A day in the park

Yesterday's trip to HK's iconic Ocean Park was a lot of fun. Seeing all the different sharks and fish up close made me realize just how large they actually are. 

I love how the aquariums are designed with 360 degree tanks that you can walk around and see sharks and other fish swim up beside you. Being able to see schools of fish pass overhead makes me feel like I was scuba diving in the sea with these animals.

The new shark aquarium (Photo: CharK)

The dolphin and sea lion show at the Ocean Theatre on the Summit was as a lot of fun to watch. The dolphins performed a lot of jumps and tricks, and the sea lions also sang and danced. Seats to the show gets filled up starting about half an hour before the show starts. But I didn`t mind waiting for the show to start because the theatre has a spectacular view-- overlooking the Summit and out towards Lamma Island.

A view of Lamma Island from Ocean Park (CharkK)

Some of the midway rides (CharK)

The very well trained dolphins performing synchronized routines (Photo: CharK)

What`s also great about the Park is the basic logistical issues like purchasing ticket and getting there. I highly recommend taking the 629 Citybus which leaves from Admiralty MTR Station and heads directly to the Park entrance. The short ride and more importantly the bus frequency makes the trip back and forth relatively painless. 

The only downside to the park was the tendency for many of the visitors to jump the lines. While waiting in line to get on the cable car, this mom and her young son (maybe around 4-5) casually walked on the side of a number of people who were already in line and then suddenly cut in front of us. I suppose we should have said something to indicate we didn`t like her cutting in front of us, but we were just so shocked by the blatant disregard for others already in line. She simply said to her son that they should wait in line even though he was hungry and then cut right  in as if nothing was wrong. After that seeing this mom and son cut in front of us, the two elderly ladies behind us got very antsy and started pushing up against me. Seeing how the line was going to take another 30 minutes to the cable car, and we`d have to ride in groups of six people, CharK and I decided to get out of the line and just take the tram down to the other side of the park. Running into people like that are the park was a bit of a downer but we just chalked it up to the culture of some of the visitors there. Unfortunately no one was enforcing line jumping, which is one of park rules...

The park entrance looks very pretty in this blue light (Photo: CharK)

Despite the cable car experience, we walked around the park a bit more and stayed to watch the light and pyrotechnic show at the Aqua City Lagoon just before heading home. The show was very impressive, fireworks along with a water fountain as a 360 degree screen for projecting images of dragons and other visual effects. The craziest part was how much heat was generated from the flames that periodically lit up the lagoon throughout the show. I felt the heat on my arms and face even standing about 3 meters away from the edge of the fountain!

Photo: CharK

Another tip for heading to Ocean Park: you can get free admission on your birthday if you happen to hold a permanent HK identification card. (That's how we celebrated CharK's birthday this year!)

Learning to read

The annual HK book fair is an event I look forward to each year. Even though I had only finished half of the books I had bought at least year's fair, I'm convinced I can do better this year. I realized that I started to lose interest in some of the psychology/social books because I getting stuck on a lot of the Chinese. And even though there were interesting observations about social behaviors (e.g. like how people tend to fill up seats on a public bus) and there really wasn't a hook for me to continue reading.

This year's reading list for CharK and I 

So this year I decided to try some Chinese novels which have been translated from popular Japanese young adult novels. These light-hearted novels have a romantic comedy theme which seem to have interesting storylines. Also CharK found a great dictionary app that'll help me get through the Chinese. I'm confident I'll do better with this year's reading list!

Rather than just reading a definition from a typical Chinese-English dictionary, this Cantonese Phonetic app can actually pronounce the word. In addition to pronouncing the different ways the word can be sounded, it gives the definition (in English) as well as common phrases of that word. The app is actually based on the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Chinese Character Database website. Having it on my phone is really handy, especially since I can use input a word directly via my touchscreen keyboard.

A great Cantonese-English translator tool for your mobile phone

This app has been pretty easy to use so far and I have made it through the first page of my novel fairly easily. I think this is going to be one of my favourite apps on my phone. It will be especially helpful for getting around HK on a daily basis and I won't have to worry about not being able to read something on a sign or restaurant menu!