heated amusement

So what do you get when you mash Lagoon and Sea World together, make them miniature, and dump the mixture next to the South Sea of China? That would be Ocean Park. It's this amusement park of sorts that has roller coasters, sea animals, an aquarium, carnival games, and bad fast food that includes pizza with a corn mixture on it, among other things you might find at your favorite amusement park. As it turns out, Ocean Park seems to be just as confused as the rest of this SAR as to what its real identity is.

It should be noted that although I nearly burst into tears because I was sweating so profusely and was nearing a heat stroke (I'm kind of serious about the stroke and 100% serious about the crying), I did indeed survive the brutal afternoon and make it to the evening, at which point we basically had the whole park to ourselves. We were a little puzzled as to why the park cleared out hours early, but it was with the kind of joy I'll feel when I see a sugar cookie again that we realized we didn't have all our favorite Hong Kongian school children up in our grills. Seriously - the whole concept of respecting others' space, waiting your turn, it has totally escaped these people. And the notion of "ladies first" is completely exempt. Not to mention that the concept of deodorizing in the morning is totally a foreign thought process. So not only are these sticky bodies rubbing up against me, jabbing me in the back, but they also fill the atmosphere with body odorous streams of death air.

And really folks, the panda bears are not going anywhere. They're pretty much locked up and waiting for you to shove your mini phone camera in their face to get an awesome picture through the Plexiglas. No need to hip check me and slide your sweaty body into my arm pit.

We actually had a pretty good time, all things considered. I'd recommend the jelly fish habitat - it was breathtaking really, and I wish we would have gone through a second time. The pandas alone were worth the price of admission (it's possible we went through five times). And when we went through the aquarium house at the end of the day, we were the only two there. A stingray kept pacing in front of us, flapping his fin in our direction, probably telling us to get out. And I had a yellow fish following me back and forth for a couple minutes.

So although I did indeed almost die yesterday, I'm glad we went. (Probably because I got some sweet tan lines.) ;)