Infinite Improbability in Hong Kong - First Weekend

July 10th 2004, 2345 hrs

I woke up around 0945 in the morning and had just hit the pillow again when Santhosh called up. Santhosh, Kiran, Kripashankar, Ashok Sathe and Vincent Chiu were in the conf call since 0900 where these guys were deciding about if we can shorten up the training period. This is being done because we got a feedback that the HSBC people think they can handle more than what we are giving them. However we may stay on course,the guys out in US and India don’t think that we should wrap up the Base I a whole one week earlier. I might be asked to stay back for those two weeks and conduct Base II.

Anyway, the call from Santhosh woke me up and the realization that it was 9:45 of my first weekend Saturday jolted me out of my sleep. The prime task that I had lined up for Saturday was to go and give the Camera for Servicing. The Nikon servicing center works as any other business office. They operate from 9:00 to 5:30 and on Saturdays from 9:00 to 12:00. Since the weekdays wouldn’t have been possible, the only option was Saturday and I was already late.

The main HONG-KONG Island and all other islands that form part of Hong-Kong are connected by all means of transport. The Taxi takes around 35 minutes of commuting time and $74. The MTR (Trams) take little over 15 minutes and take $9. The Ferry takes 12 minutes and $2.20. Besides, it’s the only one way in which you can see any thing while traveling coz all other means use below the sea tunnels.

I told Santhosh that I am going and would meet him at Star Ferry Pier at Hong Kong Central around 12:00. We had plans to go to Ocean Park.

Ocean park is an amusement park. The way to OP is to take the City Bus (Double Decker) and that’s about the only way back too. It takes $12 per trip and the entry fee to the park is $185. We entered around 1:30 p.m. and went straight for the shark Aquarium. I haven’t seen so many kinds of fishes together at one place. It was Technicolor and more. Fishes that look like birds; fishes that look grumpy, fishes that are painted purple and have a solitary yellow patch on them. Small fishes, big fishes, star fishes, miniature fishes – I don’t quite recall being so fascinated watching fishes. And then to top it all we came to the sharks. They aren’t very big; say around 7 feet in length. White sharks, black sharks, grey sharks – and you just passing through the glass ceiling where you are covered by them. The sunlight filtering through the water and then the glass and you just standing right at the center of it all.

We moved out of there and into what’s called the Ocean Theatre. They had a Dolphin Show there and it was pretty cool. Who man, you just wonder how did they manage to train animals so well. They are spinning, clapping, jumping, catapulting, anything and everything. And not just the Dolphins, they also had the Sea Lions. All in all a spectacular show.

Next were the rides and I started with the Dragon ride. Its just a roller coaster and its not very scary. You go up and down a couple of times and you are head over heels another few times but its still not very scary. The Next ride however was terrific. Its called the Abyss. They strap you to seat and take you right up, around 150-200 metres. Its three people on each side of the tower so that makes us 12 for one ride. Then they drop you, free fall for almost like 6 seconds. Takes the daylights right out of you; and it doesn’t just stop there; goes back right up again and then vroom – down. By the time I got off the ride, I had a soar throat. The two ladies on my left must have gone deaf or else these guys have capability to hear high pitch sounds.

Moving on, the next one was called the Raging River. It’s the one where you sit on a boat and they take you right on the top and then you come down on a slide. It would all have been very simple, but it just happened that the moment we sat in the boat, it started pouring. So even though half of Ocean park has a covering to save you from rain, you end up in a boat when it pours. We were drenched to the bone even before we realized it. By the time we were out of the boat we were the only two guys drenched among 100 other people. There were a few who thought that it was the ride that did that to us and quickly moved out of the queue.

That was pretty much the end of Ocean Park but the key part of our journey back was that we were drenched so badly and yet the damn bus was fully A/C.


To be continued...