Jordanovichy
Credit Whore 2016
So, I have been meaning to get around to writing a report for this...considering I went 4 months ago, but other trips in the summer happened, then I started year 3 at uni, and then field work, and dissertation work, other assignments, and here we are, nearly December. But nevertheless, I want to write a report, this could well be the only day I ever write up, but enjoy anyway 
Quick bit of background then, back in February, Stone Cold, Ploddish and myself were trying to think of where to go to get some credzzz, we settled on China and tying it in with Taiwan, we tried loads of potential flight combinations, but fitting Taiwan in was just too much effort (but it would have meant a 10 hour layover in Kazakhstan which would have been nice), so we decided just China would work well, visiting Shanghai, Beijing and a couple of places in between. We flew with Aeroflot, via Moscow.
As was expected, the food was pretty uninspiring...
But I did have a nice savoury crepe and milkshake in Moscow's airport.
We arrived in Shanghai at about midnight local time, so public transport was a no-no, we knew we'd have to get a taxi anyway. Our first experience with Chinese taxis was fun, as soon as we stepped out into the terminal building we were surrounded by people shouting 'TAXI', 'TAXI', these were all unlicensed taxis, I'd read multiple things online to take a metered, licensed taxi as they wouldn't overcharge etc, so we just ignored them and followed signs for the taxis. We knew Shanghai would be hot and humid, but stepping outside, at 00:30 came as quite a shock, it was ****ing stifling. Instantly we were dripping sweat so were grateful to clamber into the back of an air conditioned taxi and be en route to our hotel. It took about 40 mins, and cost about £15 in total.
I had my own room which was lovely, no waiting for a shower! My room was on the 10th floor and the shower had a huge window overlooking Shanghai which was quite an awesome way to get clean!
Bed time, and up early ready for our first day in China!
Jin Jiang Action Park
I had compiled a document with all the parks we'd try and visit and how to get to them, so we decided our first stop would be Jin Jiang Action Park, home to 5 coasters, including a Jiant Inverted Boomerang. It was also our first time using the Shanghai Metro which was really nice and modern. Wikipedia calls it the world's 'largest rapid transit system by route length'. The first lines opened in 1993, and has been expanding ever since, it really was efficient and simple to use.
The park has its own stop on the Metro, Jin Jiang Action Park, on line 1, five minute walk under the motorway and we were faced with the first park of the trip!
We went to the ticket booth, which was in the Sun and ****ing awful, some Chinese couple in front were taking ages whilst we were melting, desperate for some creds. But we paid the 100¥ and entered.
We headed for the Giant Inverted Boomerang first, cleverly called Giant Inverted Boomerang as it was clearly the most substantial attraction. It wasn't open yet. Across from it was Moto Coaster, a Zamperla Moto Coaster. This was my first every coaster where you sit in this motorbike position.
Owain clearly looking excited.
Eh, it was alright, smooth enough, well paced launch but that's about it. I was just happy to have my first Chinese coaster!
Giant Inverted Boomerang was still shut so we headed further into the park and stumbled upon Roller Coaster.
Annoyingly, this was closed for now too, despite the gate at the front being open and so inviting! You could literally get to the station and sit in the coaster if you wanted to, there was no one around.
We went on to find Karst Cave Coaster...a geology themed cred! Copyright infringement en route:
Other photos of the park:
Happily Karst Cave Coaster was open.
It is an indoor Zamperla powered coaster, it was good fun, bright lights inside, all above water, and from memory, the rapids ride also passes through this building.
There was one more coaster to check out, Spinning Coaster. We were all really excited for this one, our first Golden Horse! You've all read Gavin's reports to know just how rare they are...and pretty soon the novelty of them had worn off.
We squeezed ourselves in and enjoyed the turbulent, spinning ride.
When we got off we could see that the GIB had started testing, yay, but we were so hot we needed to get a drink first, I bought 2 bottles of water at a ridiculous 10p each and smashed them into my face. I also bought this rather sad looking burger.
