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the-nights-parade · 4 years ago

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Ocean Park | Hong Kong's Largest Theme Park

Ocean Park is Hong Kong's largest theme park. In fact, it is Hong Kong's only theme park. With its 35 attractions and rides, the park has won several awards, including "The World's Seventh Most Popular Amusement Park" and "33rd Most Visited Tourist Attraction in the World". These are not statistics that I would necessarily brag about, but maybe that's just me.

Ocean Park is a 10 minute taxi ride away from our home, and Sadie has been at least a dozen times with her friends. In fact, her school did a trip there earlier this year and attempted to sell it to the parents as a physics lesson. Right.

I am reasonably informed that watching a teacher get spun around until they puke is the height of entertainment for a teenager. Anyway, I had never been before. I'm not sure why this is, but I guess that it is partly to do with David's lack of interest. I guess I can understand that. Any roller coaster becomes Space Mountain when you are blind, and although I love Space Mountain, I'm not sure that I'd want to spend the whole day riding on it. David is in the UK though, and I thought it might be a fun thing for Sadie and me to do.

This is the latest in a long string of my attempts at mother/daughter bonding. I try to kid myself that Sadie and I really have a close personal connection, that she loves and respects me as much as I do her, and that she actually enjoys my company when in reality what I perceive as bonding is probably just Sadie playing along to get something she wants. Regardless, if that's all I can get, I'll take it.

So, off we went to Ocean Park. I had to queue up for the ticket as Sadie already had a season pass that paid for itself if the first month. The price was comparable to other them parks - about £20 for the day. Now it is time for me to fess up about the real reason I wanted to go to Ocean Park. It has two different sections, one of which has animals, an aquarium and kiddie rides and the other which has thrill rides. The animal section has PANDAS! For a long time, seeing pandas has been on my list of 100 things to do before I die* and I was finally getting to do it!

I am marginally embarrassed by my passion for pandas. I have seen Kung Fu Panda three times and that is really not something of which to be proud. I am completely suckered in by their furry, fat cuddliness and those big black circles around their sad eyes. To be fair, I was also completely suckered in by Pete, the dog from the Little Rascals too. Something about a black circle around an eye. I like to think of myself as mature, urbane, sophisticated, cool and more than a little cynical. Loving cuddly panda bears blows that image. It's like Henry Kissinger saying he loves "My Little Pony". I guess I am out of the closet now.

Anyway, back to Ocean Park. I decided to prolong the expectation for as long as possible, so we visited the aquarium first. It is a pretty good aquarium as these things go - maybe even in the top 50 aquariums in the world.

I couldn't really contain my excitement much longer though. I had to see the bears. I spotted the Panda House from several hundred metres away. I knew it was the panda house because there were 10 metre tall plastic pandas waving to us from the roof. For one brief moment, I actually thought that they were real and waving just at me. We walked up the ramps and into the house. There are three panda enclosures, each with its own panda. They are solitary creatures and don't like to mix much. Thank goodness. The sight of two pandas cuddling or playing might just might be more cuteness than an ordinary human could bear (ha ha - I swear that wasn't on purpose).

There are two parallel ramps in front of the enclosures, and you are encouraged to stroll down one and up the other, giving everyone a good chance to have a look. Good manners went out the window as soon as I walked in the door. I stopped, creating a domino effect of panda watchers behind me. I couldn't move. I was spell bound. There in front of me was a giant panda sound asleep on a wooden platform. He was on his back, mouth open and with all four paws up in the air. I couldn't hear it, but I am absolutely sure he was snoring.

It is not terribly mature or sophisticated to jump up and down and shriek "OOOOH! LOOK AT THAT PANDA! HE IS SOOOOOO CUTE!", but that is what I did. Sadie,even more than usual, pretended that she didn't know me. Finally, someone behind me gave me a good push and forced me to carry on.

The second and third enclosures were empty, so I hurried down to see snoring panda again. Then, just as I was about to go past window number two, out came a beautiful female panda bear. I know it is unspeakably rude, and I am really not proud of it, but I simply would not budge from that spot.

