Photo TR: Hong Kong trip - January 2009

[gax]

I just got back from a 5 month trip around the world which took me through Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and California. It was a blast, kind of a 'coming of age' thing!

Anyway, whilst it wasn't a 'theme park trip' as such, I did persuade my friends to visit Ocean Park and HK Disneyland whilst we were in Hong Kong.

 

First off, let me say how amazing Hong Kong is. It quickly became one of my favorite cities in the world. Everythings just so busy but efficient at the same time. If you have yet to visit Hong Kong, I can't reccomend it enough!

 

So, Ocean Park. This is where we headed first. A lot of the locals said that it was better than Disneyland, and although I may not 100% agree with that, I can definitely see where they're coming from. It's a beautiful, unique park with a good selection of rides and shows.

For anybody who doesn't know, the park is set of two sides of a huge mountain in the middle of Hong Kong, the only way you can get from one side of the park to the other is via a massive cable car system which takes you right over the top of the mountain. One side of the park has a small childrens area, some animal exhibits and an acrobat show. the other side is the 'rides' portion of the park, with two coasters, a log flume, drop tower and more. There are many areas in the park where the views are simply breathtaking, and the minetrain delivers the best view I have ever seen from any roller coaster.

 

The park is currently going through a huge expansion project which will include, amongst other things, a tunnel going right through the mountain from one side of the park to the other, and a Mack powered coaster. The project is anticipated to be fully complete by 2011/12.

 

Anyway, on with the photos...

Disneyland photos coming soon.

Thanks for a great day Ocean Park!!

They've now replaced the giant balloon ride near the entrance with this kind of lame acrobat show..

This is going to be that entrance to the giant tunnel they've built from one side of the park to the other, so you don't have to use the cable cars.

Amazing and petrifying.

Just because I know youre all dying to see, this is what the inside of the cable cars looks like.

NOTED!

Just taking a nap.

Here's some of the building work going on on top of the mountain. It's around this area where they're building the Mack Minetrain coaster. Apparently the park is going to almost double in size.

See, told you so.

Huss Enterprise.

TAKE THE TUNNEL!!

"Take raging river might get yourself wet" WTF!?

They actually squeegee the seats after every ride. Only in Asia!

sklooooooshhhh

...here it comes...

Here it comes...

They really got the authentic canadian feel right.

I can't remember much about this ride to be honest. Just your average log flume I think.

Its a river. And its raging.

The Raging River.

 

What!? I'm not good at captions...

More chinese new year shizzle.

This is the best photo I have of inside..

Atoll Reef is a multi-storey aquarium attraction, with fish and stuff...

Rare inside-station shot. Only 3 photos of this exist in the world.

GRRRRR!! I WILL DESTROY YOUR BRAIN!!

Don't get me wrong it's not all bad. The first drop's pretty fun and there a little bit of airtime in some places. But it's mainly pain.

'ow ow ow ow'

'The Dragon' is an arrow multi looper built into the side of the mountain, it hurts.

After lunch we worked up the courage to have our heads brutally battered.

Ahh, the reason we came halfway round the world!

We see you painful Arrow coaster.

Wooooahh! Offical onride shot of the condor!!!!!!!!!

Next to the abyss is the condor ride which feels like it will fall apart any second.

"Ride it feel the depth!!"

The chinese for entrance looks a lot like the word No. That caused a lot of confusion.

Number one safety rule: 'Please queue up for the ride'

In true theme park style they were only running one side.

The Abyss is a big double drop tower that you can see from miles around in Hong Kong.

Ferris wheels seem to be a staple part of a lot of Asian parks.

It was a nice show, dispite being incredibly cheesy. They had a big backstory about a girl and here grandpa and something about magic coming to life in the form of dolphins..

Aaaah!

Ooooh!

The stadium's built right on the side of the mountain overlooking the park.

We went to see the Seaworld rip off dolphin show.

It's the sky tower. Erm.. yeah.

Heres an idea of what the top of the park has to offer.

Don't worry world! 'No straw day' is here to save you!

Pretty pretty pretty

"I'd rather ride this all day than go back in the madagascar attraction"

The ride was down for most of the morning but we got on later in the day.

Coaster + Mountains = awesome!

There's the minetrain, average coaster, amazing view!

This side of the park is built on top of a mountain, so it is all connected together by a series of escalators.

It really is a beautiful park!

So we headed over to the other side of the park, currently known as 'the headland' but being remaned as the summit.

"Don't visit my lame attraction!"

Here's the pointless monkey jeep room. Apparently this attraction was originally planned to have a seperate fee but nobody sane would have ever paid.

Heres the spinning tunnel, just the same as pretty much every other spinning tunnel ever.

There was three rooms. A 'green screen' room where it kind of made you look as if you were a character in the film. A spinning tunnel and a room with some monkey and a jeep which I didn't really get the point of.

It turned out to be one of those attractions where you think its about to start.. then it ends.

Our hopes were high!

There was a new Madagascar attraction the park was making a big deal about..

Everyone always rushes straight to the cable cars so we decided to hang out on this side of the park for a while longer then head over to the other side later on.

Here's the epic cable cars the park has, delivering some of the best views you can get of Hong Kong and the ocean.

This is one of the new flower displays they introduced for Chinese new year. Those little orange trees were all over Hong Kong.

Eat..poop..sleep, repeat.

I love how chilled out they look.

Time to go and watch some endangered giant pandas poo and eat.

The park are very big on Pandas.

When we visited back in January, it was chinese new year, so the park had all sorts of different displays representing the 'year of the ox'.

The giant green wall to the right is part of the big construction project that they have going on. They're in the process of transforming the area at the bottom of the mountain from 'The Lowland' to 'The Waterfront'.

ATTACCKKK!!!

"Give me your money and I wont set the bird on you"

Soo here I am at the entrance of Ocean Park, spot the tourist!

So I know you all just want the coasters so I'll finish this with a picture of central Hong Kong taken from 'victoria peak' mountain.

Awesome.

This is a 'stilt town' built on one of the Islands out of Hong Kong, you have to take a ferry and two buses to get here but it's well worth it.

It's apparently where all the fatties come to shop.

This is a small market town called Stanley about a 30 minute bus ride out of the city.

...it's that giant phallic tower there on the right.

Speaking of IFC...

This is the 'new' highest building in Hong Kong. When it's finished it will be higher than the IFC, or 'batman building'

So first up some Hong Kong photos. Such an amazing place, you can spend hours just exploring the streets and markets.

[jkwan]

I remember taking my grandfather who was in his eighty's on the log flume ride and I was really worried about him but he insisted that he wanted to go on the ride. So during the ride, everything was fine, and after we went over the main drop, I looked back and the first thing my grandfather said was "My watch got wet." He was wearing a Rolex and we all laughed because we were expecting something like "Wow that drop was awesome!" But all we got was "My watch got wet."