Category Archives: Sightseeing

Ocean Park (Hong Kong)

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After our morning city tour and lunch, we all proceeded to Ocean Park, one of the most spectacular attractions in Hong Kong.  This huge complex, comprising an amusement park, oceanarium (Asia’s largest) and an aviary, is located at the valley between Wong Chuk Hang and Nam Long Shan Mountain along Deep Water Bay, on the south side of Hong Kong.

Ocean Park

Ocean Park

Beautifully set high on a hill overlooking the South China Sea and opened on January 1977 (at a cost of HK$150 million) by Hong Kong Gov. Sir Murray MacLehose, it was a perfect place to take a break from the hustle and bustle  of our Hong Kong holiday.

Cable car

Cable car

Access to the theme park’s headland area, 1,400 ft. above sea level, is either by a 1.5-km. long cable car system or around the other side of the hill at Tai Shue Wan by the longest outdoor covered escalator in the world which can carry 4,000 passengers an hour up a 30-degree slope. Both cable car and escalator offer fantastic views.  We chose to enter the park via the former.

Atoll Reef

Atoll Reef

Sea lions

Sea lions

Penguins

Penguins

The amusement park has a selection of thrill rides including the “Dragon,” one of the world’s longest and fastest roller coasters.  Perched on the edge of the mountain, it features a series of heart-stopping series of twists, turns and giant 360-degree loops.

Walking through the Aviary

Walking through the Aviary

Atoll Reef, a huge aquarium in Marineland, houses 500 different species of fish.  Wave Cove, an exhibition area, is where we saw sea lions, African fur seals, Stettler sea lions, dolphins, penguins, pelicans and Miss Hoi Wai (formerly named Peanuts and Susie), its signature female killer whale (Orsinus orca) captured on October 1977 in Ingolfshofdi, Iceland and moved to Ocean Park on January 27, 1979.

In early 2011, Atoll Reef was closed after 34 years of operation. Many of the fishes were moved to the new Grand Aquarium.  The killer whale Hoi Wai died on April 21, 1997, at the age of 22, due to severe blood loss.

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The free-flight, walk-through, 2,500 sq. m.  Aviary, at Bird Paradise in Tai Shue Wan, is one of the largest in the world. It houses about 3,000 birds of 150 different species.

Ocean Theater

Ocean Theater

High diving act at Ocean Theater

High diving act at Ocean Theater

The highlight of our visit to Ocean Park was the high altitude diving show at Ocean Theater.   On April 7, 1985, during a single show at the park, Americans Lucy Wardle and Randy Dickison set new world high dive records. Lucy’s dive of 120 ft. (36.8 m.) still stands today. Randy’s dive of 174 ft., 8 ins. surpassed Dana Kunzie’s 172 ft. dive in 1984. The current world high dive record of 177 ft. belongs to Oliver Favre of Switzerland, set in France in 1987.

Ocean Park: Wong Chuk Hang, Hong Kong.  Tel: 3923 2323.  Open Mondays-Fridays, 9 AM–5 PM.

Puerto Azul Golf and Country Club (Ternate, Cavite)

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From the  Palace in the Sky in Tagaytay City, we next motored, via the Naic-Indang Rd., to the town of Ternate where we  visited the 1,024-hectare Puerto Azul Golf & Country Club.  This 5-star resort, carved out of heavily forested valleys and towering mountains, was developed during the 1970s Marcos era.

Check out “Palace in the Sky“

We first made a stopover at Paniman Beach along Paniman Bay, one of the resort’s 4 gray sand beaches (the others are Caysubic, Cayokno and Palicpican).  During its earlier days, this beach used to be covered with white sand said to have been brought over from Boracay, then unknown to the Filipinos.  The white sand is now gone, washed away by the tides.

Mel and Grace at one of Puerto Azul’s beaches

From the beach, we next negotiated a steep road to get to its lookout which has a view of the resort’s 100-hectare golf course, a private club open only to hotel guests.  One of the country’s most scenic courses, the golf here is surpassed only by views of Palicpican Beach.  Designed by world-renowned golfer Gary Player and Ron Kirby, this 18-hole, 6,556-yard, par 72 (adjustable to 71 for big events like the Philippine Open) golf course has a front 9 with rugged terrain punctuated with mountains, pristine rivers and streams while the back nine is close to the sea.

The scenic golf course

The course takes you through jungle, up and over mountains and finishes up on the beach.  An elevator takes you from the 6th green up to the 7th tee.  The last two tee shots on the back nine are probably the most dramatic. The par 3 17th Hole, the courses’ signature hole, is protected on its left by one of the deepest water hazards in Philippine golf – the South China Sea.  The 18th hole is across the beach.  Facilities include the nine-hole par-36 Camandag Executive Links, a driving range, tee house, clubhouse, restaurant, bars, locker and shower rooms swimming pool, sauna and massage.