Parents tried to push their eager children in front of me, but I wasn't having it. I figured that I had less time to do the 100 things to do before I die than they did. I took photos and watched her amble around for a good 10 minutes. I probably did more to damage Chinese/Western relations at that point than Tienanmen Square, but my wish was fulfilled. I have seen pandas. I am also the very, very proud owner of a cute, overpriced panda cuddly toy that we have named Bing Bing.

Back out into the sunlight, no other event that Ocean Park could offer could possibly live up to the panda experience. I have to tell you though, that in the dozen or so time Sadie had visited, she had never before seen the bears. She comes for the rides. So, off we went to the other part of the park.

This can be accessed in one of two ways. There is a cable car that offers magnificent views over the southern part of Hong Kong or there is a train. The trip up is unbelievably steep. There are stairs, but it would probably take me the better part of my life to get up them. I don't think that they are even open for public use. We took the cable car, and it was lovely, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for anyone with height issues.

Once at the top, Sadie said she needed food. There were a number of food options, most of which involved some form of squid. There is something not quite right about eating something that was one of the attractions we had just visited. I am just trying to imagine how this menu would go down at Alton Towers or at Six Flags.

Thankfully, there were other options than munching on Squidward and Sadie was very happy with her french fries and diet coke. This is the ultimate food oxymoron.

During her feast, Sadie had been eyeing the temporary tattoo parlour. "No", I said, "Don't even ask". Of course, a few minutes later we were sat on the chair inside the booth whilst Sadie got her Panda tattoo. Giving in against your better judgement is a big part of the bonding process.

As foreigners, we are used to being stared at sometimes despite the fact that Hong Kong is one of the most cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse cities in the world. Just recently, I was accosted on the MTR by about 20 teenagers demanding to have their picture taken with a foreigner. Of course, I obliged with my goofiest grin.

Sadie actually attracted an audience whilst her tattoo was painted on. There was a crowd of people gathered round, pushing each other out of the way to get a view. When the tattoo lady was finished, Sadie stood up and the crowd actually applauded!

We then moved onto the arcade. This time I was really going to hold firm, and I set about telling Sadie how all the games are rigged and that it is virtually impossible to win a big prize. Then I saw the shooting gallery. OK, it was a Nerf shooting gallery where you shot plastic pegs with suction cups onto a plastic target, but it was still a shooting gallery. My resolve crumbled and I became the world's biggest hypocrite.

When I was about Sadie's age, I went to a summer camp. It was altogether a miserable experience, except for one thing. I discovered that I was really good with a 22 rifle. I've been hooked ever since. I would NEVER shoot at a living thing (I won't even let Sadie go to BB Gun parties when EVERYONE else gets to go), but boy do I love shooting at a target. I bought 10 rounds and sidled up to the bar counter. Everyone around me was doing rapid firing, but I took my time to line up that bullseye in my site. I felt like Clint Eastwood, Annie Oakley and John Wayne all wrapped up into one. Slowly, I pulled the trigger. Bullseye! I took my time with the rest and managed 5 bulls eyes and 5 in the next circle out. God, I'm good.

On to the rest of the park. It was time to do some rides. We headed off to the log flume. On our way, we saw large groups of mainland Chinese wandering around in packs. Some of them had on matching hats. Others had perky little matching bandannas. All of them had little tags around their necks which I can only presume said "If found, please return to Hunan Provence". Hong Kong tourism is big business in mainland China, and the groups are typically made up of older couples. It's sort of like visiting the Florida of the east.

These groups, with their bad teeth, worse clothes and what I can only imagine is the Chinese version of a hillbilly accent, are treated with complete and utter disdain by the local Hong Kong community. I rather like them. I can only imagine what they must have seen in their lifetimes, yet they retain a certain child-like innocence in the pleasure they take in places like Ocean Park. Then we got to the queue for the log flume.

All innocence was gone as these old folks pushed and shoved like they were in the queue for the last kilo of rice at the state rice store. I'm not kidding, they were vicious. They cut in front of as many people as they could, tread on toes and elbowed their way to the front. Then once on the ride, they looked miserable when they got soaked to the skin. What were they expecting? We got soaked to the skin too, but it was fun.

