*Updated on 25th Nov with more pics below*
We bad…
We played hookie at Ocean Park today…
Around 9.30am, Ocean Park staff begin to roam with giant cameras… They’ll take as many pictures as you want with your iPhone and other cameras, helpfully directing you to stand in the right spot and diligently getting your small child’s attention for the camera… Then after you have all the shots you want, they politely ask to take one with their own camera – there’s no pushing, no hard sell, you just feel so bad not obliging because they’ve let you take all the shots you want already…
10 minutes later, a girl walks up to you with prints of your pictures in an Ocean Park souvenir folder and plastic photoframe keychains…
At our “No thank you,” the girl smiled, “Sure, no problem,” and immediately disappeared. No more pushing for sales. They’re kind of brilliant.
It’s 8.55am and counting… Rockstar snacks on Chee Cheong Fun in a tupperware as around us early-bird tourists and the odd school class on an outing begin to group… The class in this picture and their teachers were speaking completely in Cantonese and entered early thru a side gate… Lucky them, no entrance crowd to contend with (I think for practical security reasons too; periodically you get rumours of attempted kiddie kidnappings including an email of a Chinese woman who picked up a toddler coo-ing at how cute he/ she was, then trying to disappear in the crowd with him/her – the mail was forwarded around several banks and led the cops to investigate its authenticity…)
The park opens at 10am, ticket sales at 9.30am… Every other time we showed up past 10, and Humongous Scary Queue would sent us on to HK Wetlands Park or some less commercialized crowded Rockstar Entertainment Center… This time we’re determined to wait it out…
9.35am after we buy tickets… The queue begins to form…
9.40am… This is the queue behind us…
10am… And we’re off to the races!
We attempt a little flanking…
Boldly treading where no other rockstar has tread… this morning…
Just so we know we’re still in Hong Kong…
Sometimes I think no one picks the typos up cos no one’s reading the English one…
Possibly the English leaflets were the least popular…
Simplified Chinese = Used In Singapore and China, Traditional Chinese = for Hongkies (Question: Which one is for the average Taiwanese tourist? Answer: Not the English one)
Rockstar does competitor intelligence, learns from the master…
(How can something this cute and willing to oblige gawking tourists be fierce and grouchy in the fur? Is it all part of showbiz?)
And my favorite sight – the Panda Cafe
(After a weekend of only congee, potatos, boiled eggs and carrots – I’ll eat anything – I’d eat the pandas if they let me)
We loves the umbrellas… And the eats… Was totally expecting deep fried junk fast food, but they had really fresh Har Kau (shrimp dim sum) – ate 8 – and they even served up panda! Buns, that is – panda sweet bread. And the tv screens play the best clips of the pandas with wash clothes, rubber tubes, pulling each other off swings…
Rockstar meets a groupie…
Rides an Orca…
View from the panda area… Always seems to be something or other under construction in HK… Ocean Park is no diff…
Rockstar chills at the games stall while I try to sneak off for a bathroom break, balk at the portable toilets and come back in time to take this pic…
The guy staring down the barrell at Rockstar is really good with little kids – Rockstar even let him carry him off to mess about with thegames board (quite an achievement, Rockstar is the Rockstar because he doesn’t warm easily)
Rockstar chooses cable cars over underground train…
And we’re off!
The peace and quiet is almost eery… And there you thought there’s no place in HK without hustle, bustle, complaining uncles or construction dust…
I had a local friend whose fiance proposed to her up here…
(And yes according to this poster at the entrance they also do weddings)
Then onward to the Atoll Reef…
Because we reach the famed dolphin show just as these nice folks are waving tails…
One look at the crowd in the stands about to disperse inspires us to walk quickly away…
Entering the Reef we pass a panda hat wearing this mum with her boy (who looks to be about 10) in tow… The hats are for sale at the countless souvenir shops scattered around…
Whatever turns you on, baby… We will not judge, we will not judge…
We will however finally succumb to Devious Marketing Ploy…
Were Panda Hat Wearing Woman and her son on the park’s payroll? They roam around the crowded tank area speaking Putonghua, taking pictures, just like any of the other gadzillion Chinese tourists are doing… Devious…
Big, sparkling tank filled with magic…
And four-foot long sharks…
Then we take the train back…
No family excursion should be considered complete without Kings caught cheating on his family with the Berry…
And this is the “after” shot…
Rockstar was actually crashing fast… 20-24 degree weather right now lets me put him in 2 shirts… so I can peel off the outer one quickly if he crashes and I can’t change him completely before his nap…
PS: We weren’t really playing hookie. Rockstar doesn’t attend school on Putonghua days.
