Of Ocean Parks and Car Cables

Down the stairs, around the corners, over the road, waiting, waiting, waiting, here is # 1 bus, put money in, get on bus, off to Tung Chung. Catch the MTR (these machines actually do take notes!) 

MTR @ around 11:00

Out and through. Where is the bus? Who knows how to find one of those and my feet are swollen and sore. How about we take a taxi? Good idea! 
Ocean Park... how much? HK$ 70. Ok, let's do it.
Hair raising, seat sliding, flight through the streets. Look Mommy, I did my seatbelt all by myself! 

Red Taxi's only on Hong Kong Island

Caleb's excitement reached bursting levels when we arrived and we had to do all we could to just slow him down as he was going to take us through this place at neck breaking speed as he was convinced we were going to miss something.

Columbus - navigating the map

 First stop - The Grand Aquarium

Fish tank only marginally more impressive than Tata's :)

White Tipped Reef Shark - look at top of his fins

Impressive Stingrays

Mr. Octopus

Leafy Sea Dragon

Weedy Sea Dragon

Sea Horse

The orange blur is a plastic pumpkin (seeing that is was Halloween today) with food in for these fish. They were going nuts for it.

Pumpkin feeding frenzy

Hammerhead Sharks and Smiling Rays

We went for lunch at the Panda Cafe and had Ramen. It is noodles in a soup, and this particular meal consisted of spicy beef as well. It really is very tasty. Caleb had plain noodles to his delight, and then decided to add some Fanta orange to that, which apparently according to him, was rather delicious. 
We then set off to go meet the Pandas and the Stump-nose monkeys, indigenous to Western China.

Lots of signs and people around which tells you to keep quiet when you enter the enclosure. Plenty more people who ignore it, which saw the two Panda Bears go inside, away from the people. An An below turned his back on proceedings and mooned the crowds.
He went inside and then the handlers put out their food. So An An came back and I had to spend the rest of the day persuading Ingrid that I don't think having a Panda in the backyard was such a good idea, mainly as bamboo is hard to find...

An An - he was born in 1986, weighs 103kg

An An coming out heading for food.

Sitting down for a snack

Stump-nose monkeys cuddling

And then one showed her face

Off to a train ride which suppose to simulate a submarine... we have a few suggestions for them on how to improve that though, like just paint fish on the walls outside...

Entrance to the Ocean Express

Inside the Ocean Express

The Ocean Express

The view from the Summit was impressive though, as suddenly the sky cleared.

Ocean Express Summit Station

Ocean Express Summit Station

We couldn't go on Bumper Cars, nor on the Water raft as Caleb apparently should be 120 cm, the fact that he is 119 cm didn't count. So to avert from the disappointment, we went to the Rain forrest instead and met a few creepy crawleys (which naturally pleased the youngest in the party)

Poisonous black and white frog

Poisonous blue frog

Piranna

It was time for a coffee and feet up so we headed for the Car Cables (more commonly known as Cable Cars). We found the Bayview Restaurant.

View from Bayview

We were there, promise!

We wandered further down as suddenly there were a cue a mile long full of people and ended up at the Ferris Wheel and there was no restriction as long as he was with an adult. Caleb is fearless, as they take you up and it stops for more people to get in, my heart is in my throat and I feel like holding on for dear life. He on the other hand, chats away, points at things and wonders how the gears work. Once it gets going it was rather nice to be on there.

At the top of the world

As it was sort of a dead end, we headed back to where we came from and found that to access the cable car now, was easy with few people. 

Halloween Themed Cable Car

Ocean Park from the cable car (only the main entrance side)

Hong Kong from Cable Car

Heading down from there we walked through Old Hong Kong - a little bit of England if you ask me.

A busy day full of people in a place that is a combination of UShaka and Table Mountain, just about 5 times the size. We never even got to see half of it as it just becomes too much. Tomorrow we will need a break for sure. By 18:20 Caleb passed out in the taxi heading back to the train. By the time we got home he woke up again, asked for food and eventually went back to sleep.

If the weather is clear we will go to visit the Big Buddah and go past the beach. Need a break before we head for Disney Land.

Melting pot

Struggled up at about 08:30 (mainly because Caleb is a very noisy sleeper and me a very light one) to rain, lots of it. With a "Caleb, let's go ride on the ferry" we eventually managed to get him up, clearly suffering from jet lag.
Armed with umbrella's, a quick 'Hoi Hoi' to the landlord (who is thinking we should all go to mainland China for the weekend - an idea we like) we set off through the puddles and rain with the plan to go to Mui Wo, which will then allow us to board the ferry to Hong Kong Island.

I wonder if she meant for him to blend into his chair

Making our way from the bus to the ferry, a hawker suggested raincoats, which turned out to be very handy, as all the umbrellas manage to do is trip you up along the way and make you even wetter (we do acknowledge that it is most probably down to a user problem more than an umbrella malfunction). 
Caleb's raincoat later also turned into a push chair cover with him huddling inside it.

With great excitement we were on the ferry and sped across the water - we were on the fast ferry, which takes 30 mins vs the normal ferry which takes 60 mins. We didn't have much choice in the matter, come to think of it, as the normal ferry wasn't due for another hour. The trip cost about HK$ 76.

With the clouds and the rain, we couldn't get the full effect of the approach to Hong Kong Island as all the skyscrapers were well covered with a thick blanket of clouds. Needless to say on a clear day we will have to make the trip again.

Backside of our ferry and a brief weather report

Arriving on Hong Kong island, we found ourselves right in the middle of what seems to be the major financial district. Full of suits and tourists we set off over a walkway across the busy roads into the IFC building (International Financial Centre) - which is a massive shopping centre. Over lunch we orientated ourselves with a map and headed off into Queens Central Road, which reminds one a bit of Oxford Road, with the same feel, however, interspersed with steep alleyways and traditional markets.

All the time we are left feeling its a place of contrasts, trapped between the old and the new, the local and the foreign. Almost like a teenager.

Queens Central

Queens Central

Queens Central Side Road/ Alley

Queens Side Road/ Alley

Market off Queens Central

We then stumbled into Lan Kwai Fong, an area full of eateries, bars and street stalls. Halloween fever also seems to be quite high!

Footloose

Lend us a hand

I am telling you, it was THIS big!

Hairy...

We stopped for a coffee here, very trendy in the middle of a corner  of an ugly building

Legendary

And then out of nowhere a little shrine

From here we moved on to Hollywood road, which in the past and still to some extent, is a place where one can find more traditional Chinese artifacts. A place we will come back to later as we have a few ideas of a few things we may need to acquire.

Night falling

Busses and trams

We then headed home, decided to take the MTR (Mass Transport Railway - appropriate name if you ask me!) - extremely clean  and extremely fast and extremely silly at the same time when it comes to buying tickets. You are not allowed to use any notes, only coins. Mind boggles and when you really want to get home and you are surrounded by really unhelpful people, it is not so much fun.

Anyway, we took the train back to Tung Chung (which is Lantau's centre) and then hopped back on the bus. Blessed with a hair-raising bus drive just in time for Halloween, we made it home, in one piece... just. No one told said bus driver that it was raining, very wet and that there is a speed limit of some sort. Shaky and sweaty we made our way back up stairs into our little place.

To try and get Caleb to sleep, when his body clock is ticking to 15:00 in the afternoon, saw us switching off the lights and listening to the rain. 
I felt his little hand on mine and then he lifted his head and whispered, 'Mamma I love you.' 

That is when you forgive everyone everything and get ready to do it all again tomorrow.

Locals think we may still be in for rain tomorrow, if that is the case Kowloon here we come...