Post #45 – November 25, 2012 – Hong Kong

What we did: Ocean Park, shopping

Budget: $200; Spent: $483

Today was one of those days travelers fear, but know is always a possibility: cloudy, rainy, and a little chilly. Today was a day that would make most people stay home, and the rest stick to indoor activities. It was a day that few people would wish for. Thankfully, we were just those kind of people!

Today was a day we had been planning for quite some time. It was a day I've been looking forward to since we entered China. Today we visited Ocean Park, Hong Kong’s answer to Disney Land. And what an answer!

But first, allow me to explain why we might hope for weather of the poorer variety. Yesterday, the streets were absolutely teeming with people. More people than seems right. It was a real struggle to make it from one store to the next. What we didn’t want was for Ocean Park to be like this. What we didn’t want was to have to wait three hours to get on a 60 second ride. And I am happy to report that our longest wait was probably 15 minutes, and only because we wanted very specific seats. But I’ll get to that in due time.

Today we woke up relatively early so that we could maximize our time at Ocean Park. We had bought some food the night before at a grocery store so we cooked up a nice little breakfast of boiled eggs, toast, yogurt, oranges, and coffee. Patty also made peanut butter and banana sandwiches for a lunch. Let me tell you, I’m really getting used to all the white bread we've been eating. It’s a little bit ridiculously delicious!

After our tasty breakfast, we headed out the door. We decided to walk to the place that shuttle busses to the park leave from. This was perhaps a bad idea, first because of the weather and second because of the distance. We were a little concerned it would take all day, but in the end it took maybe about 20 minutes. I doubt the subway would have been much faster. We were able to buy park tickets and return bus tickets and hopped on a mostly full bus that left almost immediately. Lovely!

We were at the park in about 10 minutes and excited like school children. Actually, maybe even a bit more. We were practically giddy with excitement. We had no idea what to expect, but we couldn't wait to scare the crap out of ourselves, which, come to think of it, really isn't that difficult. But that was our goal.

Turns out the park itself is split into two separate areas. The area directly through the front gates houses some small rides, stores, and an immense aquarium. We decided to forego all this and head straight to the good stuff. This meant crossing over to the other side of the park, and as far as we knew, we had to take a cable car to get there. Well, I can definitively tell you that the cable car ride was the scariest ‘ride’, for both Patty and I, of the entire day. It is quite a distance between the two sides and the cable car basically takes you along a very steep and high hill that heads straight into the ocean. We even started singing ridiculous songs to each other to ease our nerves. I hate cable cars. Here was the view:

After this lovely experience, we were ready for some less horrifying and more thrilling experiences. The first thing we noticed was that this part of the park is on the top of a hill that extends out into the ocean, so it has some amazing views of the city.

We were a little lost when we got off the cable car, but we eventually meandered our way over to Flash. Did I mention there was no line? Awesome! The Red River Ex in Winnipeg has a similar ride. Basically, a bunch of people get strapped into a circular contraption, all facing outward. The circle, which is attached to a massive, vertical arm, starts rotating and then the arm starts swinging. So, we start swinging and rotating until we are eventually completely upside down very far from the ground. Yikes! I wish I could have taken a picture, though, because I literally saw Hong Kong upside down! Here is a picture of the ride:

After this, our confidence was pretty high: we had made it, unscathed, through our first ride! We decided that a roller coaster was the next order of business. We got in line for a cute-looking roller coaster, but left when we noticed the average age of the riders was like three years old. Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was definitely a good decision. We headed straight for Hair Raiser. We only had to wait for the ride to finish before climbing on. It is not a roller coaster with carts. Instead, we were seated, four across (and several rows), and the seats were attached to two rails below us. Neither of us had any idea what to expect, but we were definitely blown away by the ride. Imagine a roller coaster on the top of a hill that overlooks Hong Kong’s harbour and you might get an idea of the kinds of views we got riding this thing. Half the time it looked like we are just going to go flying right off the hill and plummet into the ocean, a couple hundred metres below us. Though everything happens so fast that, at least for me, there’s not enough time to experience any specific kind of fear…it’s sort of just fear of the constant variety.

