Halloweeeeen!

Well this is going to be my first 'exciting' post in a long time. Tonight I went to the Ocean Park Halloween Haunted House. Basically it consisted of 8 'haunted' houses that you went through. I went with Jessie, Suki, Erica and Nigel.

We arrived around 5:30pm and being suckers bought halloween themed headbands
then headed straight for the first haunted house, which also happened to be the 'scariest' one of the lot.
We bought privileged tickets which meant we were fast tracked into the haunted house but we still had to wait for while to get into this one (since it was one of the closest ones to the entrance). Poor Erica was already dreading it... (and we hadn't even gotten in yet)
The theme of this particular house was based on the old Chinese village houses - strangely enough i can't remember too much about it except I found everyone screaming really quite funny. It was probably luck that the 'ghosts' all came out and scared the people in front of us so I knew it was coming. Erica didn't fare so well, i think she screamed herself hoarse... There was a really good ghost at the end though, he kinda made me jump at little (in surprise though, not in fear). It was funny to hear people screaming, they were actually scaring themselves more.
It was great seeing the whole park decorated up with Halloween stuff, some people come dressed up as well.
We went to another Haunted house after this one, the Ghastly Entertainment City - I actually can't remember much of it - again it was a pretty funny one. There was a video showing what was happening inside and there was a button you could press to activate the 'scary' thing in the room and watch the reaction of the people - that was really funny, we waited until two guys had just walked into the room and hit the button. The panel of a painting in the wall shot down and flashed something at them and you could see the guys back out the way the came to hide... very amusing..

After that we took a break and went for a roller coaster ride on the "Mine Train" - thank god it was at night you didn't see the scenary flash by you as you went up and down - i've got to say though, for the length of time you line up the ride is terribly short. Jessie was funny, she kept her head down for most of the ride while i was going "OH MY GOD!!!!" Suki, Erica and Nigel totally enjoyed it (Nigel was sitting by himself at the front of the train... crazy man!)

We then moved towards the next Haunted House "The canton case" but convinced Nigel and Suki to go have a go on "The Abyss", a freefall ride... Nigel was eager enough to go

Erica, Jessie and I waited around - watching people get frightened by the various 'ghosts' that were wandering around the place

Anyway, finally it was Nigel and Suki's turn on the Abyss, we were obviously eager to see what their reaction was. Suki had fun but Nigel...
Man, what a funny reaction! Now, you couldn't PAY me to go on that thing.

Ok so we continued to head towards The Canton House, there was a 'quiz show' going on in front of the house. Suki went and had a go but didn't do to well (the questions had really stupid answers). Like "There was a Lobster, Prawn, Crab. Why did the prawn always lose?"... the answer because "ha llo ween" (ha 'no win', ha being prawn in cantonese... *sweatdrop*)

Anyway the line for the Canton Case was quite long, even with a fast track ticket we had to wait 30 minutes, i feel sorry for the people on 'normal' tickets. This House was basically you go to those old colonial/imperial houses, sit down in a 'dining' room where there was a cup and saucer in front of you. You are then instructed to put on some headphones and a recording starts playing, the sound is really bad so the 'guide' says he'll just go outside to check on the recording - of course, no one believes him ( i actually didn't know whether or not to believe him actually), anyway people are like "don't you DARE leave!" and he's like, well what am i supposed to do? so finally he leaves and then the lights go OUT! you're all sitting in the dark and the recording starts playing (you can choose your language, english/cantonese/mandarin) anyway you hear conversation snippets, then you 'hear' people getting killed and you're splashed with something - just as someone is getting knifed. Eeek! it was fun though. That happens a couple of times and then you hear thunder and lighting and the lights flicker as if it were really storming and you 'see' things - all in all it was pretty cool. the kicker was the things that come out from under the table and swipe your legs .... ughh freaky (but not scary). It was too short though...

Next up was the "Gruesome Green House", again the privileged line was non-existant and we went straight in. This was one of the best houses, Japanese style garden/greenhouse. except human heads are used as the pots, then you realise one of the heads is a real person - THAT was excellent. This one has to be one of my favourites.

We then went to "The 4th Dimension"
this wasn't really a 'haunted' house more like a psychadelic house, it used mirrors and wallpapers with 3D images and flickering lights. The people were also were fractal clothes - it did really wacky things to your eyes but it was REALLY cool.

How's that for an entrance?!





Well after this one we only had 3 more houses left and they were all situated in the lowland area of the part so we jumped on a cable car and headed over there.
I have to say these were the most 'disappointing' of the three - they were pretty much the same and not even scary (except i think Erica may disagree for the "Deadly Doll Factory" one) A guy was standing on the gangplank that everyone has to walk past, Jessie, Suki and I all say him and said hello or laughed at him. Erica and Nigel were behind us, she totally didn't see him so when he faced her she screamed, we all had a good laugh and the 'ghost' even had a go at here - considering he had been standing there for so long - that was pretty funny. There was also a terracotta warrior bit, i went through and saw a guy on my right, he sunk back into the shadows. Jessie followed and i heard her say "Ah i can see him!" i turned to my left and caught sight of another 'ghost' on my left. I figured "Drat, no scaring them" but then the first guy i saw walked out and scared them! They only saw the 2nd guy and didn't see the first guy. hehehe

Ahhh it was a lot of fun and the weather was actually really pleasant probably a bit on the misty/humid side but that is preferable to hot and humid. I don't know how the people on normal tickets would be able to do ALL the houses in one night. As it was we finished at 11:30pm and the park closed at 12pm - definitely recommend doing this again next year (it's a different theme every year)


And here's my favourite 'ghost' - well considering she's probably a cult icon

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