The world is my Oyster, now I just have to figure out how to open the damn thing!
Lol...even I need to figure out a way to keep Oysters @ Appu Ghar open 24 hrs a day, so that I can move in permanently!
First and foremost, let me declare, I LOVE OYSTERS!
Now that you know this important piece of information, lets proceed. Oysters is a water park at Appu Ghar, the only ’good’ amusement park in Delhi. Appu Ghar is a nice place, with all the rides and stuff, but most of its rides are better suited to entertain younger children. Only a few rides like Columbus and My Fair Lady are fun for older children, teens n ’old’ (lol!) people as well. But they are a bit on the extreme side. Columbus is a swinging ship which is really scary (= FUN) but My Fair Lady is a ride that goes round and round until your ’guts’ are popping out!! (Not exactly an enjoyable experience)
A few years back, the people at Appu Ghar, started a new ride, Cool Splash, which was a roller coaster that provided Delhiites a much-needed respite from the sweltering & scorching heat of saddi dilli! (Temperatures reach up to 46 deg Celsius in Delhi in summers, in case you didn’t know)
What was so special about this roller coaster you ask? The fact that its tracks were laid partly on a pool of water! :) So, in case you didn’t have time to shower in the morning, you could come to AG and get completely soaked with water at any time of the day! (Such a roller coaster is actually nothing special, but back then, we didn’t even have a proper water park, so this was good. Ya! ya! I know... India is lagging behind in even the amusement park industry!!!)
But that was just a trailer! Come summer of ...98’ (:D Bryan Adams hangover!) and AG started a new water park inside AG! That was a real surprise and I, being the ’water crazy’ person I am, was raring to go!! I didn’t know how to swim, even dog-paddle, but put me in a swimming pool, and I can pass an easy 6 hours without a single nanosecond of boredom! (I have serious doubts, whether I was a hippopotamus, in my last birth! lol!)
6 hours is my record time I spent at Oysters at one go (Who knows, maybe I wasn’t a hippo after all, just a harmless hydrophilic soap molecule, picchle janam mein!)
I could have stayed longer, but meri mummy ko kaun samjhaye.....:(
Anyways, coming back to the review..
The people at oysters launched it with a great offer. School kids could avail a discount equal to their percentage obtained in their last exams! And maybe this was one of the major reasons, why I studied so hard that year, and got 99% in class VI! (yay! ...never even went closer than 8% to that amazing no. in the past 5 years!hehe)
That was an easy way to attract a lot of crowd in the first year itself.
So, I got into oysters for free, which costed around 250 bucks on weekends...Haha...!
Oysters is actually situated inside Appu Ghar, though I can never figure out what was in there before Oysters opened. Anyways, so it’s not exactly a huge place...but that depends on one’s definition of ’huge’! It’s a big place, but not a huge one!
Oysters has:
A simple swimming pool whose depth goes from 3.5 feet to 6...its also very good if you just want to have a swim rather than walk around.
Next, there’s a wave pool, which goes from 2 feet to 6. But it’s usually more crowded than any other part of the park.
There’s also a stream of water, kind of like a river, which goes all around the park, and is named ’magic river’ or something like that. It’s the least crowded attraction of the park, no idea why. I like it a lot, coz you can lazily swim all over the park in it, without any disturbance.
Then there’s a pool on which water’s falling from overhead, and it’s chilled!! Its only around 2 feet deep, but the water is cold enough to make u start shivering in midsummer! Actually, its not cold, its ICY COLD.
The kiddy pool with all the kiddy rides are really fun! lol
The year Oysters opened, I was 11, so I was allowed on ’em and they were so much fun! whee!! ok, I wont get carried away now!
And obviously, Oysters has those gigantic, sky high water slides! One look is enough to send a shiver down your spine! hehe...no actually they’re not that high, but because I haven’t been on them, EVER, in the past 5 years, they bring out that kind of a reaction in me! hehe...NO I M NOT AFRAID! I just prefer the calm river to those gigantic huge snake-like slides! My opinion might change after I’ve been on one of them!
That’s it! That is all there is at Oysters! Its not as high-fi as the ones they show on discovery channel, the ones in the US.... but for the average dilli waala, its ok...great place to spend a day...or two! :D
It’s a pretty safe place, all the slides and stuff are in pretty good condition, and are relatively new. The lifeguards are always there, and very quick too; I saw them save a child from drowning in a matter of a few seconds.
The people coming there are decent enough, better than the crowd in Appu Ghar, more so because Oyster tickets cost A LOT more than AG tickets. Usually public swimming pools n places are a bit low on hygiene, but Oysters is really clean and spic n span. It’s compulsory to wear swimming costumes in the pool, but I have seen a few ladies wearing sarees! (!!! How do they manage to SWIM!! In sarees!!! Vaise Indians can’t be expected to fully adhere to rules anyway?)
So...the conclusion is that Oysters a great place for a family outing kinda thing...or hanging out with friends once in a while. (’Once in a while’ because I don’t think your friends will agree to shell out 200 bucks every weekend, as enthusiastic u may be!)
If that’s not enough to motivate you, think about it this way..
I went to Oysters once, and met Fardeen Khan (shooting of course!), so who knows, u might bump into Shahrukh!
(Information: This funda obviously doesn’t imply on my fellow mumbaikars(?) who have WATER KINGDOM and ENOUGH of bollywood stars!)
If I got you all very interested and enthusiastic and excited about going to Oysters and u can’t wait till summers are here....fikar not! I can always drop you to the Oysters Ice park, coz that’s where I’m headed right now!
cya! :D
Ananya
Important information for whoever it may concern (lol) : Project Pringles is under Research and Tasting, results are awaited :D
Review is under construction. Keep watching this space. :D
By the way, this revu has almost 1200 words, I wonder if I would have written it with so much eagerness and enthu had it been a part of my english homework! lol! MS is weird in a good way! :D