Ocean Park in Hualien

Remember the Farglory hotel at the beginning of the blog? The hotel was built to serve out of town guests who come to the marine theme park, and we are visiting this theme park today before school starts tomorrow for Frankie.

There are two parts to the theme park: a marine related aquatic park with aquariums, sealion pool, dolphin pool, and a rip off souvenir shop of course. Then there is the theme park with disney style rides, all included in the ticket price, about $40US for a family of three. Not bad at all.

First we visit some marine life. Here is a pool of stingrays and sharks in an open tank!

And here in this tank are some beautiful lobsters, I'm getting hungry by the minute...

More tropical fish....brilliant colors!

After a little education on marine life, its time to let the hair down and ride the wind......

The view from this cliff side park is magnificient. We can see the Pacific ocean far beyond the horizon on a clear day which is almost everyday. Today was sunny with temp between 35 and 40 celcius.

Here is the dolphin show. This aquatic stadium is only about a nine iron from the ocean, which from where we are sitting, seems seamless because we cannot see where the pool ends and where the ocean begins......These poor dolphins are only 100 meters from freedom, but I guess its better here than being served up as mahi mahi somehwere........really getting hungry now...

So we went to Pizza Hut because the kids wanted pizza. Get this: pizza and pasta for the eight of us costed $80US, which ain't bad. But we could have a beautiful gourmet dinner for half that price in a Hualien style bistro. My wife and I had a big argument about this. When I was told that the pizza/pasta buffet would cost $10US a head at the door, I was ready to leave. No way I was paying a princely sum for junk food. But being typically Asian, she wanted to be polite and stayed. Suddenly it dawned on me that this is a cultural conflict: having lived in North America most of my life, I have learned to be an individual, where I am free to speak my mind and act on it without concerns to others. Asian culture shuns that. Here is an example: in an American restaurant, if something is not right, we complain and the problem gets corrected. Nothing personal and no hard feelings. In a Chinese restaurant, if you don't like something, don't say anything. Just don't go back. If you complain, you don't "give face" and they take it very personal. Guess I better learn to become more Asian again......