Our trip to Ocean Park on the south east side of Hong Kong Island; having read many places that it is a "must see" we were surprised to arrive and find ourselves at more of an amusement park, where we were definitely the oldest ones there without kids. We managed to have a blast...not too hard when you have pandas, roller coasters, and adults mauling cartoon character mascots for pictures. It's so interesting how animated characters here are true celebrities...I think the key to international super-stardome here may just involve me sporting a costume...some sort of recognizable cartoon character. I'm up for suggestions, but I'm thinking of going old school with Grimace. 
The ride over to the park is in a little tiny gondola--so fun! Ted got his hair did.
The view's pretty nice!! Pretttty, pretttty nice.
My favorite animal of all time--have you ever seen the cubs?!!! You may have caught a glimpse of recent headlines about the Beijing panda who attacked a human for the third time. First I would like to say in the panda's defense--Beijing is whack, who wouldn't be freaking out if trapped there?? My favorite part of the story was the victim #3's accounts (none of the 3 was seriously injured); the first two were pretty reasonable stories--fell into the pen, etc--the last one was about a drunken European tourist that jumped into the pen to try to hug the panda. The panda wasn't feelin the love, so he bit, and in a wierd twist, the tourist bit back.
Hoping to make it to Chengdu, the location of the infamous panda center where you can actually pet them and also where to see pandas in the wild.
I think this is quite possibly the best roller coaster ever--amazing to ride at sunset and see the outer islands.
Just your regular Thursday afternoon
Pretty cute little guy!
Jellyfish! I ate one! And yes, I'm still bragging about it
More jellies; these were my favorite...along with the pink glittery ones I used to wear with socks in pre-k.
This is as close as I EVER hope to get to a shark...while I love shark week more than any other week of TV, I remain convinced that swimming in the ocean is a gamble with your life. Still, it has been very sad to learn about the abuse of sharks in Asian waters and see the disturbing footage; because shark fin soup is considered a delicacy (once only enjoyed by the emperors), it is of course a popular status symbol these days for the chinese diner. Because there are laws about how many sharks you can kill and the bodies have to be accounted for, hunters just cut the fins off while the shark is alive and throw it back into the water to drown--so cruel. No shark fin soup for this one...that's just upping the odds for bad karma if I were ever to have a run in!
Coolest aquarium ever
From our rooftop at night
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