Noah's Ark

"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become" so he decided "to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has a breath of life in it." But not before commanding the righteous Noah to build an Ark to His precise specifications that would spare Noah's family and a representation of the world's animals from the Deluge and allow for re-population of Earth's newly cleaned slate.

And what better way to commemorate this classic biblical tale than with a theme park? An uber-rich Hong Kong property tycoon who also happens to be an evangelical Christian financed his own Noah's Ark that now sits beached on an outlying HK island. What took Noah over 100 years to construct was built in just 5 years in HK. It is the world's only replica Ark built to God's exact specs -- 300 cubits by 50 cubits by 30 cubits. Cubits were used in the olden days and measure the distance from tip of finger to elbow. So this Ark is absolutely massive at nearly 450 feet long. But how else are you going to fit in a full multimedia museum, IMAX theater, function rooms, wedding chapel, luxury hotel, restaurants and a full length basketball court?







Lizzie, Ing and I braved Hong Kong's most sweltering day of the year and took the ferry out to see the Ark Park and were not disappointed. The place only opened a couple months ago so the staff was cheery and helpful, the multimedia displays were technologically current and best of all the place was sparkling clean, lacking feeling of most public places in Hong Kong that are trampled over by millions of soles yearly. What never rubbed off was the surreal novelty of visiting a full-sized Noah's Ark in a city like HK which has a Christian population of less than 10%, a number that is probably far less when the domestic helper population visits home during Holy Week.

The centerpiece of the museum is a chunk of petrified wood purported to be from the original Ark dug out of the snows of Turkey's Mount Ararat, thought to be the Noah's final docking place. Also on display are declassified CIA documents and photos detailing the US governments satellite photo's of what it thought to be the Ark on the same mountain. A display of antique Ark children's toy sets from around the globe was a highlite as was the IMAX presentation giving the audience a multimedia and multi-sensory feel for life on the Ark during those 40 days and nights. Lots of cool stuff. And there was even a compelling feasibility study on display for the all the Doubting Thomases.

The animals, how could I forget!!? 67 pairs of full size fiberglass animals marching in two by two, hurrah, hurrah!! Ingrid loved it, pointing at all her favorites and code-switching between limited English and Mandarin to call them by name. Very cute. Then she melted from the heat so you can see she's a blob in most of these pictures.

A great day. We even found the day's date, Lizzie's birthday, written in out in plant life. www.noahsark.com.hk