Then I had a really strange experience (as if being jostled by old Chinese people wasn't strange enough). We were in the queue for another ride (Raging Rapids, if you must know), and I spotted someone I knew in the queue. I knew I knew him, but for the life of me I couldn't thing of how. His was not a face I would forget as he looked like a youngish Paul Newman. I stared for about 10 minutes before he looked up and nodded at me and smiled before he turned away to talk to his very young Thai wife/girlfriend. It finally came to me.

It was a close friend of one of my exes whom I like to call Lucifer (No Grizz and Billy, that is not a nickname I have for either of you). It was driving me crazy because I couldn't remember his name. I remembered that he had been born with a really bad name (Malcolm Pratt), but he changed it by deed pole as soon as he was old enough. Who could blame him? So, although I could remember the old name that he changed before I even met him, I simply could not recall his new name. Then it came to me. Pat. His new name was Pat. Just to test out this theory, I yelled out "Pat" to see what would happen. What happened is that Sadie nearly died of embarrassment and the bloke didn't even turn around. I'm certain it was him though. I had heard to had moved to Asia a few years ago for the women to teach.

After a couple hours of different rides, it was time to head back down. This time we opted for the train. We were waiting for the train in a sort of holding pen with a bunch of mainlanders. Several of the women were staring at me and giggling. I smiled at one lady and she came over to me and poked me in the chest several times. Then, she gave two big thumbs up. All the other ladies then started smiling, nodding and pointing at my boobs like they had just won an academy award. I swear to you this really happened.

#ocean park #hong kong

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dani-qrt · 6 years ago

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Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf

REPORTER A Memoir By Seymour M. Hersh Illustrated. 355 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.

The lone wolf — in journalism, as in nature — is a rare creature. Many reporters prefer the reassuring comfort of the pack. But every age throws up a few hunters who prefer to go it alone, scorning the safety and consensus of the crowd. They are often noble beasts, even if they can present formidable challenges to their handlers.

Seymour M. Hersh (better known as Sy) is perhaps the most notable lone wolf of his generation. Now 81, he has nearly always operated on his own: There has been no Bernstein to his Woodward; no investigative team into which he could easily blend. He broke some of the biggest stories of his time. He fell out with editors. He threw typewriters through windows. He could be petulant, unreasonably stubborn and prudish. But, boy, could he report.

His memoir is — with some niggling reservations — a master class in the craft of reporting. People sometimes shorthand the act of dogged discovery as “shoe leather” journalism — pounding pavements rather than sitting at the desk Googling. In Hersh’s case reporting involved long hours in libraries as well as jumping on last-minute flights to far-off small towns to hunt down reluctant witnesses. It meant knocking on doors in the middle of the night; learning how to read documents upside down while pretending to make notes; painstakingly cultivating retired generals; showing empathy, winning trust.

His chosen areas of investigation were often the hardest to penetrate: He burrows away at the secrecy of the state, the military, intelligence, foreign policy and giant corporations. Over nearly six decades he exposed brutality, deception, torture, illegal surveillance, government-sponsored fake news and much else. More often than not — much more often — he was right. From the My Lai massacre of 1968 to the degrading treatment of detainees in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, Hersh delivered the goods.

He introduces himself as a survivor from the golden age of journalism, “when reporters for daily newspapers did not have to compete with the 24-hour cable news cycle, when newspapers were flush with cash from display advertisements and want ads, and when I was free to travel anywhere, anytime, for any reason, with company credit cards.” Back then reporters were given the time and money to tell “important and unwanted truths” and made America “a more knowledgeable place.” He makes the classic case for public interest journalism.

The book has its journalistic heroes — Harrison Salisbury, I. F. Stone, Neil Sheehan, Bob Woodward among them — and political villains, including Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger (“the man lied the way most people breathed”), Dick Cheney and neocons. It also has its editorial enemies. He scorns the practitioners of “he said, she said” journalism as stenographers. He ridicules reporters who claim not to have an opinion on what they’re writing about. He chides other news organizations for not following up his exclusives. He holds in especial contempt the Vietnam-era press room of the Pentagon for what he regarded as its collective lazy gullibility.

The skepticism that made him such a considerable reporter extended to the organizations that employed him and the editors who commissioned him. There is a fine line, in Hersh’s ever-suspicious mind, between editing and censorship. His nose was always twitching for a sniff of cowardice or collusion. On one occasion he investigates his own editor, suspecting that a loan from the company’s directors to help him buy an apartment could have compromised him when he should have been solely “beholden to the newsroom and the men and women in it.”

