So Hong Kong is officially my favorite place we have been so far and I have only been here for a day! Lydia and I woke up around 830AM, didn't have to go through customs [sweet!] and hopped off the ship. The plan, since yesterday, had been to go to Ocean Park because it had, what appeared to be in an outdated Lonely Planet book, an amazing cable car ride over Hong Kong Island. We got on the Central Ferry to Hong Kong Island and then found the bus we needed to be on, green minibus 6. We showed up around 1040 and it didn't come again until 1120AM so we waited for a while. A few minutes before we figured it would show up we walked over to the sign only to realize we had been reading the wrong times and that the bus didn't come on Sunday. Go figure.

We grabbed a cab instead and let that be our mistake for Hong Kong, as one extremely obvious mistake is totally acceptable per country. We got there in about 5 - 10 minutes and became 10 year olds immediately. Ocean World was like a small, but awesome, Hong Kong version of Busch Gardens. We got our tickets, which were much cheaper than Busch Gardens, and headed in. We were met by giant, colorful hot air balloons sitting around the entrance. There were trees full of hearts for Valentine's Day that lined some of the walkways. We grabbed some maps and planned the rest of our day, kind of.

The first thing we did was make our way to Whisker's Theatre. There was a sea lion show that was going to start soon and who doesn't want to go to sea lion shows? Not us. So we went. There were two huge black sea lions that apparently spoke Chinese that were funny, as sea lions seem to be in every country. The trainers on stage told us [in Chinese and English, which I appreciated] the training routines of the sea lions from birth through where they currently were. It was interesting to see how they get them trained. The second thing we did was find pandas. You would think this would be a challenge, because they are endangered animals; however, you would be wrong - we were in a zoo.

There were two giant black and white pandas, one of which was being anti social in the morning. The other one was climbing all over the place and eating and being generally adorable. I have videos but I am having a hard time uploading them, so we will see how that works out. There were also two red pandas, who may have been even cuter, who were both asleep very comfortable in a tree. We walked through gold fish land which was neat; I didn't know so many ugly gold fish existed on the planet. From there we needed lunch so we went to a snack hut and got hot dogs and a drink for way less than we would have paid at a US theme park, which just made it that much better.

After eating we went this crazy train thing that was themed like a submarine that took us up the mountain to the other part of the park. From there we hunted roller coasters. We found the dragon and got in line. There was a kid in line in front of us who was just barely too short and the ride operator flipped out on him; I am surprised the kid is alive, almost. He was just a very grumpy person whom I knew I didn't want to anger. The coaster was fun, kind of shaky, and I made a video of it because at the time it seemed appropriate. I dropped my camera when we went upside down! OH NO! Just kidding; it was wrapped twice around my wrist. Just because I'm in college doesn't mean I am automatically an idiot.

From there we rode the Abyss, one of those tall things that you shoot up and then drop down faster than you should. It was not as fast on the way down as it seemed and offered a really beautiful view of the islands around the park. Hong Kong is beautiful, and if you've never been then you should - maybe even tomorrow because the weather is amazing right now. From that point ice cream was necessary as I hadn't had any since Japan which is unacceptable. We got a cone of cookies and cream and made our way to the Mine Train Rollercoaster. That ride was much more fun and I also made a video of that. It kind of involves a lot of screaming, not necessarily always on my part, so my apologies in advance.

After that we got lost, briefly, on our way to Spellbound on Ice, which turned out to be pretty amazing. It was like mixing ice skating, cirque de soleil, and a magic show. I was spellbound, and they were on ice - it was a pretty accurate name. There were crazy ice skaters, and some guy that flew around the room doing tricks on a sheet, and a human slinky, and fire, and spikes, and a lot of crazy lights and sounds.

After that we ran into a giant dragon and symbols and drums, and to avoid all of it we took 4 escalators up to the cable car ride back down to the rest of the park. The cable car ride was awesome. The car was open [but barred for safety, obviously] so we could feel the air and see the islands and cruise right over the water. We got a yellow one which made me miss my short bus, but also made everything a little bit better. It was probably my favorite part of the park. We made our way back to the pandas who had finally decided to wake up and be social. The red pandas were running around like crazy people and the black and white pandas were being adorable as well. Lydia managed to get a picture, on accident maybe, of one of them taking a dump. It was definitely an experience, either way.

We made our way out through some of the gift shops, which were also less expensive, and ultimately back to a taxi, and back to the ferry. We got back to the island the ship is on, Kowloon Island [maybe], and did some shopping and eating. I got a t-shirt and a stamp that I was told [I watched him make it after I spelled my name for him on paper] says my name in Chinese. If it really says "stupid American" I would rather not know, but that is why it is a stamp and not a tattoo. I found stamps to send the postcards I had gotten from Ocean Park and got a news paper to read up on my communism, literally.

The ship is docked in a mall, which is extremely convenient and extremely dangerous. There is free internet which I have been using up like crazy, yet there are five stories of shops and places to eat. Upon our return Lydia got a chocolate truffle cake, and a chocolate soufflé, while I got a strawberry pizza. It was amazing - but not a pizza in how you would think. It had a flaky, crusty, pie kind of bottom, topped with strawberries, blue berries, and ice cream. From there we grabbed our computers and staked out the internet. We sat in a coffee shop until it closed then parked on the floor until our batteries died. I had no plans for tomorrow other than to shop or eat and finish uploading photos, sounds like a good day.