Ocean Park

New Year's Eve dawned sunny and mild, so we decided to spend the day at Hong Kong's biggest theme park (yes, bigger than Disney) - Ocean Park. After a healthy McDonald's breakfast we caught the ferry across the harbour, then the express bus to the park - a nice easy trip.

The park's a little strange (as you may have seen from their odd and very slow website) in that it's a bit of a mish mash of styles and stuff:

Main park plaza

But at the same time it was fun that it had so many things to do. On the educational side there's a pretty decent aquarium and a huge panda enclosure:

Happy panda

Red panda

Lots of info about conservation, which is a good thing. They also had a nice Chinese garden area:

and in the main section a lot of rides and a playground for little kids. Dara was obsessed with the frog hopper ride:

Strange dragon statue thing

Our favorite moment was when the kids shouted "Wind the frog!" Nice movie quote

They spent a long time on these rides, which was really fun for them. Once we peeled them away it was time to visit the other side of the park, which we'd seen from the bus tour a couple of days before as we went past Repulse Bay. It's on the other side of the mountain and built into the cliffs next to the South China Sea, and to get there you have to take a cable car, with really stunning views. Having said that I'm not great at all with heights so this was a Big Deal for me, in fact I'm getting sweaty palms just writing about this. So I'll let the photos speak for themselves before I short-curcuit the keyboard:

The takeoff point

View as we left the cable car station

Toby spent his time telling me that it was really fun and not scary

They're happy because they don't mind heights

Looking up the mountain

I'm sure climbing the stairs would have been worse

View across Repulse Bay

Traversing the side of the cliffs

The ride was a fair bit longer than we had expected

I kept taking photos to keep my mind off the height

Not looking nervous at all

By this point I had sweat running down my arms from my hands

Obviously we made it safe and sound, and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. My rational side reminded me that there were loads of cable cars going back and forth all the time, and to enjoy the amazing view of the bay and the South China Sea, but the nonsense side was still a bit freaked out.

Anyway, this side of the park was a bit more exciting - lots of amazing looking rollercoasters and big rides. Even Toby the daredevil wasn't about to try the really extreme ones, but he did go on a whirly thing:

Dara used the time more for photo opportunities:

After a spot of lunch we made it to the auditorium to see the dolphin and sealion show. I never know what I think of these - I know the theory is that the dolphins enjoy doing this kind of thing, but who can say for sure. Anyway it was fairly well done, not quite Seaworld level but still pretty good, and the kids enjoyed it. I think for Emma and me the band playing before the show was the highlight:

Amazing view from the auditorium

Cha-cha versions of Christmas carols

The drummer was awesome. I've never seen a pedal-operated cowbell before!

 Eventually it was time to go back to the main park. It turned out there's a train ride through the mountain, and it was done in a really awesome Captain Nemo/steampunk way:

Front of the train

Interior of the train

Train gateway

Dara insisted on going back to the frog jump ride, and we also went on the kids' ferris wheel and a couple of very sedate carousels before watching the Vegas-style lighted fountain show, then getting on the bus home. Unfortunately the bus didn't go down to the ferry piers, probably because of the New Year's Eve celebrations, so we had to get off at the Admiralty stop. Emma had a brainwave for us to take the MTR train back to Kowloon, as it's an underground system at that point, and it worked a treat. It was really packed but great atmosphere as it was about 8pm by that point and there were a lot of partyers out. We had some delicious room service food and a bottle of champagne in our room, then took the very tired kids out to the street for midnight. Again, tons and tons of people, but all really fun and good natured. Here we are in the hotel lobby at about 12:20