L-R, Alex, Mel, Grace, Jandy and the author at the lookout

We can also see some of the 17 3 to 4-storey cluster buildings which houses 325 airconditioned rooms.  The resort is also home to restaurants, coffee shops, bars, 2 swimming pools, 300-pax ballrooms, 8 60-pax function rooms, business center, jacuzzi, sauna, 6 outdoor and 3 indoor tennis courts, 6-lane bowling center, volleyball/basketball court, two squash courts and 2 nature trails.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Though still open, this resort, once dubbed as “Asia’s Paradise Resort” and the “World’s Golfing Capital,” seems to have been abandoned, reportedly due to lack of financial resources to maintain the site.  The hotel and cottages are worn out, the beach is dirty and only South Korean nationals use the not so well-maintained golf course.  However, Boulevard Holdings, the owner and operator of the site, plans to renovate the existing hotel and build an 8-room boutique hotel and 150-room grand convention hotel.

Puerto Azul Golf and Country Club: Brgy. Sapang,  Ternate, Cavite.  Tel:  524-0026 to 27.  Manila sales office: Tel: 844-8541.

Palace in the Sky (Tagaytay City, Cavite)

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Come Holy Thursday, Grace, then 2.5-year old Jandy and I, plus our E. Ganzon, Inc. friends Alex D. Guda and Mel Miranda decided to go  on a day tour to the controversial, half-finished Palace in the Sky.   Located 8 kms. east of the Tagaytay City rotunda, on the 710-m. high Mt. Gonzales  (or Mt. Sungay), the former “Palace” was a multi-million exercise in extravagance started in 1981 by the late former Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos for the 1983 state visit of then U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan.  The state visit unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) never pushed through after the August 21, 1983 assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr..  Marcos was deposed by the People Power Revolution of February 1986 and it was left unfinished and abandoned. 

Palace in the Sky

Upon our arrival, Alex, Grace, Jandy and I hiked along the asphalt road going all the way to the top but Mel took the more easygoing horseback ride. Even in its unfinished state, it was quite “palatial,” a true symbol of greed and indifference.  Also called the “Malacanang of Tagaytay” and “Bahay ni Imelda,” the pyramid-shaped villa had a huge kidney-shaped swimming pool and a tall radio antenna.

Hiking our way up the asphalt road

There was no one about, it being a holiday, but inside the palace were signs of new construction going on.  I even noticed, and was baffled, by a blueprint plan for a “torture chamber.”  A mystery indeed!  From the view deck we experienced the sweet, fresh and invigorating air of the city and admired the marvelous 360 degree view of 4 bodies of water (Taal Lake, Laguna de Bay, Balayan Bay and Manila Bay) and landward views of Metro Manila, Batangas, Rizal, Cavite, Quezon and even Mindoro, a spectacle initially meant for a chosen few.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

Nine month after our visit, the “Palace” hugged some of headlines when rebel soldiers took over the villa’s radio antenna during the failed December coup de etat.  In 1990, the mystery of the “torture chamber” was unveiled when the movie Delta Force 2:  The Columbian Connection, starring Chuck Norris, as a U.S. commando leader, and Billy Drago, as a Colombian drug lord, was shown in local cinemas.  The “Palace” turned out to be the drug lord’s seemingly impenetrable mansion and the “torture chamber,” his private viewing gallery where U.S. DEA agents were smothered to death by poison gas.  Some mystery!

On January 14, 1996, the “Palace” was ordered rehabilitated and refurbished into a 4,516-hectare resort by then Pres. Fidel V. Ramos.  Since then, it has been democratically renamed as the People’s Park in the Sky and is now enjoyed by poor and ordinary citizens.  Today, it has a lower ground restaurant, bar, 200-person open-air amphitheater (where free cultural and musical shows are held, Saturday and Sundays), view deck, native picnic huts and tables, wishing well (toss a coin and make a wish), fishing lagoon (the former swimming pool), art gallery, a grotto with 25-foot statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Our Lady of Fair Love, 150-person second floor seminar room (Centennial Room), second floor museum, lower ground tourism office, souvenir shops and a giant replica of the pineapple.

Today, the park has again fallen into neglect.  The fishing lagoon is now filled up into a garden, graffiti is everywhere and the premises are dirty.  Only the views remain spectacular.

People’s Park in the Sky: Brgy. Dapdap West and Dapdap East, Tagaytay City, Cavite.  Admission: PhP15.