Hong Kong Trip Day 3: Ocean Park

Woke up bright and early because today is Ocean Park day.. because breakfast is not provided, Max went out to buy breakfast and came back with Mac Donalds and some sort of fried noodles from Seven 11... Actually he had wanted to try his luck to see if the vegeterian restaurant near us will be open but no luck... we decided we will try visit the restaurant later this evening for dinner!:)

Having breakfast... Max says the noodles are disappointing but well, just fill up the tummy first bah...

We are on our way... Ace doing his "hungry meditation" again on the bus.. wahahahha..

Do you remember those cemetries up on the hills we saw in the HK dramas? Saw one on our way to Ocean Park and cannot help but wanna take photo...

And finally, there we are-- OCEAN PARK!:) Max says he was here many moons ago.. maybe something like 20 years ago lor! Oh, he says it has changed lots!

I was a little worried when we arrived because: 1) there were so many people (as it was summer holidays in HK and in china) and it just reminded me of the 2 hour queue we did yesterday; 2) the sky was starting to turn grey.. and wat do you know, somehow by mistake, I brought an umbrella along in my bag from Singapore and we brought it along today!:)

While our tour guide went to fetch our tickets we had fun watching some animals on display. I dunno what they are.. but I think they are beavers or even otters of some kind... it was feeding time and their food (ground meat) was put together with ice and put on the stones... One of them is very clever lor.. he kept running for the big pieces of meat stuck to the ice and he will quickly run into water to dissolve the ice and eat the meat...

We started our journey here by exploring the underwater segment.. there is a segment where you can touch star fishes if you wash your hands.. Ace got to do it.. I just took photos:)

Saw these fishes tat look like they are shoots growing out from the sand.. strange...

Starfish galore!:) Not to mention Stingrays and Sharks:)

Bottom left is how the starfishes look like on the underside:)... on the bottom left, a sea urchin:)

Top left is a sea lion... top right, a sort of coral tat looks like brains... the two two bottom photos.. if you look carefully are the ugliest looking squids I have ever seen! Paraphrasing one of my friends... they have got faces "that only a mother can love.."

I was not sure if my photo of the sealion will come out ok so I took photo of their official photo.. wahahahaha:)

Seahorses and sea urchins again..

Turtles galore:) I just love to watch these dudes swim...

There was this column inside where there are are thousands of the same spieces of fish and they are all swimming around in a circle like a tornado.. you can't really see it here but if you look close, you will realize that there is a cylindrical container with some holes and with food inside.. the fishes are swimming round and round their food to eat!

Fancy some giant spider crabs anyone?:P

Next, it was time to visit this new enclosure that houses pandas and golden monkeys:)

Gotto queue again... Ace and Max got so bored queuing they were yawning...

And finally after all the queuing, went in and saw one panda "sunbathing"...

And the two golden monkeys huddled together sleeping.. bummer! And that was it.. nothing else liao!

Everywhere you visited, the exit always lead to a gift shop which meant more silly photos:)

This is a hairband of a shark with the mouth opened.. this is how it would look like to have one's head in the shark's mouth.. wahahaha

Then we came to this part of the park which is called Old HK street.. it has all the things you might possibly find on a street in HK say 50 years ago?

You never thought Ace could lift me up on a trishaw huh!:)

Old time buses...

Old time houses...

Fake salted fish ;)

There was even a machine to make your own souvenior.. we made a "chicken" coin for Ace as he is born in the year of the rooster..

Old time adverts...

My fav part are those game stores lor.. they are very usual tikam tikam games we play but they are dressed up in such interesting ways and the prizes that the give out are very cute too:)

Ace decided to try one of the shooting games and turns out, he was a pretty good shot and actually won himself a mini match stick.. if he had done better, he would have won a mini soft toy tat is a bowl of chicken and rice.. wahahaha.. so I think he might have not wanted tat..

Ace and his trophy:)

I love this one.. this is a game where you get to knock off the teeth of the bride and groom and the prizes are these xi bing.. so cute lor! i love them!

There is even one (dunno wat game it is) where the soft toy you win is shaped like an egg tart!:)

Dunno wat game this is also.. but it is made to be like a old hair dresser's shop..

There is a ball throwing game dressed up like old time stationary shop and the prize they give away is little cushions shaped like those fei ji qi... very cute:)

I so can related to many of the things i see inside lor...

Old time letter boxes...

