Ocean Park

Saturday was the final day of tours offered by Lingnan and I was lucky enough to have signed up for the Ocean Park tour the first day it was offered.

Ocean Park is a combination of an amusement and marine park- it’s basically the best of both worlds, education and fun! It’s located on HK Island and there are two main areas, on two different parts of a mountain, the Waterfront and the Summit. To get from one end to the other visitors can take either a cable car or the Ocean Express- basically a tram like thing.

I wandered around the park with a friend from HWS, as well as a few other exchange students and the two student buddies who were leading the trip. It was raining all day, but that didn’t stop us from seeing the majority of the park. We started on the bottom of the mountain, the Waterfront, and our first goal was to see the pandas; the park has two exhibits of pandas and both exhibits had a few pandas hanging out. 

In one exhibit there were red pandas, which were really cool, especially since I’ve never seen them before.  We also wandered around and saw some fish, alligators, and a few rides, but the rides were closed due to the rain.

We took the cable car up to the Summit; it provided a great view of the South Asia Sea and surrounding mountains. Once we got to the Summit we walked around the Atoll Reef and Chinese Sturgeon Aquarium, both focused on life underwater and showed hundreds of different fish and underwater creatures.

The Summit had many rides, including 2 rollercoasters, a ferris wheel, swings, and that pharaoh boat ride. The rain forced many of the rides to remain closed, but we lucked out because for about a half hour the ferris wheel and one of the rollercoasters was opened, so we got in line for the rollercoaster and were able to get one ride in.

Yep. I went on my first rollerocast, in Hong Kong. J It was epic. It had 3 loops as well. 

We continued walking around the park, saw some sea lions, watched a dolphin show, and went on the Ocean Park Tower. The dolphin show was a quick 15 minutes, but amazing. The dolphins knew so many amazing tricks and were synchronized so well. The Ocean Park Tower was basically just a lift that went around in a circle twice, to provide a view of the entire park and surrounding area of Aberdeen.

Before leaving the park, a few of us went on one final ride, the Raging River, something similar to Canobie’s Boston Tea Party, or a log ride- where you basically sit in a log thing and go down a hill and water splashes up. We figured we were already soaking because of the rain, so why not. I wore my raincoat, so the people I was with figured I could sit in the front and be protected. Throughout the ride, they take your picture, and well there were some awesome pictures of me- basically bundled up in my raincoat, eyes closed and mouth wide open screaming.

Overall, it was a good day, even with the rain. The student buddies we were with played a major role in this, as they were able to show us almost everything; I don’t think I would have seen half the things if I wasn’t with them.