Hong Kong no Phooey TR (Apr 2012)! The Yee's have it....TR finish #1101, 07/09

[PrincessInOz]

Birds of Multi Colour



We’d all enjoyed lunch at the Terrace Café. The prices we had paid for our meals didn’t seem unreasonable; but they had seemed a little pricey compared to the food pricing we were adjusting to in Hong Kong city. I had to remind myself we were in a theme park. When we paid the bill, we were given a HK$20 voucher for us to spend at the bakery in Old Hong Kong. It might have been a special promotion for this period only; I never figured it out.


DS had decided to let lunch settle before trying some of the rides. We headed back to the Rainforest area at the Summit (where the River Rapid rides was). Our next stop …

I have to admit that much as I like the rides, I much prefer looking at animals…particularly when they are as colourful as these.

The Expedition Trail takes you into a bird aviary.

Whilst I was sorry that I had left my telezoom lens behind, it wasn’t all bad. DH managed to capture a whole bunch of birds. I swiped these from his collection to share.

I was particularly taken with the Toucan…

…and the Toucini. Both were just lovely.

This place just didn’t have birds….there were other animals about.

Some might have been a little shy at first, but they did eventually come out of their shell.

We headed out of the aviary section and into the dark…

Not much of a chorus from this creature…

…but there were at least 4 or 5 different types of frogs in rather damp and misty enclosures.

And a few other beings that I wondered how they contributed to the forest chorus.

One of the things that Disney does really well is the theming through entry and exit for each attraction. There was some indication at the exit that Ocean Park had put some effort towards this as well. But I figured that unless they were going to do it all, it was far better to remain ‘honest’.

I really enjoyed looking at the colourful feathered birds and animals in this trail.



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[PrincessInOz]

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Adventure Land, of the Ocean Park kind



With the walk through the Expedition Trail and The Rapids, we’d pretty much covered the Rainforest area of Ocean Park. Our choice of where next consisted of the other 3 areas on The Summit – Thrill Mountain…

…Marine World….

..and Adventure Land. We checked out the map and the show guide. There was a show that I was keen to catch and it kinda looked like we could go towards Adventure Land.


I’d forgotten that a map is 2D and hadn’t factored in the lay of the land.

Adventure Land was down this way. There was a set of 4 of these. Waaay faster and steeper that the Midlevel escalators!

The first set takes you down into a landing area. Off the second set of escalators is the Mine Train.

Your standard round and round and up and down….

…until you look around and enjoy the view. It is a long way down.

I think I can! YES!

Off the third set of escalators is the Raging River.

At this point, I decided to head off to catch my show. DH and DS decided to stay and queue up for this ride. I’ve snaffled these from DH’s set.

No theming….but it really was a water flume ride like Splash.

The boys said that they enjoyed the ride; but it was raining hard at this point in time. They told me that they got wetter from the rain than from the ride.



NOTE: There is another ride in Adventure Land (Space Wheel) and a restaurant (Middle Kingdom Restaurant, which is at the bottom of the fourth set of escalators). I didn’t go check either of them out.




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[PrincessInOz]

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In Search of….Ani-Mammal-ias



Whilst the boys were getting wet, I went in search of a show…and it was time to start exploring Marine World. The show I was interested to see was Sea Dreams!

…and it was playing at the Ocean Theatre.

I got there about 10 minutes before the show start time and whilst the theatre was full, because I was after a single seat, I managed to find one in the middle towards the front. (Turns out it was a great place to sit. The row in front of mine had to evacuate but I stayed relatively dry.)

My view….and I was checking out some of the rides in the Marine World area too.

The Sea Dreams! show is meant to be a show about a grandfather telling his granddaughter a story with music and featuring some of my favourite mammals….dophins! Sadly, I cannot remember if the story was told in 3 languages…I definitely only remember hearing Cantonese and Mandarin. And no, it has nothing to do with swiss cheese elephant memory either…..the heavens opened up during this performance and the show was interrupted at least 3 times. In the end, I think they stopped the audio and just featured the mammals. It was meant to be a 30 minute show and I think we only ended up with 10 – 15 minutes of performance time.