THen we decided that we will take a train up the mountain to the other part of the park.. but before we depart, let's watch some performance first... disappointed to find tat the performance is some sort of aerobic dance..

that is the gate of the train station... while we were queuing up, there was a group of PRC people who came to stand around the queue and they started asking.. "what is this.. wat is there to see here..." when told it was to go up the mountain.. they asked why have to go up the mountain.. wah lau eh, dun even know wat this is then come in and crowd the queue for wat?? Somemore dun queue properly... hai....

The train ride was nothing fancy.. they just had screens on top to show some pics of sea creatures.. and tat was about it..

When we reached the top of the mountain, there was another performance going on.. but alas, it was some sort of dance using skipping ropes.. Isnt this ocean park??? why are the performances not related to animals???

Seriously, I was expecting something like dancing penguins:)

The top part of the mountain was filled with rides (which meant lots of queues) and despite our encouragement, Ace refused to go on the roller coaster..

So we visited a few more exhibits lor.. first one we saw was a artic adventure where you can visit all the animals living in the north pole..

Welcome to the world of walruses, sealions and seals..

As there was a feeding time in another 20 min.. we hung around the place for a while.. I was so surprised tat when Ace said he wanted to take photo with this eskimo man statue.. he promptly climbed up on it:) wahahaha..

During the show.. which was actually a feeding time, they showed us some other animals like the snow owls...

And of coursse fed the seals and sea lions:)

They had a question and answer where they would give away prizes and Ace kept raising his hand but did not get picked. WHen he was finally picked for the last question, however, even though we told him the answer, he did not shout it out because he thought tat the people here only spoke cantonese and mandarin and did not understand english! So he lost his chance to win a prize... and he cried and cried.. I told him to try to talk to the jie jie when it ends and see if she can give him a chance and even though he went up to give the answer again, she already gave the prize to someone else... she asked him to try again in their later show...

Ace was a little upset at this and so I asked him what did he learn from this incident.. he said he learnt to make the best use of every chance you have.. and I agreed.. I told him that no matter wat happens, when you have the chance, you TRY.. if you dun try, it means you give up and you for sure will not get your reward.... If he had tried just now, he would have found out tat these people speak and understand english too....

Saw this adorable thingy... is a seal pretending to be a hammer head shark.. cute hor?:P

Then we walked in through the artic fox exhibition.. nothing much.. just a very cold place with one sleeping fox.. wahahahah

Then it was time to visit the penguins!

This one is just posing for us:)

Sleeping one sleeping..

Check out tat guy swimming behind us!:)

After the penguin exhibit, it was time to walk to the ocean theatre to watch the dolphin show... and while walking.. we saw a beautiful view at the top of the mountain!:)

Finally reached the ocean theatre after lots of walking... And thankfully, we found seats... phew.. we noticed there is some sort of  music and it sounded like those music bands tat played at funerals.. when i turned around to take photos.. i realized they were dressed like those bands too! Wahahahahahha....

Max was seated beside a lady whose bag trap kept hitting him.. so he wriggled his finger to pushed it back but it always came back again.. in the end, so tat Ace can have a better view, he changed seats with Ace;) wahahaha

The dolphin show was not too bad but I preferred the one I saw tat the Dubai Dolphinarium...

I kept seeing the trainer do this thing with his fingers.. like conducting.. I wonder wat those signs mean in dolphin language:)

Then we decided to take a cable down the hill to find some food... while queueing up, just so we can entertain ourselves, Ace and max pretended to feed this duckie.. which is actually a backpack carried by the person in front of them..

The cable cars here are much smaller and so less sturdy...

Max pretending to be scared in the cable car... for a while, Ace was really worried tat we have to take the service cable car like the cage we see behind us:) wahahahaha....

Max kept rocking the cable car and Ace was very kan cheong... kept gripping his chair tightly:)

"Stop shaking, daddy!" Ace giggled and gripped on to his chair tightly when Max started to shake the car again...

That is Ocean Park from the top of the mountain ;)

Time for lunch! There was nothing much we could find here to eat.. so we had cheong fun and fried noodles.. nothing fantastic.. but my thinking is just stuff our stomaches first lah.. cos it is already 3pm!:)

Our family promotes being environmentally friendly so everyone only gets one third of a tissue to wipe their mouths.. somehow, Max's piece of tissue turned out to be a beard:) wahahahah:)

Then it is time to play games!

The two of them wone a small and medium bun!:)

Then because we saw that the pinball machine had really nice presents.. we tried it and Max got a big prize... four balls in a row!!! wow! tat one is dam lucky lor!