After an aircon stop, we headed over to the GIB, have some more photos of the park
We were treated to our first experience of Chinese operations, we sat on the coaster for a good 10 minutes waiting for it to fill before they'd dispatch it, but soon enough they did. Ok, so I wasn't expecting much, and it delivered that, but it was smoother than I remember Stunt Fall being, so that's as good praise as I can give it.
Happily from the top, I saw Roller Coaster operating with people on it, so we headed over to that next. It is a shuttle loop coaster, I didn't get any good photos so I won't bother posting any (not that that usually stops me). It was rough, painful and relatively ****. But no spite for us at Jin Jiang! We knew that some attractions closed at 12 for a couple of hours due to the heat and the rapids were one of them (yeah, let's close our water ride because it's too hot).
I mean, it's no River Quest is it.
We spent the whole ride with out mouths sealed shut not wanting to get the water in our mouths, we hardly got wet anyway. The indoor section (in the Karst Cave Coaster building) was quite cool actually, and I got some excellent photos for you to enjoy:
We decided to call it a day, we were due to meet with Owain's friend at 2:30 and wanted to get to another park before that, on the way out we went to a mini food market thinking it'd be perfect to get a bottle of drink for the journey. Alas, not a single place sold bottles of drink, so we made do with a corner shop on the way back to the tube.
The carriages behind this train contained a sit down restaurant, we'd have eaten here if we had time.
We got back on the metro to head to Zhongshan Park, home to a +1. Again, it has its own stop on the metro, line 2. Quite a view at the station exit.
The entrance was uninspiring, but at least entrance was free.
The park had been covered in these red banners, apparently they are support banners for the Communist Party and are becoming more and more common.
We followed signs for 'amusements' and had a pretty nice walk through the park.
Loads of the parks we visited had at least some building work going on.
'Lotus Pond' with the Chinese name for 'Zhongshan Park' shaped from a bush.
We eventually reached the amusement area, and saw the coaster, Inertia Train.
The whole area was dead though, not a single person around. I wandered off to try and find a member of staff to point at it and beg, but could find no one, other than a janitor who looked at me weirdly before going. I went to the vacant ticket booth which had a sign which, although in Chinese was easy enough to decipher as saying when the temperature is over 37C, the rides will not operate, but they do operate until 22:00 most evenings. We decided we'd try and come back, but in the end never did.
It was time to meet Owain's friend, someone he used to work with and now happens to live in Shanghai, for a guided tour around Shanghai! Once we met him, we all wanted to make our first stop somewhere to eat, so we went to a place which specialises in Hong Kong style cuisine...and tea apparently, but that was way too sweet and milky for my liking. I had a plate of shellfish but we all shared each other's to try as many things as possible.
We headed back out into the sweatbox, the road the restaurant on had huge trees for a road of its size, they were literally growing in people's windows.
We found a place selling German beer so treated ourselves to a refreshment break, it was quite a nice little area actually.
There was also a parrot
There were also some statues of the characters in Adventure Time.
Saw this in a shop as well, quite bright...
We were heading to People's Park (Owain and his friend didn't know this but Richard and I wanted a cred). It is quite an impressive square with huge sky scrapers all around.
The coaster itself was a pain to find. There are about 4 smaller parks around the main central park, which we didn't realise at first because trees and buildings separate them all, but we soon found what we were looking for.
It cost about £1, plus one! The rest of the park was pretty dull and didn't offer anything else.
We had a sit down and drink before deciding to head to the Bund next, passing through the massively busy, really commercialised area.
The Bund was pretty spectacular though.
Certainly one of the major sights here, and the iconic image of Shanghai which was great to see. I definitely wanted to come back at night.
I took a sweaty selfie too, just to prove I was there.
We were all pretty shattered by now, Owain went back to the hotel, Richard and I went off to find a bar and somewhere to have something to eat and drink. I can't remember what it was but it was really nice.
We fell out of the pub at about 22:00, grabbed a bottle of water, Richard fell down the stairs at the metro and we went back to the hotel for a shower and a good night's rest before an early morning because tomorrow was DISNEYLAND!!!
