Last year in March 2014, I accompanied my mom to visit Ocean Park. I heard there is a bus from Admiralty MTR station, but there were many bus stops so I was confused which one to go to the Ocean Park. In fact there was a signage to show the direction to the bus, it's a special Citybus Route 629 just for passengers to go to the Ocean Park. It's quite convenience, you could use the MTR Octopus card if you've already had it, or you could pay cash in the locket before going on the bus. We didn't need to wait for a long time as the bus would go every 10 minutes.
We departed quite early, the park hasn't been opened when we'd arrived. The bus stop just in front of the park, there was a beautiful garden behind the bus station with a couple of kissing dolphin. We had to go on a high escalator to reach the entrance gate. As my mom just fell down on the escalator, she's afraid to take it. It seemed that her tail bone was cracked, so she's feeling hurt to walk or sit for a long time, she had to eat pain killer to release the pain. We tried to find the lift, although we had to walk further. Reaching the main entrance, there were many beautiful sculpture made of trees and flowers at the Ocean Square, we took some pictures then I submitted our eticket to get the real ticket in the locket. Although the park was not open, people had started to queue in front of the gate. Around 30 minutes the gate was opened, then we had to queue again to the next gate in front of the grand aquarium.
When the gate opened, people were running to different direction based on their plan to visit. The park was divided into 2 big areas e.g. "Water Front" and "The Summit". We explored Water Front as it's closer to the main gate. Our goal was to meet Panda, so we went to Amazing Asian Animal area. Lucky that it's still quiet, and we could take picture with the Panda as the background. The cute Panda was eating, it's very far away in the middle of the area which was covered with bamboo fence and even glasses. We could see another Panda was chewing the bamboo at the other side of that area. It's very adorable, unfortunately we could not touch them. They are ignoring the people, just busy chewing the bamboo.
The next place was goldfish treasures, so many aquarium contains of various gold fish with its bright and different color from white, yellow, gold, red, etc. We're not too interested in it, as the room was rather dark, and the fish was in a simple aquarium such as at home. Emerald trail was next to the goldfish, so many birds inside the big cage, unfortunately it's slightly uphill road, my mom was tired, so we joined to see the bird show at Bird Amazing Theater. It's full of people already, there was a tree which could speak to open the "Emperors of The Sky" show. It's funny, and the birds were very amazing, from eagle, owl, colorful parrots, crane, etc.
After that we rushed to go to the cable car station, the queue was quite long, we had to wait for 45 minutes. Poor my mom, she must be very tired with her unhealthy condition. It's also very hot, as it's around 12:00 o'clock at noon. We arrived at "Old Hongkong" area, there were many foodstalls there, as we were hungry, my mom selected chicken pau to eat while we continued queuing. It's very delicious, it's still hot and the main reason maybe we were starving ha..ha.. When reaching our turn to ride the cable car, we didn't share with other passengers, just 2 of us, so it's free to take pictures from any angle. The scenery from cable car was very amazing, mom and I kept taking the aerial view of the Ocean Park and the sea.
Arriving at The Summit which was higher than Water Front area, we stopped by the Bayview Restaurant where we could see the ocean from above. We kept walking following the trail, we found amazing penguins statue. When we entered the room, it's very spectacular, it's very cold, and we could see more than 70 penguins from three species were playing under the water, swimming from one side to the other side. The chamber was built as if in their original pole climate with walkways and balconies overlooking the water. We were freezing as the temperature was around 10°C, but we really love seeing them. Unfortunately it's rather difficult to take pictures, as they were inside glasses, and the water was kept moving as the penguins kept jumping to the water to play or eat the fish. We walked on the glass-panelled floors where the penguins swam under us.
As getting late, and we hadn't had lunch, we decided to check other areas fast. We found that the areas was dedicated for amusement park, with many rides to test your nerves. As my mom was very tired, she sat for a while under an umbrella then we decided to find the cable car station. It's a long way to walk, and we were wrong as the station was not the same station where we were stopped, so we had to walk again to another station, then we still to queue again, oh.. my God... for another 45 minutes again.
Reaching at The Summit, we planned to go home directly, unfortunately it's 14:00 o'clock already, so we decided to stop for eating first. Lucky that our selection was right, rice with grilled chicken. Then we went to the citybus station to bring us back to Admiralty station. My feedback for Ocean Park, actually it's maintained well, unfortunately the map was not clear enough to show what's we could see in a place, so we had difficulty to choose. My suggestion, before you go there, explore the place in the internet first, so you won't waste time to walk back and forth without knowing where to go. So many hilly road, so your stamina must be well to explore all places. I missed some interesting places to see such as sea jelly spectacular, grand aquarium, etc. Anyway I'm glad my mom still could enjoy the place and she was strong enough to finish the journey.
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