So Ace won a small bear in Bruce Lee Costume tat he calls Xiao Long.. and another cushion shaped like an earth tat he calls Lucky Earth... he was so happy and said that the buddha from yesterday must have been helping him.. he so happy he made the donation.. wahahaha.. but i think what he din know tat "GOD" or "BUDDHA" moved and really helped through his dad lor:) wahahahaha... cos his dad was the one who played well and won the prizes and his dad was also the one who paid for the games and the donation!:) wahahahaha.. so actually should thank his dad too:)

Then we went to another exhibit which claims to show off exotic animals in asia...

Surprise surprise! we see pandas again! This one is just lazing around...

Ace sleeping like the panda:)

Initially i thought this is a racoon.. but later realized that it is a red panda! So cute!I think Singapore is going to have one soon...

Guess who I saw.. Leon Lai.. my idol! (from my teenage years lah) Wahahahaa..

Then it was time to go to view another type of exotic animal- gold fishes!

Through the garden, we saw this turtle.. for a while, I tot it was a statue.. until it started moving a little... I think hor, this turtle looks like it is doing yoga... doesnt he look like he is in the sun salutation pose??:P wahahaha

The many speices of gold fishes..

Max act cute..

Such a cute bottle holder!:)

As we walked somemore, we found a kids's corner in the park.. there are many games there like drive the boat lah..

There is also a playground there.. I was so surprised to see Ace monkey bar his way all across lor... and unlike his meek pre-dubai self, he doesnt give up or give way till he reaches his goal or till his hands cannot take it anymore.. he would not go kick others off but will try to take the next pole or the next step the best he can.. since there were alot of children, he was stuck at this pose for a long time lor.. his arms are strong man!

We have time to go for one more show.. a show called Birds Of Paradise:)

Rarely do we get a chance to see birds so up close and personal

Before we left, we bought these three shirts.. to make up our new family outfit:)

Goodbye Ocean Park..

One last photo in the gift shop and off we go:)

Time to explore on our own! We walked to that veg restaurant tat Max found near our hotel... (it was just the next street!) and found the best and most delicious vegeterian food we have tasted in a long long while!:)

Max ordered, salad prawn with veg siu mai... gui hua chi, stewed toufu, salted fish fried rice and some sort of satay we only tasted before in Lingzhi!

 I think the waitress also so surprised tat we can finish all the food lor! Considering we had a shitting lunch, this more than makes up for it... oh, why din we discover this place earlier!

We tried to walk to our next destination.. Goldfish Street.. we passed this shop tat had this t shirt I feel is very suited for Max:)

Anyway, in the end, we decided not to waste time and take a cab down instead... turned out to be quite far away leh:) As this is our last night out in the city (next night we spend in HK disneyland and following day we fly back to sgp), we have got to make the best out of it.. must cheong and buy all the things we wanted to but did not buy!

Ace was happy to be able to see lots of fish, turles.. animals..

There were also many pet shops there that sold rabbits, cats and dogs..

Even found mooncakes for dogs!

These lizards are the cutest ever!

Ace and the lizards just stared at each other.. wahahaha.. so cute:)

After we finished walking through Gold Fish Street, we went to Woman's Street.. but walking through the whole length of it, we sadly found nothing to buy.. expect two punchers.. Ace wanted to buy a butterfly one for TIffany and one Dragonfly one for himself..

Next, we walked from Woman's Street to Temple Street... cos Max said tat is on our way home! He told me two MRT stops and I miscalculated.. I tot like walk from bedok to tanah merah only but no lor.. is like walk from kemangan to tanah merah lor... walk till I want to die ah....

We wanted to eat dessert but cannot find any nice dessert place.. end up going to the Xu LIu Shan place near our hotel... phew...

Ace almost died by the time we reached the dessert shop:)

But nothing a good pudding cannot resolve:)

Yummy.. just love the pomelo mango dessert!:)

After that it was back to our room... when we walked past this jap restaurant everynight, it is always filled with queues! And the interesting thing is the later in the night, the longer the queues.. from this, I deduce tat: 1) Hongkies love jap food.. at least the youngsters do since they are the ones who are mostly doing the queuing.. 2)It is normal to queue for food.. 3) HKies dun sleep one.. the later it is, the more people there are out there on the streets one... just how they get to work bright eyed and starry the next morning I never will know.. maybe gotto ask my HK frens:)

OMG, this is going to take up half my lugguage space lor...

Anyway, as we walked so much, we all had a very good sleep tat night:) and tat spells the end of day 3..

Tomorrow, HK Disneyland!:)

Previous Post: Hong Kong Trip Day 2: City Tour with Xiao Ma Ge!