Hong Kong & Macau : Part 4 - Ocean Park

16072012 : Another downhill walk towards the tram. Notice the street with the blue bus? Yes, that is the street we were walking towards to. Did I not mention a very strategic place? :-)

Today, we are going to Ocean Park! But first, we are going to have breakfast at Lin Heung Tea House.

We took the tram to Sheung Wan Train Station. It was about 15 minutes ride on the tram to this station. It was also a walking distance, if you do not mind walking under the heat. The temperature for the first 3 days was about 32 degrees. At Sheung Wan Train Station, we were asking directions to the Tea House. It was supposedly very near, but because of the breakdown in communication (our Mandarin is terrible standards in Malaysia itself), people has no idea of this Tea House, we were circling the area.

Finally, we found it. It was actually very near to where we were. But because we could not read the Mandarin characters, we walked to another direction. Finally, a grocer seller pointed the Tea House which was just opposite us.

Lin Heung Tea House. Very pleased we manage to find it!

This place is famous for its dim sum. Well, since I am not a fan of dim sum, I thought it did not taste anything special, but my sister said it was nice.

Two happy people that finally found the place. The person who took this photo does photography for a living.

Sister asked - Is this place famous?
Photographer - Well, I won't call it famous. I will said it's well known.
Me - What is the difference between famous and well-known? I thought they are the same.
Photographer - Famous is for the food. But well known will be for the tradition. This place is well known for its tradition.
Me - *confused with the term of famous and well-known now*

So, the photographer continued by explaining to us the tradition in this Tea House.

All you have to do is just take any baskets from the trolley and the worker will stamp on the chit.

According to the person who did photography for a living, this method of selling the basket of dim sum from the trolley is still practised here whereas other places do not. So, it's a tradition.

According to the person who did photography for a living, this is also one of the tradition still maintained in this tea house. The waiter takes the 'pot' (I was confused when he said pot and I said kettle, but he said pot) which was boiling hot from the 'pocket' (I was confused about that term too but I did not argue) and did not mind the heat. This is to pour water for the tea.

Also, this method of drinking from this teacup is also a tradition.

Our breakfast costs HKD97, and we bought mini-mooncakes from the Tea House too. The mooncakes had red bean paste and it tasted not smooth. The texture was more of little pieces of flour because I believe it was not kneaded thoroughly to "combine" the flour with the egg.

We took the train from Sheung Wan to Admiralty Station which was just 2 stations away. And we are suppose to take the bus to Ocean Park. You would not believe the queue lining up to board the bus. It was about 100m long!

The bus ticket to Ocean Park costs us HKD21.20 per person for a two-way journey. We could also buy the Ocean Park entrance ticket at the bus ticketing office but we did not as we managed to get a 10% discount coupon tore from the Ocean Park brochure we took from the airport and this discount coupon can only be used at Ocean Park. Thanks to my sister due diligence in scanning through the brochures! While I was busy searching for wi-fi for my phone. Haha!

Finally, the bus after queuing for about 15 minutes. The ride took us 20 minutes to Ocean Park.

And I present to you Ocean Park!

The entrance ticket originally cost HKD280 but with our 10% discount, we got the price of HKD252 per ticket!

Into Ocean Park we entered! And was greeted by this amazing fountain which was going to be the highlight of the night with the lights being played within the fountain.

To go to the another side of Ocean Park, one can take the train or the cable. Since we had taken the cable in Ngong Ping, we chose the train. The other side of Ocean Park has more games.

Here comes our train! Inside the train, there were moving pictures above us that show us our ride in an ocean.

And the other side of the Ocean Park we have reached. Just like a theme park, it has many rides for people to play and as expected, the queue was long at every ride. With the summer heat, you decide if you can handle the queue. :-) Since I am here, I should just enjoy the heat. Yay! The whole day, sweat was trickling down my back even with my summer dress.

We saw a North Pole entrance. We gladly went in because we were in need of cold air! There were seals swimming inside. One of the workers brought out an owl while waiting for the food-feeding session to the seals.

Here, blood was being taken out from the seal.

I absolutely love my attire. Even with the sports shoe I wore with it. And my green finger nails too! I painted them green the night before because Ocean Park = water = green from far. As I typed green, I realised you must think I am ridiculous for associating green with water, when the colour should be blue. But somehow, I felt green was a colour I should use.

Readers, please do not attempt this attire if you are prepared to be sunburnt MORE, in addition to my initial suntan in Ngong Ping.

After north pole, we went out and saw watermelons for sale. Small watermelons for HKD30. It was so hot I wished I brought a hat. But I did not have a hat because I was going to buy one in Hong Kong. And buy one I did! You should see the hat soon. I absolutely love my hat. 

Then, we stopped to see a performance of people jumping with skipping ropes. Some of them skipped too fast that they tripped.

We walked into this Aquarium to see Chinese Sturgeon which were apparently large fishes from the dinosaur era.

Next up, to see Jelly Fish.

Then, we took the train ride back. The queue for the cable car was very long.

Before we boarded the train, we saw this view.

We boarded the train and was back at the other side of Ocean Park. Off we went to see Panda Bears.

 

We took photos next to funny creatures.

Next up was to go inside the Grand Aquarium.

I think the starfish is showing us the 'finger'. 

This was to explain the concept of 'school of fish'. It is similar to Aquaria in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia has its own aquarium too. It's located at KLCC (Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre). 

After the Grand Aquarium tour, I walked around to catch a good photo of the entire area. And I saw that Ocean Park is 35 years old.

We waited till 8pm for the fountain show. As dark slowly falls, a light show was being displayed in the fountain. The light changes colour in the water with music being played. It was gorgeous.

The narrator explained that a tale of 2 dragons fighting were going to be shown in the fountain. 

The show has started! There were fireworks too. Speechless.

Can you see images of 2 dragons? Maybe not very clear here. Looks like it's difficult to see. But the shadow of 2 dragons could be seen. I noticed later that the pictures of the dragons were placed in front of the lights.

The show came to an end after 15 minutes. Then, it was a run under the rain to the bus stop. We took the same bus back to the train station. The rain was definitely a God-send under this heat.