Ocean Park (Oceanarium)

Ocean Park, the largest "oceanarium" in Asia, lies on the Shum Shui peninsula, west of Deep Water Bay and east of Aberdee. Covering 86 hectares/212 acres, the park is on two levels, linked by a cableway 1.4km/1500yds long and a long escalator. On the lower level are a park, a play area, water gardens, plants from all over the world, exotic birds and animals from many countries.

Here, too, there are various cultural events and other attractions.

From the lower level it is a ten-minute trip by cable car - with fine views of the South China Sea and the numerous offshore islands - to the upper level, with the Ocean Theatre, where dolphins, a killer whale and sea-lions are put through their paces before anything up to 4000 spectators. To the left of this is Wave Cove, an artificially constructed rocky creek with machine-generated waves which provides a natural setting for seals and sea-lions, penguins and dolphins.

The principal attraction, however, is Atoll Reef near the cableway station, with more than 30,000 fish, including sharks and rays. Thick glass panels enable visitors to watch the fish in the aquarium and observe the beauty of the corals on three different levels, going down to 6m/20ft below the surface.

Other attractions include the butterfly house, opened in 1989, with numerous species of tropical and subtropical butterflies, a children's "adventure world" with a theater, a Chinese farm and an adventure playground, as well as the shark aquarium with 40 different varieties of shark. Middle Kingdom is a faithful reconstruction of a historic Chinese village, which cost more than £5 million/US $9 million to create. Ocean Park's latest attraction is Water World, with numerous open-air swimming pools and a giant slide.

A special bus service runs direct from Admiralty MTR station in Hong Kong to Ocean Park on Sundays and public holidays. Other buses stop in Wong Chuk Hang Road.