Hello everyone, I’m back with more pictures. You missed me I’m sure.
What, no? Not even a
little bit?
Sad. But that’s all
right, because I’m not here today to talk about me. Today I want to tell you about a trip I took
with my family to a place called Manila Ocean Park.
Now if you live in Manila, chances are you already know what
this place is. For those of you who
don’t, let me start off by showing you this:
Already you know it’s not a swimming pool, right? And since I haven’t embedded a creepy audio
file written by John Williams you’ve probably guessed it isn’t a movie studio,
either. Bravo.
It’s actually an aquarium located on Manila Bay that’s full
of fish and birds and mermaids and fountains and talking penguins.
Talking penguins, yes, you heard that right. I’ll explain later. For now, have a gander at what you’ll find
should you decide to visit:
We walked around this place for half a day, and believe me,
there was plenty to see. Once inside,
you will pay a brief visit to an office, where you’ll be given a sheet of
tickets that get you into each of the individual attractions. From there you make your way to each
attraction in turn, in any order you like, and for as much time as you’d
like. My favorite was the Ice
Village—because it was cold,
man! Below freezing cold. I was finally home again, if only for a short
while.
(note: we could not
get pictures of this village, as the cold tends to frost over camera lenses)
As for the kids, they had other ways to define their fun.
These shots come from inside a museum dedicated to what I
can only think of as movie pop culture. What
it’s doing at an ocean park I’m not too sure, but it is damned cool (check out Vader and those storm-troopers, all
life-sized!). Naturally, the kids went nuts, especially for the superheroes and
the minions.
By the time we left the museum it was nearing dark. At seven p.m. we attended an outdoor light
and fountain show, but on the way to that, there was the talking penguin. There are no pictures of this oddity here,
either, as the show took place inside a movie theater, where documentation with
our gadgets would have been rude. But
let me explain it by saying that a cartoon penguin walks onto a movie screen
and interacts with an audience of 100 people in real time. How exactly this is done I’m not sure, but of
course there is a guy sitting somewhere out of view, chattering away with his
guests whilst the penguin makes appropriate gestures onscreen. Again, the kids went nuts for this. Portia even tells me it was her favorite part
of the whole day.
If you’d like to see this place for yourself, you can find
out how to get there by visiting the Manila Ocean Park homepage
here. It’s worth it, even with all the traffic
you’ll fight. For less traffic, try
going on a weekday (of course), or rig a mini-gun on the hood of your car and
watch ‘em all scatter when you squeeze the trigger!
Okay, ignore that latter suggestion. I just got done watching the
Machete
trailer on Youtube and am feeling a little cheesy. (Do NOT click that link if you are not old enough).
Getting back to the family fun, you’ll love this place if
you love seeing your kids laugh and watching exotic fish of all types and sizes
brood at you from behind thick aquarium glass.
Check it out.