HONG KONG, CHINA
Mom, Mike and I spent most of today at Ocean Park, the city's premier theme park/oceanarium (a la Sea World), set high in the hills of Hong Kong island. To get there, we had to brave long lines of tourists (unfortunately, it's summer holidays for the kids) before even catching the bus that took us to the park. Once there, mom opted for a wheelchair, which was a good idea for her because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists--but a bit challenging for Mike and me pushing her around, because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists! At any rate, we did get to skip to the head of the line at some of the exhibits, which was sweet.
We decided to skip the thrill rides (which didn't look all that thrilling) and instead checked out the seals and sea lions at "Pacific Pier," got completely disoriented in the "Sea Jelly Spectacular," which features lots of jellyfish tanks in a very dark hall of mirrors (I ran into walls several times), and had lunch in yet another Hong Kong restaurant with a fantastic view of the bay. We then watched divers feed the creatures at "Atoll Reef,"a giant reef tank which features lots of really mammoth fishes--stingrays, eagle rays, sawfish, leopard and reef sharks, barramundi, giant groupers, etc.--before taking a skyride gondola down to the lower part of the park, where we observed their two giant pandas, An An and Jia Jia, munching on bamboo. Heh. Pandas are funny.
All of that made for a pretty exhausting day, but of course we couldn't miss the complimentary evening cocktails at our hotel. Mmm, cocktails. Afterwards, we walked to the "Avenue of Stars" again; this time to see the nightly sound and light show where the buildings of the city are lit up with lasers and spotlights and whatnot. Very sci-fi. On the promenade, Mom and Mike were surprised to run into a bunch of people from their mainland China tour group. Small world, eh? Then we headed to dinner at an Indian restaurant featuring live music and some pretty bitchin' chicken tikka masala.
Mom, Mike and I spent most of today at Ocean Park, the city's premier theme park/oceanarium (a la Sea World), set high in the hills of Hong Kong island. To get there, we had to brave long lines of tourists (unfortunately, it's summer holidays for the kids) before even catching the bus that took us to the park. Once there, mom opted for a wheelchair, which was a good idea for her because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists--but a bit challenging for Mike and me pushing her around, because the whole place consists of steep hilly paths crowded with tourists! At any rate, we did get to skip to the head of the line at some of the exhibits, which was sweet.
We decided to skip the thrill rides (which didn't look all that thrilling) and instead checked out the seals and sea lions at "Pacific Pier," got completely disoriented in the "Sea Jelly Spectacular," which features lots of jellyfish tanks in a very dark hall of mirrors (I ran into walls several times), and had lunch in yet another Hong Kong restaurant with a fantastic view of the bay. We then watched divers feed the creatures at "Atoll Reef,"a giant reef tank which features lots of really mammoth fishes--stingrays, eagle rays, sawfish, leopard and reef sharks, barramundi, giant groupers, etc.--before taking a skyride gondola down to the lower part of the park, where we observed their two giant pandas, An An and Jia Jia, munching on bamboo. Heh. Pandas are funny.
All of that made for a pretty exhausting day, but of course we couldn't miss the complimentary evening cocktails at our hotel. Mmm, cocktails. Afterwards, we walked to the "Avenue of Stars" again; this time to see the nightly sound and light show where the buildings of the city are lit up with lasers and spotlights and whatnot. Very sci-fi. On the promenade, Mom and Mike were surprised to run into a bunch of people from their mainland China tour group. Small world, eh? Then we headed to dinner at an Indian restaurant featuring live music and some pretty bitchin' chicken tikka masala.
posted by John Kuge at 10:47 PM
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