I might get around to writing the next part within the next 4 months, if not, just assume I enjoyed Disneyland. Thanks for reading!
Quick bit of background then, back in February, Stone Cold, Ploddish and myself were trying to think of where to go to get some credzzz, we settled on China and tying it in with Taiwan, we tried loads of potential flight combinations, but fitting Taiwan in was just too much effort (but it would have meant a 10 hour layover in Kazakhstan which would have been nice), so we decided just China would work well, visiting Shanghai, Beijing and a couple of places in between. We flew with Aeroflot, via Moscow.
As was expected, the food was pretty uninspiring...
But I did have a nice savoury crepe and milkshake in Moscow's airport.
We arrived in Shanghai at about midnight local time, so public transport was a no-no, we knew we'd have to get a taxi anyway. Our first experience with Chinese taxis was fun, as soon as we stepped out into the terminal building we were surrounded by people shouting 'TAXI', 'TAXI', these were all unlicensed taxis, I'd read multiple things online to take a metered, licensed taxi as they wouldn't overcharge etc, so we just ignored them and followed signs for the taxis. We knew Shanghai would be hot and humid, but stepping outside, at 00:30 came as quite a shock, it was ****ing stifling. Instantly we were dripping sweat so were grateful to clamber into the back of an air conditioned taxi and be en route to our hotel. It took about 40 mins, and cost about £15 in total.
I had my own room which was lovely, no waiting for a shower! My room was on the 10th floor and the shower had a huge window overlooking Shanghai which was quite an awesome way to get clean!
Bed time, and up early ready for our first day in China!
Jin Jiang Action Park
I had compiled a document with all the parks we'd try and visit and how to get to them, so we decided our first stop would be Jin Jiang Action Park, home to 5 coasters, including a Jiant Inverted Boomerang. It was also our first time using the Shanghai Metro which was really nice and modern. Wikipedia calls it the world's 'largest rapid transit system by route length'. The first lines opened in 1993, and has been expanding ever since, it really was efficient and simple to use.
The park has its own stop on the Metro, Jin Jiang Action Park, on line 1, five minute walk under the motorway and we were faced with the first park of the trip!
We went to the ticket booth, which was in the Sun and ****ing awful, some Chinese couple in front were taking ages whilst we were melting, desperate for some creds. But we paid the 100¥ and entered.
We headed for the Giant Inverted Boomerang first, cleverly called Giant Inverted Boomerang as it was clearly the most substantial attraction. It wasn't open yet. Across from it was Moto Coaster, a Zamperla Moto Coaster. This was my first every coaster where you sit in this motorbike position.
Owain clearly looking excited.
Eh, it was alright, smooth enough, well paced launch but that's about it. I was just happy to have my first Chinese coaster!
Giant Inverted Boomerang was still shut so we headed further into the park and stumbled upon Roller Coaster.
Annoyingly, this was closed for now too, despite the gate at the front being open and so inviting! You could literally get to the station and sit in the coaster if you wanted to, there was no one around.
We went on to find Karst Cave Coaster...a geology themed cred! Copyright infringement en route:
Other photos of the park:
Happily Karst Cave Coaster was open.
It is an indoor Zamperla powered coaster, it was good fun, bright lights inside, all above water, and from memory, the rapids ride also passes through this building.
There was one more coaster to check out, Spinning Coaster. We were all really excited for this one, our first Golden Horse! You've all read Gavin's reports to know just how rare they are...and pretty soon the novelty of them had worn off.
We squeezed ourselves in and enjoyed the turbulent, spinning ride.
When we got off we could see that the GIB had started testing, yay, but we were so hot we needed to get a drink first, I bought 2 bottles of water at a ridiculous 10p each and smashed them into my face. I also bought this rather sad looking burger.
After an aircon stop, we headed over to the GIB, have some more photos of the park
We were treated to our first experience of Chinese operations, we sat on the coaster for a good 10 minutes waiting for it to fill before they'd dispatch it, but soon enough they did. Ok, so I wasn't expecting much, and it delivered that, but it was smoother than I remember Stunt Fall being, so that's as good praise as I can give it.