The animal handlers really did their best to keep the show on.

You could almost say that they paddled really hard.

I think you can see the “light drizzle” if you look at the surface of the water in this shot. And the rain did pelt down!

It was time for dry-dock.

I guess we had been fairly lucky for this performance as the rain clouds hadn’t fully headed this way yet. We had moments where the performance did keep sliding along.

…And off again.

In the end, there was a 4 – 5 minute break in the weather for everyone to come out again.

Everyone was really there to see the animals…and the handlers just let them shine despite the rain!

By this stage, it was getting really dark out there.

And darker by the seconds!

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[PrincessInOz]

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I know it’s called Ocean Park but I really didn’t expect to get WET!



You might have noticed that it was really dark out there in Ocean Park from the last picture I posted. It probably got even darker than that!


I put my camera away as it was really pouring down by this stage. And I mean pouring. We were definitely in one of those tropical thunderstorms, with the lightning and thunder show lasting for 30 minutes.

I had called the boys during one of those breaks in the show and had arranged to meet them at one end of the theatre. Our main concern was staying dry and we wondered how long this weather was going to last. The majority of the crowd also had similar thoughts.

We stayed under shelter for at least 40 minutes and it was obvious that the rain was not going to let up. DH and I made the decision to leave but you might have noticed that The Summit is pretty open with not a lot of undercover shelter. Just a reminder....

In order to leave, we needed to walk to either the Cable Car or the Train to get back down the Waterfront. Easier said than done! We ended up buying some of the plastic branded rain coats that all theme parks sell. The cost was HK$37 each; about $5 in our money. Whilst we could keep our body mostly dry, there was nothing we could do about our feet. We were walking through the park in about 1 – 1½ inches of water on the ground. Our feet, shoes and socks got completely soaked. I know it’s called Ocean Park but I really didn’t expect to get this wet!

It didn’t Ocean Park long to realise that this was a major rain event. For safety reasons, they closed the cable car….heck….all the rides were closed within 2 minutes of the downpour.

That left only one way to get down the mountain….the Ocean Express train. The blurb on the train tells me that this train can move up to 5000 people per hour. Based on this information, I reckon that there must have been 10,000 -15,000 people up on the Summit that day.


The queue to get down….was horrendous. AND it was the sort of push and shove of nightmares. We ended up wet, cold and pushed all the way in the queueing area at the Summit Station for the first 30 minutes. It took us 90 minutes to get on a train for the 3 – 4 minute ride down to the base. I will say that the workers in the Summit Station did finally get their act together after 30 minutes. It took them that amount of time to work through the crowd and set up temporary barriers to manage the push and shove. In the initial stages, the workers did this through human chains and barriers themselves until the proper equipment got taken out of storage and dispatched for use. But despite being separated into appropriate group size for each partitioned area, everyone was trying to push ahead thinking that they would get on to the train sooner.


And when we got to the bottom, it was still pelting rain. Despite the ponchos, we got drenched at the bottom and we decided to call it a day. We queued in the open for the bus, which was much more orderly than at the Summit train station, and we eventually made it back to Admiralty by 5.30 pm.

I took this shot from the bus on the way back. I think it aptly depicts how I felt by then….Death Warmed Up!

We looked like drowned rats by the time we got back to the hotel and I realised that I needed new walking shoes at this stage. I had to wring my shoes out 3 times in the hotel room.



I will finish up this post by saying that despite the wet finish, we all really enjoyed our time at Ocean Park. If we were ever to be in Hong Kong again, I would definitely be heading out this way to finish seeing the sections of the park and the rides we missed out on…..and the animals!

 

[kmedina]

That really is a large park. It even has a Sea World in it. The view from the roller coaster is beautiful. I was thinking how you were about to get wet from the second water ride of the day. It is ironic that the rain was worse than the ride. Having wet shoes stinks. Sorry it was such a hassle getting out of there, but you cemetary picture from the bus made me laugh.

 

[Princess_Melanie]

Your Ocean Park update was better than anything else I've seen on the web about it so far (and we've been looking really hard to find out as much as we can about it lol!!)

I'm really glad we extended our trip and can spend a whole day here - we're nt really into the wet rides so we can spend time seeing a show or two hopefully. The dolphin one looks great - we were so disappointed with the Sea World one last time we saw it - pretty much all human action and barely any dolphin - it was a "new show" when we saw it and we were not the only ones disappointed The Ocean Park one will hopefully be better

Now - food - the fish with the curry sauce - looked scrummy, but as I can't eat fish - were there many non-fish options? The pumpkin looked yummy (and I know my Mom would see that on a menu and not even bother reading the rest but again for me, on the fish and I'm actually seriously allergic to cheese so that would be a no go. Nice to see a "nice" place to eat in a theme park - and the price seemed reasonable for the dishes that you got.

I'm curious - what was the mocktail that you had? Looked A-Mazing

 

[Aussie Wendy]

I'm all behind the times but before I catch up on your last post wanted to wish you a very belated Happy Birthday for the other day-hope you were well enough again to enjoy it!

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Now I have read it-knowing you have been sick-oh no did that come from being soaked for so long-remember what our Mothers always say about wet feet..(and sitting on cold concrete?) I adore your bird pics-so good-and yes the park is now on our bucket list-just have to strategise the day (and hope for no thunderstorms! I love planning a trip when its not really even on the "plan" yet but if you do this it ends up becoming "the plan")

 

[franandaj]

Yay! I'm still caught up. So is this where you start to get sick?

That sounds just awful getting stuck in such a downpour. Ugh! I hope you have a few more good days before you go down for the count!

 

[zanzibar138]

Wow sounds like a bit of an ordeal getting outta there! Looks like you were having a great time until the rain rain rain came down down down though.

And I think Ocean Park has moved up on my list of things to do next time we go to HK!

 

[PrincessInOz]

That really is a large park. It even has a Sea World in it. The view from the roller coaster is beautiful. I was thinking how you were about to get wet from the second water ride of the day. It is ironic that the rain was worse than the ride. Having wet shoes stinks. Sorry it was such a hassle getting out of there, but you cemetary picture from the bus made me laugh.

I was sorry for the rain. I still had a lot to see in the Marine World area and then back down the Waterfront!

Your Ocean Park update was better than anything else I've seen on the web about it so far (and we've been looking really hard to find out as much as we can about it lol!!)

I'm really glad we extended our trip and can spend a whole day here - we're nt really into the wet rides so we can spend time seeing a show or two hopefully. The dolphin one looks great - we were so disappointed with the Sea World one last time we saw it - pretty much all human action and barely any dolphin - it was a "new show" when we saw it and we were not the only ones disappointed The Ocean Park one will hopefully be better

Now - food - the fish with the curry sauce - looked scrummy, but as I can't eat fish - were there many non-fish options? The pumpkin looked yummy (and I know my Mom would see that on a menu and not even bother reading the rest but again for me, on the fish and I'm actually seriously allergic to cheese so that would be a no go. Nice to see a "nice" place to eat in a theme park - and the price seemed reasonable for the dishes that you got.

I'm curious - what was the mocktail that you had? Looked A-Mazing

There were a few meat options that I would have been happy to order. DH is pesky vegetarian and I tend to try to stick to the seafood side of things so that he can share some of my meal.

The mocktail had at least 3 different fruit in it..I remember mango and dragonfruit but not much more. The liquid was a mix of orange juice and lemonade. It was pretty tasty and given that the water was soooooo expensive, it was worth ordering it.

I'm all behind the times but before I catch up on your last post wanted to wish you a very belated Happy Birthday for the other day-hope you were well enough again to enjoy it!

Thanks Wendy!

Now I have read it-knowing you have been sick-oh no did that come from being soaked for so long-remember what our Mothers always say about wet feet..(and sitting on cold concrete?) I adore your bird pics-so good-and yes the park is now on our bucket list-just have to strategise the day (and hope for no thunderstorms! I love planning a trip when its not really even on the "plan" yet but if you do this it ends up becoming "the plan")

Yup. This was where I caught my bronchitis from!

Yay! I'm still caught up. So is this where you start to get sick?

That sounds just awful getting stuck in such a downpour. Ugh! I hope you have a few more good days before you go down for the count!

I have a few more days with pictures to share....

Wow sounds like a bit of an ordeal getting outta there! Looks like you were having a great time until the rain rain rain came down down down though.

And I think Ocean Park has moved up on my list of things to do next time we go to HK!

 

[ehsmum]

Was the food good at the bakery? I was interested to try it out but circumstances got the better of us.

Can't say it was anything special. DH and I got baguettes - his was smoked salmon and I think mine was chicken or turkey with salad. They were okay. The kids all got pastries, I think they were sausage roll type things, maybe with cheese? Anyway, not that memorable so nothing to write home about!

I know exactly the type of rain that you are talking about as that's what we had to deal with at HKDL! Talk about torrential downpour! I'm pretty sure we were at the tail end of typhoon season, even though it was supposed to be over by April.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Can't say it was anything special. DH and I got baguettes - his was smoked salmon and I think mine was chicken or turkey with salad. They were okay. The kids all got pastries, I think they were sausage roll type things, maybe with cheese? Anyway, not that memorable so nothing to write home about!

I know exactly the type of rain that you are talking about as that's what we had to deal with at HKDL! Talk about torrential downpour! I'm pretty sure we were at the tail end of typhoon season, even though it was supposed to be over by April.

Thanks for the info on the bakery. We had the HK$20 voucher and forgot to spend it. So I wondered if we missed out. By your accounts, I guess we didn't.

 

[PrincessInOz]

A little Shoe Shopping


Whilst we were trying to make our way back to the City from Ocean Park, we got a number of text messages from my parents and our TA friend. They were having a lovely time shopping in Causeway Bay. Turns out that there was another dinner being schemed for the night and they wanted to know if we would join them and what time we would likely make dinner.

I told them about our wet shoes and how I needed to buy shoes. We settled on meeting them at the Sogo in Causeway Bay, after we all grabbed showers and dried off.


Sogo? Would you believe that Sogo was originally started in Japan in 1830 selling kimonos? Sogo Japan ran into financial difficulties in 2000 and pretty much collapsed at the time. The Sogo in Hong Kong and the Sogo that exists in a number of Asian countries now operate under the name as independent departmental stores. I believe that Sogo still operates as a corporation in Japan.

FYI – I took the above shot later in the night but it seems appropriate to post it now.

The Sogo in Causeway Bay is massive. It has over 10 storeys worth of non-stop shopping retail space. I would put it somewhere between Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom’s in terms of pure shopping experience pleasure – only put those two department stores together and you’ll get the size of Sogo in Causeway Bay.


To get to Causeway Bay, we caught the line to Central (red line) and interchanged at Admiralty to the Chai Wan line (dark blue); where Causeway Bay was 2 stops away from Admiralty in the Chai Wan direction. At Causeway Bay, take the Sogo exit…yes, it does have its own exit which takes you right to the basement level.

If you’re coming from HKDL, interchange at Sunny Bay to the Hong Kong line (yellow). I believe that there is an underground passageway where you can walk from Hong Kong station to Central station. From Central, catch the train heading in the Chai Wan direction (dark blue line).



The exit was right where the ladies shoes were. Name brands? They were all there and then some. Can you imagine the frenzied excitement of Mrs Angel, my mother, our TA friend and myself at the prospect of shoe shopping? Just what any male wants to see! Hmmm….I don’t know what the boys were doing whilst we were shopping. For the record, I was the only one that needed to buy shoes. We ended up with all of us buying a pair...or two.

I did try to whizz through the other floors at Sogo but failed miserably. There was just too much to see and take in. I got diverted at the handbags, cosmetics and ladies fashion, all before I’d even gotten to the second floor. For anyone heading to Hong Kong and wanting to do a little departmental shopping, I would recommend Sogo. It won’t be bargain basement cheap but you’ll find a wide range of everything there.

In fact, for anyone wanting to shop, definitely head to Causeway Bay!




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[PrincessInOz]

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Party@10 for Dinner at Windsor House



Our little party for dinner tonight was 10. Aside from us, the Angels and our TA friend, S and another friend of the TA joined us. I was to eventually think of this friend as the Saint. The Saint had previously been to Melbourne before and I think we had met her about 3 or 4 years previously. She had been unable to join us in Aberdeen and had really wanted to catch up with us tonight.

Our restaurant for this night’s dinner.

Eky Banquet is located on the 9th Floor, Windsor House, 311 Gloucester Road, Causeway Bay.

We were in for another Yue style Chinese banquet dinner again tonight. As before, I left the order to our TA friend, S and the Saint. About the only input I made to the dinner was to ensure that DS got some fried rice with the meal.
In case anyone is interested, this is what we ordered. Definitely Chinese!

Our table was appropriately dressed. I don't think I saw any peanuts tonight.

The restaurant had the requisite crystal chandeliers….

….and a chaise lounge. I’m guessing this was for the bride and groom pictures???

And then the dishes arrived and I only had porn of the food kind on my mind!

Gai Lan (Chinese Broccoli) vegetables.

Black Chicken – it is actually the Silkie chicken. They have a blue/black skin and is traditionally used with chinese herbs for ‘tonic’ purposes. Supposedly it helps fight fatigue and enhances bone density.

The Silkie (black) chicken was a double-serve dish. Aside from the meat, we also got the herbal soup.

Garlic Prawns – beautifully cooked.

This was the Special Fried Rice. I think S was determined to educate DS in the finer Chinese foods. This rice was a specialty of the restaurant – they do fry the rice. But after it is fried, it is wrapped in lotus leaf with the shrimp and then steamed. I’m not sure DS appreciated the education as much as I did, but he ate it nevertheless. It was a huge serve…more than enough to feed the table.

The fried fish and vegetable dish. The sauce was a little bland but every component in the dish was perfectly cooked.

The highlight of this meal was the Lobster noodles. I could have personally done with ginger in the dish but the noodles and lobster were wonderful.

The vegetarian dish – various mushrooms, vegetables and bamboo shoot. Lots of soft textures.

Pork Spare Ribs in a plum/orange sauce. Amazingly delicious and tasty.

Another fish dish; this one in soya sauce. I couldn’t decide if the fish had been steamed or if it had been pan fried.

Our table was pretty much laden with food!

The freebie house dessert was a bowl of sweet red bean soup (Hung Tau Tsui). The Hong Kong chefs like to add a bit of orange peel to the soup during the cooking process so that there is a bit of orange bitterness to balance the sweetness of this ‘soup’.

The meal tonight was another winner in my book.


The cost? Tonight was a little bit more expensive than the previous night. We paid about HK$180 per person, roughly $23 in our money. I guess the extra could have been because we were in the heart of Causeway Bay and also because of the lobster.


Despite that, the cost was still ridiculous value for money compared to what we pay at home!



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[PrincessInOz]

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Shop till you Drop in Times Square – Hong Kong



We were in Causeway Bay, one of the major shopping areas in Hong Kong.

My TA friend had told me that Causeway Bay had become a fashionable place to shop with the yuppies because of the more up-market and western style shops in the area.

I’d already hit Sogo and can attest to the dizzy array of brand names in that store.

Our restaurant was located in Windsor House, another shopping mall in the area. Seems like the specialty here was children’s clothes.

I was seriously tempted by this sweet bag but I really couldn’t fit another thing in after that dinner! Some of the others managed to squeeze in the Haagen Daaz.

Across the road is the Park Lane, another mall. We didn’t go check it out.

