It’s been a busy weekend and the start of my holidays.

I’ve been on my last junk trip of the season as it is starting to get cooler. Junk is a loose term used to describe just about any pleasure sea-craft that’s hired for an extended period of time and generally involves alcohol. A traditional junk is like the ones you see in the old-style Chinese movies. There’s a few of those here too and they tend to be used for corporate events or by tourists on the harbour.

Yesterday’s trip was for a “Dog Friend’s” birthday party. We had about 30 on board and sailed around to Lamma Island for a great seafood lunch.

We left the trip early as Mr Shallot’s work had arranged discount tickets to Ocean Park which we had pre-bought prior to the birthday festivities being planned. At around 4.30pm, we waved farewell to those on the junk, boarded a sampan, putted into a dock at Aberdeen and then walked to the Park.

Growing up on the Gold Coast, I have had my fair share of theme parks and was reluctant to go to Ocean Park at full price given that I’ve spent a great deal of time at Sea World over the years. I thought the only difference was likely to be that one had polar bears whereas the other had pandas.

How wrong I was.

It started with catching three very long escalators to reach the upper end of the Park. From there, we caught a glimpse of some sea lions and then started to walk down expecting to pass more animals. We followed signs that led to Nowheresville or Exit while we were expecting Atoll Reef or Dolphin Theatre.

We stumbled across Dolphin Theatre mid-show. After watching roughly three minutes of what can only be described as a pitiful and degrading display of a creature that has superior intelligence, we left. Winding down the hill we found Atoll Reef. Now that was an experience.

A crowd of thousands meandered anti-clockwise around a large tank. The walls on the right were lined with mini-tanks. In spite of signage saying “no flashes”, “do not touch the glass” and “don’t disturb the fish” a man repeatedly thumped his hand against the tank. I turned around and told him ‘that’s not very nice’. To my surprise, he stopped. He looked a little stunned, either because he was told off by a female half his age or that he was told off by a gweilo or it could have been a mixture of both.

In fine form, we continued to the next level down taking in what fish glimpses we could. We finally reached an area where we had uninterrupted Atoll Reef views so we stopped to take it in. At this point, I was shoved quite hard by a Tour Guide from China. This earned her an abrupt “excuse me”. She cowered and walked on.

At this point, I started to laugh. I had been thinking how walking in close circles was how we tried starting whrilpools in those old-style above-ground circular pools. I had also been thinking that trying to see the tank was like being on a property hunt with harbour glimpses that are seen through a toilet window when standing on tippy toes. This imagery led to fits of laughter which set Mr Shallot off too. We continued anti-clockwise with our arms around each other (otherwise we would have been separated and possibly not been able to find the other) periodically stopping to catch our breath after laughing so hard. Some may recognise this as the early throws of hysteria which is probably true and not uncommon in large crowds.

Next stop was the rollercoaster. Enough said.

We then went to the Sea Jelly Spectacular. Interesting concept – darkened room, blaring music, cylindrical floor to ceiling tanks with jellyfish illuminated by different, alternating, coloured-fluro lights. Had everyone been dancing and / or drinking / taking drugs, it could have been any nightclub on Oxford Street.

We decided that we’d leave early via the cable car, the sturgeons and pandas. The sturgeons were closed for refurbishment. The cable car was the highlight.

Easily the worst theme park I have ever been to.

* Thanks to Tori Amos for the title to this post.