Hong Kong: Christmas '06 - Part 2!

So, you're spending Christmas in a foreign country where the weather's warm enough to warrant short sleeves and flip-flops. What's the best way to kindle some much needed festive spirit? Spending the day at a Chinese theme park of course!

















Roll up kids, hour long queues await!

Despite having had a rocky history since its opening in 1977, Ocean Park has remained a popular and reasonable excursion for Hong Kong families for a good three decades. On top of that, it has a pretty decent marine research department and was the first place to successfully breed bottle nose dolphins through artificial insemination. Fascinating, really. Show me the rides!
















Wheee!



The whole of Ocean Park hangs off a mountainside on the south coast of Hong Kong Island. The thoroughly civilised architects predicted the guests' numerous weary feet and saw fit to install a series of mammoth escalators that trundle their merry way to the top. Trundle, that is, at their own pace of course. I know everything seems slow when you're desperate to get on a rollercoaster but this was taking the mick.


















C'mon! C'MON!

All staple theme park rides were present and correct (runaway mine-train, log flume, loop-the-looper, dolphin university... eh?), plus we had the added incentive of getting to listen to endless Christmas tunes, piped generously out of speakers lurking everywhere you'd least expect. Wham's Last Christmas really should be scientifically studied to discover how and why it makes you want to jab pins in your eyes and leap into moving traffic. Twenty years on and that song, even in muzak form, can still encourage horrific acts of self-mutilation.
















Thankfully respite lay in a delightful cable-car jaunt from one side of the park to the other - a silent haven mercifully free from the incessant jingling of the park's PA system. Over the water lay the town of Repulse Bay, spread out like a Mediterranean coastal resort. Hong Kong resembles nothing so much as itself, an odd mish-mash of east and west, both architecturally and culturally. That I could see what looked like a fishing village from the south Med and a vast, ornate red and gold Chinese pagoda within rapid succession pretty much sums the place up. You could say Hong Kong has an identity crisis, but it's more like it's seen everything it likes and has decided it wants the lot. How this overdeveloped island manages to add up to more than the sum of its parts baffles me. Perhaps it thrives because it is built upon a deep, reflective well of culture, rather than simply great piles of money. No more time for reflection though, the Christmas music was returning as the cable-car concluded its brief jaunt. Next up: pandas!















Anyone got anything to read?

Ocean Park is home to two giant pandas, living out their sedate, bamboo munching lives in a decently sized enclosure. Having to endure the hordes of tourists who photograph them every day comes with the territory when you're an endangered species, though their casual indifference seemed to suggest they were well used to it, or at least dosed up to the eyeballs with whatever had been put in their water. Still, I'm one to talk, having relished my role as an annoying tourist. Smile, pandas!
































I've had a lot of fun explaining to my students that the pandas and I got on so well we broke out and hit the rollercoasters. I don't think they believe me, but seeing as my explanation is entirely in a language they don't understand and bolstered by wildly inappropriate hand gestures probably doesn't do me too many favours. Abusing my position to spread nonsense is both big and clever though. It's like telling Americans that you do actually know the queen and Hugh Grant. (Note to Americans reading this: I do know the queen. We can have tea together - you, me and queenie. She looks a lot like that lass you saw win the Oscar recently).


All in all, a nice day out. The park has some decent quiet spots, plus an admirable commitment to the animals it houses. There was a surprisingly nice tropical walk that, despite the piped jungle drums and monkey noises, helped you feel far from the throng for a brief while. There was also a hilariously bad attraction that had been curiously left off the map. A mock Mayan temple (who knew they were so handy with plastic, these old Mayans?) consisting of a few dark rooms daubed in UV paint. Part early 90s rave, part Laserquest. The poor attendant who led us through it, obviously having drawn the short straw that morning ("How come Dave gets the shark tanks?! Jeez guys..."), had the same listless gaze you see in Tesco's at 2 in the morning. It's these little reminders of home that make a place so welcoming!