The Great European Carnival in Hong Kong

Yesterday our family had a carnival kind of day. The AIA Great European Carnival is currently set up at Central Harbourfront (by the new Hong Kong Observation Wheel), and it is attracting many Hong Kongers and tourists outdoors during the winter season. The carnival opened to public a few weeks ago just before Christmas, and will run until February. Hubby and I chanced upon the carnival on one of our date nights the day after Christmas, and had some fun on one of the big-kids rides. The carnival has a different atmosphere during the day time, with a lot more people and children and babies. Tickets cost HK$125 per adult (HK$90 for children 3-12 years old, free for under 3's), and includes 10 tokens per adult ticket (7 tokens per child ticket). The rides, attractions and games cost tokens to participate, and there are booths to buy extra tokens for HK$10 per token. Some of the rides were still not operating as of yesterday (like the bumper cars), but there were plenty others for an afternoon worth of fun. Our 6-year-old had a lot of fun, and is asking to go to the carnival again.

The entrance to the AIA Great European Carnival, and the new ferris wheel, by the harbour:

A carousel:

Baby girl making her acquaintance with snowman (by the facepainting tent):

The Mach 5 ride, which looks like good fun (it was not operating a few weeks ago). Riders sit on the ends of two arms which spin around like a clock:

The Super Giant Slide:

The 6-year-old and hubby took turns sliding down the Super Giant Slide:

The swing carousel was not operating, but hopefully it will by the time we visit again. There are myriads of game booths (background) where people can try their hand at winning various soft toys:

One of the kiddie rides our boy delighted in:

The Pony Express, which was a kinda lame ride - our boy was complaining that it was not going fast enough:

A Cars theme ride:

This is the Oblivion ride, which we were crazy enough to go on when hubby and I were here on our date night. It swings and rotates the riders, so it is not for those prone to motion sickness (I discovered as I spent the next hour feeling nauseated. I will stick to up-down and forward-backward motion rides in future, perhaps try out the Mach 5 above if we come again without the kids):

The ferris wheel at night time against a backdrop of pretty building lights: