I mentioned in my last post that one of the reasons I didn’t
go to Disney Land is because of the cost. What I didn’t mention is that there
was another option unique to Hong Kong called Ocean Park and they have panda bears
so that is where I spent my Saturday.
I took the metro part way but needed to switch to a bus in
order to make it to my destination. When I got off the metro I noticed a booth
selling discounted tickets to Ocean Park so I scooped one up and hopped on the
bus. During the drive I read the ticket, the date on it had passed quite some
time ago and the fine-print said that if the ticket was defaced it would no
longer be valid and the lady who sold it to me drew a line across the entire
ticket so I started to panic. I just got ripped off, this ticket is no good and
I fell for a stupid scan. I tried to think positive thoughts but I was quite
stressed until I made it through the park gates.
Ocean Park is a pretty interesting place, it’s located next
to the ocean (what a shocker right?) but it also built in a hilly area so it
was really spread out and you had to take a cable-car or a tram to get to
different areas of the park. They had a fair few rides (though I only went on
two because I didn’t want to spend my day feeling like I was going to vomit),
and a lot of animals. One of the animals they had on display was the pygmy
marmoset, which was cute and creepy all at the same time.
Shortly after arriving at the park I hopped on the cable-car
to journey to the part of the park where most of the action is. It was at this
point that I stopped being bitter about the crap view from Victoria Peak the
day beforehand. If the sky had been clear all I would have see was a bunch of
buildings. I’m really not all that interested in city skylines. I do enjoy
picturesque views of the ocean and the landscape and that is exactly what I
got. I picked a good day to visit Ocean Park. The visibility still wasn’t
perfect but it was good enough.
After I got off the cable-car I made my way to a ride called
the Ocean Park Tower, it was basically an observation tower but you got on it
at ground level and it slowly elevated itself and rotated a few times before
return to the ground. I was pretty stoked about this because there was very
little risk of motion sickness and I got to take in more stunning views. The
only downside was the obnoxious family sitting next to me who were shouting a
song at the top of their lungs. When we got off the ride I watched what way
they went and ran in the opposite direction.
Next I visited the seals, sea lion, and dolphins. The pool
for the seals and sea lions was bigger than the one for the dolphins, which
just seemed wrong to me. There was a
breeding area for the dolphins and there were 4 dolphins in a pool smaller than
the one that I took swimming lessons in as a kid. It was heartbreaking. And
that wasn’t even the most depressing part. There were signs posted about IVF
treatments on the dolphins, one of which said that the treatment was voluntary.
Umm really? The dolphin swam up to you and said, “hey I really want kids, my
partner and I have been trying for years but it’s just not happening for us. Is
there anything you can do to help me have a baby?” No. That didn’t happen. You just decided to play God so you could
over populate your tiny little swimming pool you jerk! I left the dolphin area
immediately after reading that sign.
I went for a ride on the ferris wheel, had an ice cream
cone, and hopped on the tram back to the other section of the park to visit the
panda bears. This went down almost as
well as the dolphin excursion. One of the panda’s was pacing back and forth
between two exit doors trying to get out. He would head-butt one wait for a
minute and then try the other. He was clearly saying ‘hey I don’t want to be on
display anymore I just want to go to bed, please can you let me have some
privacy”. Well actually he was probably begging for freedom more so than
privacy but I feel like he was a smart bear and he was just trying to be
realistic about the situation. The other bear was asleep in the middle of the
enclosure. The red panda’s were a little
livelier, and very cute, but the whole thing just made me sad.
Apparently I hadn’t seen enough animal torture so I made my
way to the sea lion show. This show was not at all what I expected, they spent
more time embarrassing small kids than they did displaying the sea lion and it
took place on a stage and not in a pool which I thought was weird. This was
probably the most positive animal experience I had in the park and it still
wasn’t great.
This experience was getting depressing so I decided to call
it a day. I made my way back to the hostel where I spent the rest of the night.
Well almost all of it. I left for about half an hour to check out the light
show on the harbour, which was mediocre at best.
