Author’s note: Going rouge this one. I’m going over my editors head to just crank this one out. (I know it’s rogue, not rouge, that’s my “no editors here” joke). This one is so hurried, I barely did a read through. Sorry!

It’s aquarium day! I think the rest of the trip might start moving a long now that we have some scheduled items. We’ve just been playing it down while hunkered in the hotel, but venturing out, to see and do, will really push the time along. Beth and I were up by 4AM, and thankfully Christopher slept until 6AM. Better than waking up with us. Once he was up, it was bath time. He was SO excited to be going to the aquarium, which was called Ocean Park. The kid has a song in his heart and dance moves in his feet at all times. This morning’s song was “Weeeeee’re going to aquarium!” “Weeeee’re going to aquarium!” to which I chimed in with “breakfast first”. The song then became: “Weeeeee’re going to aquarium. Break-fast-first.” The boy gets my humor.

As we embarked on our journey, to what was essentially the Asian version of SeaWorld, the day was packed with all kinds of fun observations. I was shooting pictures left and right, so this will be a photo heavy post.

We had another great breakfast in our hotel, and right when they opened for the day, so things were much less hectic. The unfortunate thing was that we needed to burn two hours between breakfast and the park’s opening. We played a little, but we let Christopher watch some YouTube videos while we sorted out exactly what we needed to do at the park.  In order to enter you need to purchase a package.  It’s not one price for everything.  But it’s not a la carte exactly either.  So, it took a few minutes of figuring out what we wanted to do and then referencing that back against the packages to figure out which one we would need to purchase.  Once the time came, we decided we’d try out a Grab/Uber. It was a super cheap ride, and I tipped the guy better than I should have, but hey, the ride was like $4, so it all worked out.

Christopher could hardly contain himself. We were worried about him just taking off on us, so we had to remind him several times, as we entered the park, to stay with us and hold our hands.  We were glad we did some internet research, we would have made a huge mistake by buying tickets online, it was way cheaper to just buy them at the gate. We ended up getting the 15 exhibit package. Once you entered the exhibit, they crossed it off of your wrist band and you wouldn’t be able to re-enter, which is actually kind of brilliant if you see how many people are there. It’s kind of insane, so you have to control volume somehow, and that seemed to work pretty well. There were also some shows included, and Christopher was more interested in what was in front of him than strategizing viewings based on times.

First up, the ocean exhibit. Christopher just darted from tank to tank, we’re going to have to work on patience and waiting. He tends to be overly excited and barges his way towards the glass. Lots of other kids were doing the same thing and all the other parents seem a lot less concerned about it than we were. We’re just going to work on slowing things down a bit is all.

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Next, we went up to the “Fish Foot Spa”. It was kind of hilarious. I wasn’t going to partake, but Christopher thought it was so funny, he had to have me try it. If the pictures weren’t clear enough, there are two big foot baths full of fish, and as soon as your feet contact the water, a bunch of fish start trying to eat your feet.  It tickles like crazy and it’s hard to keep your feet in for more than 30 seconds before the sensation is too much! 

Next up, Penguins. Christopher was specifically asking about seeing them as we figured out what we wanted to see, and guess what, he barely stopped to look. Go figure! As soon as he saw the Christmas town all setup in the next room, that became the thing we had to go see. To be honest, it was a little lame, but what was really awesome was the falling snow. They had literal snow falling from the ceiling and there was a tiny little pile melting on the ground. Christopher though that was pretty cool, and REALLY wanted to make a snowball and throw it.  Of course, we were the lame parents that didn’t allow him to throw anything.

Then we headed out to the birds of prey demo. That was my favorite thing during the whole day. As one gentleman pointed out, when those eagles flew so close to your head, you could just feel the power! The other thing that was going on, was that the handler was getting handed a little money and folks were putting the glove on and he would film them getting meat taken from their hand. Christopher really wanted dad to partake. The guy did us one better and I handed him a 10’er and both Christopher and I fed the eagles.

Christopher was pumped up for the next place because he knew it scared mommy. We went into the “creepy crawlies” exhibit. Snakes, spiders, frogs, and lizards. They had some pretty neat stuff. Beth hung back for the snakes, though she did come and check out the huge python.

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We wandered around some more and checked out the Toy exhibit (yeah, not sure how that fit in with the animals, but it was still there). We were also trying to just stall until the sea lion show that started at 3PM. We strolled down to the “barnyard” exhibit and looked at rabbits, chickens, mice, and… cockatoos? We went into this odd animated penguin puppet show. It was mostly in Tagalog, so Beth and I were mostly in the dark when it came to the jokes. I think Christopher liked it, but I thought it was kind of weird.

After that, we had an hour to kill, so we strolled around and did a bathroom run. Everyone looked at me like I was some sort of space alien as I walked a Filipino kid to the bathroom. Then we finally made it to the show, front and center of course. We were in line snacking away when things finally got moving. We didn’t take many photos, but it was a pretty legit show. Animal exploitation isn’t all bad. Those were some legit sealion tricks. It was Beth’s and Christopher’s favorite part of the day.

After fidgeting with the phones for what felt like forever, trying to get a Grab, we finally got back to the hotel. We were all pooped and just ordered room service. I have to say, it was the most disappointing meal of our trip. I order this pulled pork “Cubano” sandwich thing which was a super greasy mess. Christopher ordered a sure winner, a burger, and when it arrived decided that was not what he wanted and wouldn’t touch it. He explained that it was because the meat was brown? Sorry kid, all the burgers in the US are brown. Thankfully Beth had a humongous plate of pancit and gave a quarter of it to Christopher. Christopher also picked all of the chicken and bacon out of her Caesar salad. Lastly, we all only picked at about half of the “nachos” that came up. They were cold and stale. Christopher said “Yum! I know these! They’re stale…”

We settled in after dinner, got ready for bed, said a family rosary, and then just put on a show before lights out at 8. All in all, it was a super adventurous day out, and it was really fun to see Christopher’s excitement.

To be continued.