So needless to say, Kelsey was pretty excited to see them here at the Ocean Park. First up were the Giant Pandas. We watched one happily chewing away on some bamboo for a while, and then moved over and watched on playing around on a tree, trying to reach over and chew some leaves from another tree. Several times we thought it was going to fall out of the tree and eat it, but it was surprisingly dexteritous and nimble for a creature of it's size. We also got to see a Red Panda as well, which was surprisingly smaller than the classic Giants, and almost looked feline in it's structure and body.
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We wanted to beat the crowds over to the "Summit", where all the rides are, so we didn't spend too much time in the "Waterfront" area. The line for the cable car was only 10 minutes, and in no time we were on our way. The cable car is about a kilometer and a half long (about a mile) and goes up and over a small hill that separates the two areas of the park. We had good views from the cabin, especially east to Repulse Bay and Stanley, as well as west to Aberdeen.
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Once at The Summit, our first ride was the "Hair Raiser", the fastest and most exciting roller coaster in the park. Kelsey wasn't sure about going first thing but I figured that the line would only get longer as the day wore on, so we rolled over and got in line. We probably only waited 15 minutes, and although the ride was short (about 90 seconds) it was a hoot. After winding down from this we took a stroll through the "Polar Adventure" area, which was a lot of fun. Inside there were seals, sea lions, walrus, penguins, and arctic foxes. It was quite chilly inside the zones, which was quite nice for us. Felt like home!
Next up were rides on "The Flash", similar to the "Chaos" ride at VinPearlLand in Nha Trang, and a trip down "The Rapids" a fun whitewater simulator that was decent enough but could have been way better. Lunchtime was fast approaching so we ended up at the "Bayview Terrace" Restaurant, located below the Cable Car station. This was a bit of a shit show; I thought the food was fine but Kelsey did not enjoy hers at all, and to top it off it was extremely pricey. We later found a McDonald's lower in the park, which I wish we had found earlier, but at least we got to enjoy a beautiful view with our lunch.
Far away and closer views of Repulse Bay from the restaurant.
After lunch we wandered down. through the Jellyfish Exhibit, which was creepy and hypnotic. Some incredible creatures those jellies. Then it was through the shark exhibit, which in addition to housing a wide variety of shark species, also had a handful of impressive rays. Quick up after that was the Yangtze River Exploration, and the sturgeon habitat, which was well worth it to see the size of some of them. There was one big guy that was easily bigger than a human being, both in size and mass. There was a diver in with them, feeding some of them, and you could tell he was a little nervous being in the tank with them. Although they would never attack him and couldn't do any damage even if they did, it still must be unnerving to be in the same environment as something that massive.
Coming out of the Yangtze River Exhibit, we realized we were right on time for one of the live shows at the Dolphin Area. We stuck around for a while and enjoyed the show, which was centered around two performers and a small host of animals, including a sea lion, a seal, and a group of dolphins. The dolphins were pretty impressive in how high they could launch themselves out of the water, including one big one that was getting himself easily 4 or 5 meters above the surface of the water. Pretty incredible for an animal that can weigh 500 kg. The show was simple but enjoyable, but we dipped out a few minutes early to avoid the rush of people.
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All: Views of the Dolphin & Seal Show.
There was time for one more round of rides before we needed to head back, so we headed down to the bottom, to the area known as "Adventure Land". This was one of the older areas of the park, and we quickly realized this when we rode "The Dragon", a roller coaster perched on the side of the hill with an incredible view over the sea. Unfortunately, amazing view or not, the old coaster was painful to ride, as it was incredibly jerky and violent, and the restraint bar that came down over your head and shoulders was bulky and uncomfortable, and thanks to the whiplash of the ride, we got banged around pretty hard. It wasn't a pleasant experience and I'm guessing this ride doesn't have much time left before it gets updated or removed. This is the roller coaster pictured at the top of the page.
Next up was "The Abyss", which was your classic free-fall drop ride. I love these kinds of rides, and this one, being of good height. Did not disappoint. Kelsey had heard it was six seconds at the top before they dropped, so she started counting as soon as we hit the apex. Sure enough, on six, we dropped. It was a whole lot of fun, especially to see all of the Asians getting off of it, who were acting like it was the most insane crazy thing they had ever done. Finally, it was down for a quick ride on the "Mine Train", a fun mini-coaster similar to Disneyland's "Thunder Mountain Railway", and then we finished up with a quick run on the "Raging River", which was kind of like a cheezier and less-exciting version of Disney's "Splash Mountain". In addition to the rides, this area of the park was really nice as there was incredible views to the west over the glittering towers and marinas of the Aberdeen neighborhood.
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The worst part of the day was unfortunately yet to come. Adventure Land is located at the very bottom of the park, so to get back to the Cable Car station to head back down, we had to ride up a long series of escalators and head back up some pathways to get there. Over the course of the day we kept hearing announcements that the "Ocean Express", the funicular railway between the two areas of the park, was closed for maintenance. We didn't think much of it on the way TO the "Summit" area, but the full gravity of the situation hit us when we got in line for the Cable Car. Ocean Park is very popular with tourist groups of Mainland Chinese, who come to Hong Kong for a couple days and do a super quick, super fast tour through many of the sites. Apparently, a half-day at Ocean Park is on the itinerary for many of those tours, and because the funicular wasn't working, the only way down was via the Cable Car or the Shuttle Bus system. When we got in line for the Cable Car, the advertised waiting time was 45 minutes, and that 45 minutes was a nightmare. Mainland Chinese are some of the rudest, most annoying, disrespectful tourists you will ever meet. Other people may rag on Americans are being terrible tourists, but those people have obviously never experienced Chinese tourists. They have zero comprehension of queues, and how to behave in them. We eventually resorted to throwing elbows to stop them for cutting us in line so bad.
Finally though, we ended up in a cabin, and worked out way back down to the base, where we hailed a taxi and headed back to our hotel. As stressful as the exit out of the park was, it was still a super fun day and well worth the admission price and stress of dealing with the other tourists. The ride home was nice too, as we got to go up and over the Island on Wong Nai Chung Gap Road, in contrast to blasting through the Aberdeen Tunnel on our way there. Overall the day was big success and was definitely a "WIN"!
On to Part V ->
All photos copyright Kit Davidson unless otherwise noted.