That editor was A. M. Rosenthal, executive editor of this newspaper from 1977 to 1986, one of several editors with whom Hersh had a complicated relationship torn between mutual respect and something close to despair. Hersh — brought up in a lower-middle-class family on the South Side of Chicago — grew up revering The New York Times and is beyond honored when he finally makes it to the paper in 1972. But the story of Hersh and The Times involves a troubled courtship; a sometimes happy marriage; a trial separation and eventual divorce.

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His work on Vietnam — an “obsession” he thought he shared with Rosenthal — initially appeared to please his editor, though Rosenthal was ever anxious about his “little commie” reporter’s overt politics. But the paper — being comprehensively outgunned by The Washington Post on Watergate — soon redeployed its star scoop-machine to Washington to try to retrieve some journalistic dignity.

Hersh performed well, but struggled to understand the paper’s pathology, in which it was “a bitch” to get important stories into print. He quotes his former colleague Bill Kovach, later the Washington bureau chief, bemoaning the difficulty of “managing Sy at a newspaper that hated to be beaten but didn’t really want to be first. … The arguments and the debates and the rassling back and forth on every Sy Hersh story were almost endless. It wasn’t because Sy was sloppy. It was material they didn’t want to be out there with.”

For much of the time he felt supported: Hersh recognized in Rosenthal an editor with guts. But there were not infrequent screaming matches, temper tantrums, middle-of-the-night phone calls and accusations of betrayal. He was mortified in January 1975 to learn that top editors at the paper had enjoyed a private lunch with Gerald Ford in which the president had told of setting up a commission to investigate alleged C.I.A. abuses. Ford told the assembled editors that he needed to keep some things secret — “like assassinations.”

Hersh is appalled that this startling admission from a president should have been allowed to be off the record and — more than 40 years later — there is real bitterness in his rebuke: “Talk about unrequited love. The guys running my newspaper who for years had showered me with praise and raises had a higher loyalty to a president … than to someone who had pulled them out of the Watergate swamp.”

Hersh decamped to The New Yorker (where he had written before his stint at The Times), first under Tina Brown and then the “superb” David Remnick. Here he did much good work — but his habit of asking readers (and editors) to take on trust his heavy use of anonymous sources got him into scrapes. Many of his sources were — as time has shown — impeccably informed. But his more recent sources have also included, for instance, the Syrian president Bashar Assad. Some of his writing on who should bear responsibility for chemical weapon attacks in Syria has been vehemently contested.

Remnick — worried about his journalist’s reliance on “the same old tired source” — had already declined to use Hersh’s reporting that questioned the official narrative around the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Hersh is enraged — “editors get tired of difficult stories and difficult reporters” — and takes this and subsequent investigations off to The London Review of Books or to the German paper Die Welt.

It was painful for some to see Hersh’s 2014 and 2017 reporting of chemical attacks in Damascus forensically interrogated by the British blogger Eliot Higgins, who criticized his reliance on a tiny number of unnamed sources. Higgins is a new breed of reporter, encyclopedic in his knowledge of the weaponry deployed in this conflict, meticulously bolstered by video footage, as well as by multiple on-the-ground sources and satellite photographs.

Hersh skates over these challenges to “the truth as I found it.” There’s an octogenarian weariness — to his mind — in this cycle of doubt followed by vindication: “I will happily permit history to be the judge of my recent work.” But even Hersh’s admirers may feel that history will judge some of the late-period articles in a different light from the blazing trail of his earlier investigations.

Even so, society needs reporters like Hersh — skeptics who take nothing on trust and who go to exhaustive lengths to dig beneath the thick veneer of gloss, dross, fakery and spin. “If your mother says she loves you,” an early news editor declares, “check it out.” He did, time and time again.

He sees the writing on the wall when, in 2011, Remnick calls him and — in an embarrassed near-whisper — asks him to interview an important source by telephone rather than fly 3,000 miles to see him face to face. Will most future newsrooms ever again be in a position to allow their reporters the resources and time to do the kind of work that Hersh, in his prime, so magnificently produced? His memoir is a compelling argument for why they should.

