"Beneath the Ocean, Beneath the Ocean..."

Mesmerized by Nemo

To say Lola was excited to check out Manila Ocean Park yesterday w/ the free tickets she got was the understatement of the end-year.  It was also my first time to visit, and in my mind I (correctly) presumed that almost every other aquarium display I've seen in other countries have been superior in look, feel and fishes.


Being a holiday (Rizal Day) it should have been no surprise that the place was crowded. (The real surprise was the traffic jam on the route drawn up by Google Maps, whose estimated 18-minute drive time did not factor in the presence of holiday bangketas and other cars on the street.)  The place was also bigger than I thought, but I wonder why they still haven't finished paving their roads, as they've been open since 2008.*  Guess all the manpower was spent w/ finishing the H20 hotel, Singaporean-themed restaurant and numerous department stores.  The place reminded me or Market! Market! in terms of design, w/ a touch of old Glorietta.  With our single-entry tickets we could only check out one exhibit.  The lines for the sea lion and penguin shows were announced to be "4 hours long," so we opted for the relatively quick-moving line of the Oceanarium.

The aquarium displays were a perfect example of laziness on the part of the caretakers.  Sometimes they were mislabeled and other times they weren't labeled at all.  My theory is that they move some fish around to different tanks and whoever's in charge of making the encyclopedic and graphics-heavy labels was too lazy to Photoshop new ones, so good luck if the fish in the tank matches the look and description of whatever they printed up and hung on the wall.

Field Trip!

Fortunately the larger glass displays where they kept the bigger fish served as a better "main feature" to the tiny teasers before it.  (The sawfish sighting tickled my nostalgic nerves.)  And then for the finale there was the "Asia's largest underwater viewing tunnel, stretching 25 meters long and curved at 220 degrees," w/c looked like an interesting place to scuba dive your afternoon away.  It was also the where I saw the largest collection of stingrays in one place.  What annoyed me --aside from the rush-hour like crowds and littering-- was how people were sitting and loitering inside the tunnel like a it was a really long and fancy park bench.  Like the place wasn't stuffy enough, for crying out loud.

In less than 2 hours we here outta there.  Lola said the whole experience was the closest she'll ever come to either snorkeling or scuba-diving.  It wasn't even 7PM yet, so we left to grab dinner at Army Navy Burger located just outside the CCP, w/ a nightcap of bangketa-shopping and drinks at Starbucks, w/c seemed a prodigal kind of return for both of us after months of patronizing Bubble Tea.  What better way to cap off my blogging for 2011:

*I read that the place is owned by a Chinese company, w/c explains a lot in terms of the upkeep on this place, as Chinese engineering and Filipino maintenance never seem to go sync well.