It might have been close to 9.00 pm when we emerged from dinner; but it seemed like shops had not yet shut in the area as there were a ton of people about.

We walked down Great George Street and I think this was our first full-blown experience of neons in Hong Kong. Suffice to say, I did not need a tripod for any of the neon shots at night in Hong Kong. Lighting conditions were brilliant!

Great George Street is where you’ll find one of the Youth Malls selling all things hip and trendy for the younger set. Causeway Place Mall is well known as one of these centres – shops are up the stairs.

In case anyone was after a close-up…looks like The Avengers were “in” when we were there.

Anyone reading with tweens, teens or feeling like they want to be trendy, check the Causeway Place mall out! Definitely very hip!


We were heading back in the direction of Sogo, where we stopped by the supermarket in the basement.

Mrs Angel was keen to get some durian fruit. I think she had smelt it out earlier in the day. The durian is a fruit that you’ll find in South East Asia. I think that I have a picture of the fruit taken on market day which I’ll share later. Suffice to say, if you’ve ever come across this fruit, your nose will not ever forget it. It has a very distinctive odour but the taste…..pure custard ambrosia!

A consequence of that distinctive odour that hangs around and never quits, is that most reputable hotels will ban you from entry if you have the fruit with you. So, when Mrs Angel purchased it from the supermarket, she opened it outside the supermarket, in the basement of Sogo, where the Party@10 enjoyed that custard ambrosia. I’m pretty sure that we got death looks from the other shoppers but none of us cared!


We continued on our way amongst the shoppers still shopping!

I never did work out which building or mall this was. So if you know, let me know!

I’d done enough window-shopping in the area to know that I wasn’t going to be purchasing anything more that night. Besides, there were other things on the street that attracted my attention.

Street Transport!

I live in a city where we have trams and I always like seeing them in other cities during my travels. Makes me feel more at home.

We kept walking to our destination, by passing the Causeway Bay MTR.

There is a night market in the area…Jardine’s Bazaar located in Jardine Crescent. It was closer towards 9.30 pm by this stage and a lot of the vendors were shut. This was the second street market I’d come across so far and I remember wishing that we would time our visits to night markets during trading hours! Looking at this picture, I wish the same thing now.

Our destination was Times Square, another mall in Causeway Bay. You’ll find Lane Crawford and Marks and Spencers in here. Yes, there is a Times Square in Hong Kong and much like the Times Square in NYC, New Year's Eve celebrations are also held here.

I gathered from the locals in our Party@10 that there was mostly always a temporary display of some sort outside Times Square. It was the turn of the eco-greenies for us.

And it was time to leave the area. At the end of the street, we hit Canal Road and a bus stop.

There was a bus heading in our direction going under the Cross Harbour Tunnel and it took us less than 10 minutes to get back to the Hung Hom train station and even less time to head back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. Tomorrow was going to be another BIG day.



The end of another long, wet day!

 

[ACDSNY]

Woo hoo I'm caught up again.

 

[kmedina]

The city is really beautiful. That dinner looked awesome, and I can see why people would get married there. I love the Avengers action figures. Those sunflowers are cool.

 

[franandaj]

I liked that dinner better than the other (as if I actually ate it! ) I'm not as adventurous with Asian cuisine as American! I'm just not into cities and shopping so I wouldn't have been into that day. Although on the other hand if there were bargains to be had, FRAN would have been all over it. However I suspect that being downtown there weren't many bargains. We prefer thrift stores and warehouse deals.

Our vacations include checking out local Costcos for what they have as deals!

 

[Princess_Melanie]

That buffet looked really scrummy (and I don't eat fish or mushrooms lol!!) - I really have to stop catching up on food porn after my crummy little breakfast - now I'm hungry again lol!!

I always think I'm the luckiest girl in the world as DBF not only shares the same passion as I do for Disney and visiting amazing places around the world, but he actually enjoys all the shopping that these trips include - we both LOVE shopping and can't wait to hit Causeway Bay

I can't wait for your markets reports....