The post Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sUSXhe via Online News

#World News #Today News #Daily News #Breaking News #News Headline #Entertainment News #Sports news #Sci-Tech

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cleopatrarps · 6 years ago

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Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf

REPORTER A Memoir By Seymour M. Hersh Illustrated. 355 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.

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The post Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sUSXhe via News of World

#Daily World News #Daily Entertainment #Daily Sports #Today News #World The News

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dragnews · 6 years ago

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Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf

REPORTER A Memoir By Seymour M. Hersh Illustrated. 355 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $27.95.

Image

The post Seymour M. Hersh — the Journalist as Lone Wolf appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sUSXhe via Today News

#Daily News #Daily World News #Daily Business News #Daily Sports News #World The News

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me-an-anthroplogist · 7 years ago

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Here are the 50 Perfect Romantic and Love Quotes For Valentine’s Day

Here are the 50 Perfect Romantic Quotes for Valentine’s Day

Some time quotations help you to express your self. So here we have some good quotes which help you to make your loved one feels special.

Happy Valentine’s Day Quotes

“This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.” – Aberjhani, Historian

“Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.” – Audre Lorde, Civil Rights Activist

“Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.” – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Painter

“Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.” – Vincent van Gogh, Artist

“A true lover always feels in debt to the one he loves.” – Ralph W. Sockman, Pastor

“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” – Albert Einstein, Physicist

Loving is not just looking at each other, it’s looking in the same direction.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Poet

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu, Philosopher

“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” – Emily Bronte, Author

“The heart has its reasons, which reason knows not.” – Blaise Pascal, Mathematician

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” – Aristotle, Philosopher

“When love is not madness, it is not loved.” – Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Playwright

“Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald, Author

“Love is metaphysical gravity.” – R. Buckminster Fuller, Architect

“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.” – Voltaire, Author

“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” – Haruki Murakami, Author

“Love is being stupid together.” – Paul Valery, Poet

“Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein, Author

“And suddenly all the love songs were about you.” – Unknown

Funny Valentine’s Day Quotes

laughter is the best medicine to cure of any of Disease. if you and your lover have a good sense of humor. these quotes will help you make light of the holiday.

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” – Charles M. Schulz, Cartoonist

“I love being married. It’s so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” – Rita Rudner, Comedian

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde, Playwright

“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.” – Erich Segal, Author

“I love Mickey Mouse more than any woman I have ever known.” – Walt Disney, Animator

“Love is a grave mental disease.” – Plato, Philosopher

“I want a man who’s kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire?” – Zsa Zsa Gabor, Acress

“It’s better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.” – Laurence J. Peter, Educator

“Without Valentine’s Day, February would be…well, January.” – Jim Gaffigan, Comedian

“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.” – James Thurber, Cartoonist

“What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.” – Pearl Bailey, Actress

“Money can’t buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.” – Christopher Marlowe, Playwright

“If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?” – Lily Tomlin, Actress

“Look, there’s no metaphysics on earth like chocolates.” – Fernando Pessoa, Poet

“Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.” – Jules Renard, Author

“Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.” – Henry Kissinger, Political Scientist

“Lord! I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.” – Jonathon Swift, Political Satirist

Cute Valentine’s Day Quotes

A cute Valentine’s quote is one approach to make your sweetheart’s day. Regardless of whether you’re looking for something cheerful or nostalgic, these Valentine’s Day quotes will enable you to hoist your message.

“There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.” – George Sand, Author

“Valentine’s Day is the poet’s holiday.” – Ted Kooser, Poet

“Your flaws are perfect for the heart that’s meant to love you.” – Trent Shelton, Football Player

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” – Rumi, Poet

“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love.” – Max Muller, Philologist

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because the reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss, Author

“The art of love…is largely the art of persistence.” – Albert Ellis, Psychologist

Romantic Valentine’s Day Quotes

“Love planted a rose, and the world turned sweet.” – Katharine Lee Bates, Songwriter

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin, Journalist

“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones, Engineer

“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.” – Robert Browning, Poet

“The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.” – Margaret Atwood, Author

“It is astonishing how little one feels alone when one loves.” – John Bulwer, Physician

“Love is the greatest refreshment in life.” – Pablo Picasso, Artist

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller, Author

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radiospeech · 7 years ago