The day started awesome as the sun rays peeked through the clouds, an indication of an improving weather condition, perfect for an outing to Ocean Park.
Woke the usual early plus a little snoozing on the alarm and we were up slicing and dicing some foodstuff to prepare baby K’s porridge. Had new ingredients since we bought some from the supermarket the previous night but preparations were no issues with the small chopping board and folding knife that we purchased from Daiso.
We were all ready at 930am and left for the MTR, having learnt that the easiest one for us to get to for about 15mins of walking was Tsim Sha Tsui MTR. 10hkd per person to Admiralty station and off we went, going through the lift that was made for people with needs.
After getting off, we proceeded to the exit B where the bus stand for bus 629 was. En route, we saw a tourism info counter where they offered tickets at discounted rate, about 40hkd off, so we purchased 2 adults while baby K goes in for free.
Before going to the bus ticketing booth on the outside, we saw a hawker stand where mineral water was sold for 7hkd and on their signboards they also indicated that water of the same would cost 25hkd in Ocean Park. Bought 2 bottles and proceeded to the booth to buy return bus tickets for 10.20hkd per way.
Went to the back of the snaking queue, long queue there probably because it was a Saturday, and found that I have lost one of the park entrance ticket. Couldn’t find it after back tracking and gave up and boarded the bus. Although there was a long queue, it cleared pretty quickly as the buses came fast and furious too. We got a seat but had a hard time bringing the stroller up the bus as the walking space within the bus was not a lot.
It was quite a fast trip there, taking less than 20 mins and we were already at the escalator to the park entrance. There was a new Ocean Park MTR station there but not yet in service.
After queuing up for about 5 mins, I went to the counter to enquire if they could do something about the ticket. They said it was not possible to track that one purchased from the MTR so I bought another one.
Entering the park through the entry point for strollers and wheelchairs on the left, we went to the info booth to get 2 pamphlets, one for shows timing and the other for the park map. At almost 11am, we proceeded to the first show at the Asian animals and it was a small group of people performing juggling and stuff in animal costumes. Not really interesting though.
Proceeded to the panda enclosure and saw the pandas sleeping. The red pandas were rather active, moving around constantly. This place kinda reminded us of what we have in our Singapore zoo. On the way out, there were exhibits of goldfish and otter, where one get to have a close encounter with otter while the staff talked about it.
For lunch, we popped over to the Panda Cafe. We ordered duck and Char Siew rice and a minced meat rice, each came with a small Haagen Daz, but each for a whopping 168hkd and 140hkd correspondingly. The duck rice was bad and the minced meat rice was so so.
We went to the toilet with with diaper changing station and changed diapers before trying to get baby K to sleep. We wanted to get baby K to sleep so we walked a bit will we ventured to Whiskers Theatre, where a show was about to begin. Baby K didn’t sleep and ended up watching the show. The actors of the show actually got really close at some point to interact with the kids. The kid next to us even had his head bitten by the dolphin mascot, which was really funny.
After the show, we made our way towards the cable car. En route, we passed a small street that was designed in the style of old Hong Kong. As nostalgic old music was played along the street, baby K fell asleep.
There were two queues for the cable cars towards the Summit, the other bigger section of the park where all the rides were. The queue was not too long and we were soon boarding the very limited space of the cable car, sharing it with another family. I initially had some issues bringing the stroller onboard as the wheels kept getting stuck.
The view from the 15 mins ride was pretty good, especially as the weather was better at the other side of the mountain. Baby K continued to sleep through the ride though.
As we got off, the staff helped, thankfully, with my stroller as I struggled again. Immediately on the left of the cable car exit was the restaurant with a good view but we could get the “free” view near its entrance. Expectedly it was packed with tourists snapping away.
We proceeded to the poles expedition exhibits, one with the seals and walrus and the other with penguins that was pretty cold as we were sharing the surrounding temperature with them. It was amazing to see a walrus for our first time, swimming around. However we struggled a bit on pushing the strollers, constantly looking out for lifts to take as baby K was snoozing in it and we couldn’t risk taking the escalator. Near the exit of the souvenir shop was the discrete entrance to the exhibit for the snow fox. There were a couple of them but all were asleep.
We bypassed all the roller coasters and proceeded to the Shark exhibit. The strollers weren’t allowed in it and we had to park it outside. It was then baby K awoke in time for the visit as he loved to look at fishes. The area was quite a walk with various sections, one where we could view from top of a open pool, one from the sides, one from below looking up and one floor to ceiling kind of enclosure. Of course it couldn’t be compared to the one in Singapore in terms of size but this was only for sharks. There were a couple of types, I recognized the hammerheads easily.
Exiting the shark exhibits, baby K had milk and then we walked through the many thrill rides and a short stretch of empty road before reaching the Marine Mammal Breeding and Research Center, where the dolphins were kept when the ocean theatre was closed during winter without shows. We watch the dolphins swimming in pools from behind a clear panel and the staff feeding them but nothing else. It was amazing to see the dolphins actually leaped out of the water within such a small space.
Walking back was rather tiring as it was an uphill climb and almost 15mins of that. We were all exhausted when we finally arrived at the Ocean Express train ride back to the Waterfront section. Initially wanted to change diapers for baby K but the one and only room near the shark exhibit was occupied and was informed by a nice dad outside that breastfeeding was in progress and would take up another 10mins.
There was a priority queue for strollers for the train ride but it had the longest queue. And funnily not all waiting had a stroller. Luckily we could all get onboard the large train. The ride was a slow moving train but seemed to be faster than the cable car, maybe 15mins? During the journey, there were screens to simulate our journey going through water and depths of earth and stuff, entertaining the kids inside the train.
Back at the waterfront, we went back to the first diaper changing room. Then we went to take another photo with a shark mascot at the booth (previously was a panda) and proceeded to the aquarium, our last attraction for the day. There was no queue also and we managed to take the lift to the top level where the exhibit starts.
In this aquarium, there were similar arrangements but was bigger than the shark ones. Again baby K was excited about looking at marine life, of which we saw the usual nemos and Alaskan crabs and starfish and seahorses. There was also nice exhibit of schools of fishes swimming together and a large octopus.
After this visit, we left the park at 6pm after mommy bought some memorabilia from the shop near the entrance. There was supposed to be a light and fountain show but we gave it a miss as that was at 7pm. Imagine if we had to take the thrill rides, a day out didn’t seem enough. Expectedly, the bus queue was long and we had to wait awhile before getting on the bus, having the same struggle as the day. The evening ride back took longer than the morning one due to the traffic jam. Baby K fell asleep on the ride.
Back at Admiralty we took the same route back to TST and the 20mins walk back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we quickly cooked dinner for baby K and got out to Harbour City Cafe de Coral for dinner.
Shopping started after dinner and the shops only mostly closed at 10pm. Some had extended hours due to CNY and we stayed till then, leaving the Toys R Us at almost 1030pm.
Back at the room, we only managed to get baby K to sleep and we followed suit falling asleep, leaving the utensils unwashed.