Anyway, we loved the ride so much that we basically just jumped right back on as soon as we got off. Lovely not having to wait! It was just as good as the first time and we were both as happy as could be. Again, picture school children. From here, we decided to eat our packed lunch. The sandwiches were quite yummy and curbed our hunger.

We decided that we needed to spread our wings and try some different rides so off we went. A water ride caught our eye, but it turned out to be a very tame ride. We avoided getting too wet. Luckily, although it was raining most of the day, the rain was very light. Most of the time, it was difficult to even notice the rain falling.

Off we went again, in search of more scares. After quite a long walk down the hill, we came upon a roller coaster called Dragon. It was a little more traditional kind of roller coaster, with the carts. It turned out to be a very different ride than Hair Raiser, mostly because of how the carts moved along the rails. It was much more of a bumpy ride. Whereas Hair Raiser was super smooth, Dragon was bumpy and jolted us left and right. On occasion, we bashed the sides our heads into the cushions, and Patty joked that we would have cauliflower ears after riding. All in all, though, it was another awesome ride and we, again, jumped right back on for a second run.

After the Dragon, we had no choice but to go The Abyss. I have to admit, the name doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The ride just takes a bunch of people up a huge vertical pole and then drops them. It’s basically the Drop of Fear, for those of you familiar with the Ex in Winnipeg. This was a little different, since it exploded upward (good times!), waited at the top, dropped to nearly the bottom, and then bounded back up to about the middle, before finally falling back to the ground. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the feeling of free falling. It’s pretty exhilarating though!

After this, we went to see a dolphin show nearby. By this time it had started raining pretty hard, but luckily there was some shelter and we managed to get under it. The show itself was pretty good. The dolphins were flipping and clapping…you know, normal dolphin stuff. They also brought out some Sea Lions, which were super cute. They did all sorts of dances with them and even got them to stand on two flippers in like a hand stand. It was neat to watch, but just made us wonder whether the animals had much of a life outside these shows. Hopefully they do. Here's a pic from the dolphin show, with The Abyss and Dragon in the background: 

Once the show was over, we decided to go on all the rides we had been on one more time before heading home. First up was The Abyss. It was easier for me than the first time, but more difficult for Patty. We faced the ocean this time, as opposed to the park the first time, so we really got a sense of how high we were. I’m not going to lie, I was terrified up there. The fall itself though was a little easier. Next up was Dragon, which was great but I again got banged around. Maybe I was trying too hard to not get banged around?!

We decided to take a quick break after this and feed our ever-demanding stomachs. We grabbed the most massive chili dog (or, as they like to call it in Hong Kong, ‘hot dog with meat sauce’…yum!) I have ever seen and we split it. We then did Flash again, but this time we sat on the opposite side to the first time and had a materially different experience. This time, when we were approaching going upside down we were moving backwards, as opposed to forward the first time. The second time, for me, was way scarier!

Then, it was Hair Raiser. We decided that we had to ride in the front, and we wouldn't accept anything less. We had our longest wait of the day getting onto the ride, which amounted to about 15 minutes. We climbed into the front of the ride and proceeded to have the ride of our lives. Honestly, I’m not sure that I can do another roller coaster unless I’m at the front. What a different experience! Seeing everything flying at me was awesome. It also gave me a way better sense of how bloody fast that thing goes! And going around those loops is also pretty crazy, too! I was sitting on the outside seat, which was way scarier since it never actually looked like my seat was supported by anything at all!

We thought about going on the ride again and even went to check the line, but it had grown pretty long by that time and we decided we had ended on the perfect note. So off we went.  Turned out that we didn't have to take the cable car back, so that was a bonus! There was an underground train that did the route about 10 times faster. Getting to our shuttle and back to the pick up point was pretty uneventful. We decided to not go back to our hostel and just grab a bite to eat at a mall called Pacific Place, where we also did some shopping. We had a pretty good dinner, and Patty did some shopping at Zara.

That concludes our day! If you’re ever in Hong Kong, I think we would both highly recommend checking out Ocean Park. Awesome experience!