Yesterday I didn’t have much planned. I wanted to go
checkout the giant Buddha statue and spend the rest of the day relaxing. Little
did I know this adventure would take roughly 6 hours. I had originally planned
to try to do this and Disney in the same day so it’s probably a good thing my
plans changed! I tried to get tickets beforehand but couldn’t find the place I
was looking for and gave up. This was a huge mistake because the lineup for
tickets was roughly 90 minutes long and then there was another wait for the
cable-car ride after buying the tickets. Thankfully there was free Wi-Fi
otherwise the wait would have been almost unbearable. Normally in that kind of
situation I would try to make friends with the people around me in an effort to
pass the time but I was surrounded by people who didn’t speak English so this
wasn’t really an option. Although the wait was long I'm still glad I went. Once
again I got to take in some great views on the way there and the statue itself
and the nearby temple were both pretty cool. I spent a good hour or two
exploring before making my way back home again.
A friend recently asked me if I have met any crazy people on
my travels yet as I tend to attract them and he was surprised when my answer
was no. To be fair I have been incredibly anti social for most of my trip
unless I was with people I already knew so I decided to try and mix things up
and meet some people. When I got back to the hostel I saw that they were having
a bbq for dinner so I decided to sign up and that is when I met my first (of what I’m sure will be many) crazy person
of this trip.
Roy runs all of the social events for the hostel and Roy has
a couple of screws loose. I actually met him a couple of days before when I
bumped into him in the hallway. I'm not sure if he was hitting on me or just
trying to impress me with his connections but he was telling me about how he
could get free tickets to the world championship boxing match happening in
Macau on Saturday night along with a free hotel room. I knew then that I did
not like Roy but I did not know that he was completely insane. He cooked dinner
for a small group of us and then the crazy came out. He ranted about a number
of things over the course of the evening. Unfortunately we had all agreed to go
to the night markets with him before we realized what a weirdo he was and were
stuck with him much longer than we needed to be. He ranted about how Obama is
going to get sick of black people getting killed and is going to arm them all
before he is out of office. He claimed that he himself had lived through
nuclear weapon testing and had been bombed repeatedly and it was insane that no
one ever talked about it. He talked about challenging Prince Harry to a cage
fight and was appalled when he did not receive a response. He also told us all
about how he used to make $40,000 a week when he lived in the states but for
some reason can’t go back there. He is a complete whack job, who also made
myself and the other girl in our small group feel incredibly uncomfortable. He
put his hand in the front pocket of my pants and it was all I could do not to
punch him in the face. The only reason I didn’t is because Roy seemed like the
kind of guy that would kick the shit out of a girl in front of witnesses
because he thinks he is above persecution.
I managed to race ahead of him along with an English guy (I can’t
remember his name because I’m a horrible person) and managed to find the fortunetellers
from the other night. Since I wasn’t all by my lonesome I wasn’t afraid to
interact with a gypsy and decided to have a tarot card reading done.
While I don’t believe anything my new gypsy friend told me
will actually come true it was still a really fun experience. She told me I would
meet my future husband soon and we will have our first child this year but we
won’t get married until I am 33. We will have three children in total and will
be very rich. We will buy a second home when I am 48. My parents won’t give me
any money but my children will. She also said last year I was poor but this
year I will get a new job and will be rich. I was smiling and laughing through
the whole experience. I loved that everything she told me was positive even
though it was all a load of crap. I was in such a good mood until Roy caught up
to us and tried to take away from my experience. He told me the lady was just
messing with me and I shouldn’t get so worked up over things. Any time I mentioned
my reading to anyone else in the group he would jump in with a negative
comment. He should have jumped off a bridge instead.
Sick of Roy and his banana pants craziness I headed back to
the hostel and called it a night. Later on tonight I leave for Africa so I’m
just relaxing before heading to the airport. I’m incredibly excited about
adventures in Africa but dreading the journey there. At least I’m flying with
reputable airlines this time and will get food an entertainment along the way!
No comments:
Post a Comment