Happily from the top, I saw Roller Coaster operating with people on it, so we headed over to that next. It is a shuttle loop coaster, I didn't get any good photos so I won't bother posting any (not that that usually stops me). It was rough, painful and relatively ****. But no spite for us at Jin Jiang! We knew that some attractions closed at 12 for a couple of hours due to the heat and the rapids were one of them (yeah, let's close our water ride because it's too hot).
I mean, it's no River Quest is it.
We spent the whole ride with out mouths sealed shut not wanting to get the water in our mouths, we hardly got wet anyway. The indoor section (in the Karst Cave Coaster building) was quite cool actually, and I got some excellent photos for you to enjoy:
We decided to call it a day, we were due to meet with Owain's friend at 2:30 and wanted to get to another park before that, on the way out we went to a mini food market thinking it'd be perfect to get a bottle of drink for the journey. Alas, not a single place sold bottles of drink, so we made do with a corner shop on the way back to the tube.
The carriages behind this train contained a sit down restaurant, we'd have eaten here if we had time.
We got back on the metro to head to Zhongshan Park, home to a +1. Again, it has its own stop on the metro, line 2. Quite a view at the station exit.
The entrance was uninspiring, but at least entrance was free.
The park had been covered in these red banners, apparently they are support banners for the Communist Party and are becoming more and more common.
We followed signs for 'amusements' and had a pretty nice walk through the park.
Loads of the parks we visited had at least some building work going on.
'Lotus Pond' with the Chinese name for 'Zhongshan Park' shaped from a bush.
We eventually reached the amusement area, and saw the coaster, Inertia Train.
The whole area was dead though, not a single person around. I wandered off to try and find a member of staff to point at it and beg, but could find no one, other than a janitor who looked at me weirdly before going. I went to the vacant ticket booth which had a sign which, although in Chinese was easy enough to decipher as saying when the temperature is over 37C, the rides will not operate, but they do operate until 22:00 most evenings. We decided we'd try and come back, but in the end never did.
It was time to meet Owain's friend, someone he used to work with and now happens to live in Shanghai, for a guided tour around Shanghai! Once we met him, we all wanted to make our first stop somewhere to eat, so we went to a place which specialises in Hong Kong style cuisine...and tea apparently, but that was way too sweet and milky for my liking. I had a plate of shellfish but we all shared each other's to try as many things as possible.
We headed back out into the sweatbox, the road the restaurant on had huge trees for a road of its size, they were literally growing in people's windows.
We found a place selling German beer so treated ourselves to a refreshment break, it was quite a nice little area actually.
There was also a parrot
There were also some statues of the characters in Adventure Time.
Saw this in a shop as well, quite bright...
We were heading to People's Park (Owain and his friend didn't know this but Richard and I wanted a cred). It is quite an impressive square with huge sky scrapers all around.
The coaster itself was a pain to find. There are about 4 smaller parks around the main central park, which we didn't realise at first because trees and buildings separate them all, but we soon found what we were looking for.
It cost about £1, plus one! The rest of the park was pretty dull and didn't offer anything else.
We had a sit down and drink before deciding to head to the Bund next, passing through the massively busy, really commercialised area.
The Bund was pretty spectacular though.
Certainly one of the major sights here, and the iconic image of Shanghai which was great to see. I definitely wanted to come back at night.
I took a sweaty selfie too, just to prove I was there.
We were all pretty shattered by now, Owain went back to the hotel, Richard and I went off to find a bar and somewhere to have something to eat and drink. I can't remember what it was but it was really nice.
We fell out of the pub at about 22:00, grabbed a bottle of water, Richard fell down the stairs at the metro and we went back to the hotel for a shower and a good night's rest before an early morning because tomorrow was DISNEYLAND!!!
I might get around to writing the next part within the next 4 months, if not, just assume I enjoyed Disneyland
. Thanks for reading!
