Wednesday 23 February 2011

Two out of five is pretty good

Remember this, Grit, for next time. You have a dangerous, hypersensitive, volatile child. One who is terrified of all hazards involving fire, water, falling rocks, darkness, tunnels, smoke, lifts in shopping centres, crowds, dog licks, and now (as of yesterday), swallowing and breathing.

So that was a good idea. Who had that one? The one which starts, Let's take all the children into Power Plant!

Power Plant is an artsy, electronic controlled garden which comes alive after dark. One that's lit by fire. Yes, let's take the hypersensitive alien being and walk her through the blinded shape-shifting crowds, blundering their way like the lost souls of oblivion groping their way towards death. Then, as we feel our way between vibrations, bells, alarms, crackling lightening and sublimating dry ice, I can remind everyone how thrilling a sensory garden can be!

Come on Tiger, you liked it before. When the local arts studio did their own version with a giant eyeball. Surely if you liked it then, you'll like it now, no?

No. Apparently, that was in England. This is Hong Kong. In England you could run around in front of the giant eyeball. This is Hong Kong, and is all so obviously different, you are just pretending not to know that, you horrible mother who wishes now only to torture and cause pain.

Well this is an experience reducing to Misconceived Idea in the Pursuit of a Creative Education Number 4,892. Subsections: Education, Dark, Blind Terror.

But it works for two out of five of us, so I'm calling it a success. Never let it be said I'm not an optimist. Shark (academic, articulate, fishy, born in 1842) declares the whole experience wonderful, and pauses to write elegant poems about fire, possibly with a quill pen.

Squirrel (Fairyology expert, student of small things, not yet born) says electric nature is beautiful and nearly as nice as the hairy bits on the back of fairy's neck. (The bits which catch the light, stupid. They don't get those until they are way past their first changeling celebration. Duh. Doesn't everyone know that.)

That's the two from the five. Huzzah! Success!

Tiger (still attempting to recover from Hazard Alley 2007 when the safety officers pretended to set the building on fire) rips my hand off and squeals Let's get out of here until I feel maybe I am locked for eternity inside a bad American movie where cowboys and cops and spies will soon be bursting through saloon bars shouting Let's get out of here just a few more times.

Dig's not included in the count, obviously. He's staring at a wet floor in England and I gave his ticket back to the organisers.

I don't include myself either, thanks to the amputated hand and the misery of my slaughtered guts, plus the pain I feel that my exciting and creative education seems to have bypassed daughter three yet one more time.

Since I have nothing to lose, I may as well add the humiliation of the evening, the one about to repeated at the end of the visit in reverse, and that is to find the place where Power Plant is hosted - Kowloon Walled City Park - I had to take a taxi from the underground station.

Kowloon Walled City Park is actually located round the corner from the underground station. Google suggests it is a 12-minute walk. It may be, but I couldn't navigate my way out the shopping centre. Fortunately, the shopping centre does seem to have a taxi rank running right through it.

So here it is, Power Plant. Ta Dah!

By the way, if you come here for the photographs, you're going to be disappointed. But remember that circumstances are very trying right now. Plus I have a four-year old phone camera and only one hand.