Tag: Ocean Park

Mills & Chung Path

The heat and humidity have arrived even earlier this year making hiking a sweaty and dehydrating experience. So if you don’t fancy a draining hike under the midday sun – how about a gentle stroll along the south side of HK Island.

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The Mills & Chung Path connects Deep Water Bay and Ocean Park and offers a gentle stroll along the seashore. It takes about 20 minutes and there are refreshments at both ends. Want to walk further, follow the path along to Repulse Bay (30 minutes) or keep going all the way to Stanley (2-3 hours).

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Deep Water Bay is the only beach on HK Island with lifeguards all year. There are two food and beverage outlets, free changing rooms (no lockers), toilets, swimming pontoons, and barbecue pits (closed due to Covid).

Ocean Park Halloween Fest

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All Hallows Eve, which has evolved over the centuries to become Halloween, has been embraced locally as a time to dress up, have fun and eat sweet treats. Commercially a single night has become a season, and there’s no better example of this than Ocean Park where it’s Halloween Fest is a 7 week branding bonanza for sponsors stretching from 15 September to 31 October.

The theme this year is the SAW movie franchise with an added twist of Kowloon Ghost City and a dash of the Mexican Festival of Souls to spice up the party.

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As well as some spooky rides, there’s also a selection of edible delights as the Ocean Park chefs have gone all out to stimulate your senses. At Neptune’s Restaurant and Tuxedos Restaurant  SAW-themed dishes are the terror of the day with ‘blood’ dripping from a cutter blade that has just pierced through a ‘human brain’ (Poached Shrimp Ravioli with Truffle Cream and Tomato Sauce) or see the Jigsaw Killer’s proxy Billy the puppet floating on the red sea of Bell Pepper and Tomato Soup.

So grab a few friends, set aside your cynicism and have a little fun. Entry prices have jumped (from $345 in 2015) to $538 this year, but nothing these days is ever that simple and there are almost as many discounted entry tickets, passes and ways avoid queues as there days in the Halloween Fest, take a look at their website to see how to save www.oceanpark.com.hk

https://bcmagazine.smugmug.com/Bcene-photos/2017/Halloween-Ocean-Park-Press-Conference-22-August-2017/i-J2wGfS8

Halloween @ Ocean Park
Date: 5-31 October, 2017
Venue: Ocean Park
Tickets: $8,888, $900, $800, $538, $438

Megabites: Ocean Park Halloween Fest

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This year’s Ocean Park Halloween Fest has a Ghostbusters feel as it looks to make you laugh and scream! The Park will feature Halloween themed attractions where visitors looking for scares and excitement can test their proton run skills as the they run from hordes of ghosts in New York’s subway and streets!

As well as scares there’s creepy food during Halloween Fest and this year Ocean Park will be serving haunted school themed dishes.

At Café Ocean the Mortuary Set Menu features the Ghostly Toilet of Death (Tomato Ox Tail Soup) served in a toilet bowl-shaped container. Opening the toilet bowl lid reveals a skull-shaped piece of toast floating in the blood coloured soup. Amongst the main dish is the Biology Class of the Damned, an assorted platter presented to look like the organs of a human being. A seafood vegetable pâté for the brains, deep-fried chicken breasts with brie cheese for the lungs, a triangular roasted chicken fillet for the liver, a pan-fried beef striploin for the stomach and finally chipolata sausage in tomato sauce for the intestines. For dessert beware the ‘Possessed’ Chalkboard Eraser (Charcoal Helvetic Rolls).

All these Halloween Fest set menus are only available until 31 October.

Halloween Fest
Dates: Until 31 October, 2016
Venue: Ocean Park

Halloween Fest @ Ocean Park

Ocean Park Halloween 2015

The night before All Saints Day (1 November) is known as All Hallows Eve, which has evolved over the centuries to Halloween and been embraced locally as a time to dress up, have fun and eat sweet treats. Commercially a single night has become a season, and there’s no better example of this than Ocean Park where it’s 15th Halloween Fest is a 6 week branding bonanza for sponsors stretching from 18 September to 1 November.

Spokesperson Allan Zeman said Halloween Fest is principally targeted at Hongkongers… Which makes it hard to understand why H15 this year’s signature Halloween attraction, for a park looking to attract 36,000+ people a day, is a single person journey strapped to a board from your funeral through the first seven days postmortem. Needless to say advance registration on 4 and 10 September is required. Looking to cater to everyone Ocean Park has Halloween tie-ins with TV show The Walking Dead and anime favourite Doraemon among its 10 Halloween attractions and 12 seasonal shows. Not having previewed any of the these it’s impossible to comment on them, although calling an attraction Lolita Mansion seems a little distasteful. There are also a variety of themed menus on offer.

So grab a few friends, set aside your cyncism and have a little fun, entry is $345, but nothing is that simple these days and there are almost as many discounted entry tickets, passes and ways avoid queues as there days in Halloween Fest, take a look at their website to see how to save www.oceanpark.com.hk

Happy Birthday Jia Jia, An An, Ying Ying, and Lei Lei

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Ocean Park’s Giant Pandas celebrated their birthdays on the 28th July – Jia Jia turns 37, An An is 29, Ying Ying and Lei Lei are both turning 10 – with a bit of a party.

Jia Jia, who arrived 19 years ago at Ocean Park when she was 18 years old, is now a double Guinness World Record holder for “the oldest panda ever in captivity” and “the oldest panda living in captivity”. The previous holder of both records was also a female, Du Du, who passed away on 22 July 1999 shortly before turning 37, now that Jia Jia has turned 37, she is the new record holder. In human terms 37 is still young but converting panda years into human years, 37 is equivalent to 110 human years. A birthday that is definitely worth celebrating!

Ocean Park also announced that Ying Ying had recently returned from Sichuan where she participated in China’s Giant Panda Breeding Program and enjoyed several romps with China’s horny male pandas and a bout of artificial insemination. The gestation period for giant pandas is quite long but there’s hope that Ying Ying is pregnant, and will soon give birth to her first locally born cub.

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Ocean Park’s “Summer Nights” promotion offers extended opening hours to 9pm on all Saturdays and Sundays in August (i.e. 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 August). There’s also a special discounted entry price of $198 (Adults) and $99 (Children) to enter the Park after 4pm.

Megabites: 1 February 2014

Alfresco Terrines and Pâtés  Divino.Patio-pate
Almost two years on from an extensive renovation and rebranding the Causeway Bay Centre – the former Sanlitun – has still to imprint itself on many people’s dining radar. But if you enjoy sitting outside and especially if you have kids it’s worth a look as there’s extensive seating on the spacious walkways – all discretely labelled for general public use so you don’t have to actually buy anything to sit down, but expect some dirty looks if you don’t. A couple of reasons to sit-down at Divino Patio’s comfortable chairs are it’s Italian Aperitivo Buffet and this month’s Terrines and Pâtés promotion. The free (upon purchase of a drink) Aperitivo Buffet is typical of the type you’d find in bars across Italy and is full of nibbles including cheese bites, pizza squares, salmon bites, vegetables in tempura, grissini wrapped with salumi’s, polpette (meat balls), fried fish, pork belly and is available nightly from 5:30-8:30.

February’s Terrines and Pâtés promotion includes a country style pâté flavoured with guerande “fleur d sel” at HK$118 per 100 grams; Foie gras terrine and yellow wild mushrooms at HK$138/100grams; a traditional duck pâté at HK$168/100g; and a free range chicken breast and fresh tarragon terrine at HK$128/100g. The pates are served with toasted farm bread, gherkins and garden salad and are paired with a selection of wines and beer from the Italian artisan microbrewery 32 Via dei Birrai.
Divino Patio: Shop !1, 1/F Brim 28 Causeway Bay Centre, 28 Harbour Road, Wanchai, Tel: 2877 3552
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Fondue
Locally fondue has in recent years come to mean dipping marshmallows and other confectionary in chocolate and while that’s nice and incredibly sweet the more traditional dipping medium is cheese (An aside, marshmallows and jelly beans dipped in cheese… intriguingly tasty idea….). fondueNightly through February 28 Divino in Central is offering three delicious cheese fondues to share with friends, Fonduta Svizzera ($300/person) comprising 1⁄2 Gruyere and 1⁄2 Vacherine Fribourgeois with a hint of Kirch wine; Fonduta Alla Valdostana ($280/person) using fontina cheese and Fonduta al Gorgonzola ($250/person) which as the name implies, uses gorgonzola. All are served with a selection of toasted bread cubes and fresh vegetables – including lightly poached Brussel sprouts and pumpkin both of which are delicious when dipped and coated in cheese, especially the gorgonzola. Remember to scrape the bowl, the slightly burnt cheese that sticks to the bowl is a crispy oft forgotten delight. All three fonduta are offered paired with wine or Italian artisan beers.
DiVino: G/F, 73 Wyndham Street, Central, Tel: 2167 8883

A Chinese New Year Option
It’s Chinese New Year, the weather’s sunny and you’re stuck for something to do… Why not check out Ocean Park or Disneyland both have a variety of restaurants offering CNY specials and a wealth of other activities to make for an enjoyable day-out. And with the mainland hordes staying north of the border visiting their relatives crowds should be light and meal prices are not too extravagant.
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