140. Set foot in HK I.

The very cool gush of wind took me by surprise. I was shivering. And just as quick as it came, it stopped. I snuggled warmly under my thick jacket. I should have brought a thicker baju. Many double decker buses were seen to  line up along the street with much blinking red dotted lights on each of the buses’ “forehead” showing something like “E97″ or “A87″. You going to E97? After long waits to get onto one of the buses, father decided to just take the taxi (even if it means the cost would be double of what would be charged if we use the bus, and double that amount again, because we used two taxis.) We spent more than B$150 just on the transportation from the airport to where we lived in Hong Kong Island.

How’s that for a first impression?

Not too bad, not too bad. We were all very excited. 7 days lay ahead of us, 7 days of doing no routine, 7 days of long days.

First Day in Hong Kong.

That would be the day we arrived and that was around mid afternoon. We stayed at Causeway Bay. Very busy street, very busy people, and people there…smoke. *gah*.

On our way to where we stayed, we crossed the longest bridge in Hong Kong and it well very be the largest in the world…or so the taxi driver told us. Anyway, we didn’t do much on the first day. We were exhausted. The next day however, we started our  day in  Ocean Park.

Second Day in Hong Kong.

Ocean Park was beautiful. Very beautiful. The weather was, well…the sun was shining very brightly so that was thumbs-up for our little trip and the air was cool – always cool breeze. Awesome, ain’t it? The tickets were expensive however (and I guess it should be since it takes a lot of money to train and pay the workers and not to mention to feed the animals and maintain the whole park in general..) But anyway, off we went…

We met the AMIGAS along the way (I am not sure whether they are really called the AMIGAS… >.<) and they’re Mexicans! They walked from spot to spot, put up their instruments and dismantle them and sing, and sing, and sing.

Anyway, we walked further down and since it was early then, none of the games were on and running, they were just getting started. Though early, there were many tourists and visitors and everyone started clicking their camera buttons taking loads and loads of pictures (like us. haha). Further down ahead, we stopped by the Panda House.

There were only three or four pandas there. Now that I think about it, it was the only time I have seen pandas up close – i mean, after all the zoos I have been to, I think this was the only time I saw China Panda. haha.  They’re so furry and so adorable.  On our way out though, we saw this one guy talking about pandas to some show, I reckon – since he was being filmed when he talked – in Cantonese. And… I don’t quite understand Cantonese. =/ But anyways, moving on…

It was close to lunch time (12pm-ish) when we descended the stairways down from the Panda House. We were much exhausted, we rested on some benches while waiting for this show to start. We were entertained by a few massive looking clowns and some jugglers, followed by some acrobatics.

Very entertaining and colourful show indeed. We had lunch soon after that and we realised how expensive the food are in HK! ( A congee costs like B$10!! ). Anyway, we lingered on…queue-ing most of the rides and took loads of pictures (not by us, but them people who work there – they usually  say it’s FREE but you still pay in the end if you like the photo since Free only applies to them “taking” the photo not “taking and giving” you the photo. haha). So we stayed for another show before heading back to where we stayed. That show was none other than the dolphin and seal show. *grins*

The show was sort of short (when compared to how long we waited). Nevertheless, it was good. The usual dolphin tricks – waving to the crowds with their fin and “wag” their tail in the water and across the water stage. The cool thing about this show was that they made one of the spectators act like as if she was drowning so that the trained dolphin could “rescue” her. Something I didn’t spectate in Singapore’s zoo. But I must say, Singapore’s zoo is a little more, uhm…exciting. Perhaps I was tired, perhaps I expected too much, but whatever it was though (which I can’t pin-point exactly), Ocean Park is a very nice park to visit and to grade it out of 5 (with 5 being best, and 1 being lousy), I’d give it a 4.25.  haha.

What got me interested though was not the trip mom told us the day before this – “We’re going Ocean Park tomorrow…” but rather the night when we returned from Ocean Park…

“We would be going to Disneyland tomorrow.”

Surely, it has to be better than Ocean Park.

~ by floweret on December 16, 2008.