China #3 (Shenyang to Chengdu) - Summary

[HeartlineCoaster]

Well this trip was a right mess, hopefully that makes for a good read.

First day was cut in half by a 'rescheduling' of the flight. Not that this really mattered in the end (spoilers).
Touched down in Shenyang halfway through the day. Apparently there's no legit public transport from the airport to the city. Ended up with a taxi ride that seemed to take forever. Bloke was friendly though.

Checked into the hotel. Still time for a few creds.
Took the metro to somewhere vaguely near a backup plan park. Strolled through a nice green space from there, but no surprise creds in sight. Always forget how massive everywhere is in China, so the plan to walk it was becoming a burden and ended up jumping on a bus to...

Day 1 - Nanhu Park

Always good to start strong. One of those 'stick a grubby amusement park in the back of some trees in the city' places that China does so well.

Walked past various other activities like karaoke in the pagoda, karaoke on the bridge and karaoke on the riverbank. Varying quality.

Eventually stumbled into the hustle and bustle of the amusement area.
Turned down about 50 people wanting customers for some dodgy flats. Nah mate, creds only.
First person to earn some money was standing outside this thing, somehow managed to negotiate a 2 for 1 deal out of him.

Classic spinner. Has the ability to spin from the top of the lift, but the poor trackwork never allows it to pick up enough speed to do anything much.

A proper beast was up next, looking lonely and abandoned. Old woman was running some crappy flat in front and beckoned. No no, open the cred for us.
Money in hand, how could they say no?

Loved this one. Such character. Before we could sit in the train, a musty old cushion was placed on the seat for us. After squeezing in, a second musty old cushion was wedged in between my left side and the train. I like where this is headed.

Got 3 laps of pure comedy, each time the lift struggling more and more to engage while breaking our backs. Need to relocate that cushion.

JUNGLE MOUSE! I'm ashamed to say that I've had to enter the country 5 times to get one of these, so happy to finally do it. Close your eyes and the spirit of Wild Mouse lives on. Minus the air time.

Headed over a bridge to a more barren section of the park for the big boy. Now some damage could be done.
Guy was delighted to have a customer and immediately jumped on the mic to try and churn up some more business with me as poster boy.
Nah. No one was buying it.

Off we go then.

Ride starts with a slow helix of doom that builds tension before you plunge into the undersized loop.

Loop was pretty grim, something akin to a donkey punch. Rest was manageable.

Final and most shameful cred was a worm thing, but it was abandoned and parked in the wrong place, so that didn't happen.
Pity, probably one of the few that would let adults on.
Here's a depressed monkey instead:

Jumped on the ferris wheel opposite for some views.

Boat thing on a zipwire there that I expected to go into the water or something. Nope.

Pods didn't smoothly follow with gravity, rather lurched and grated in stages, so it felt a little sketchy. Not the worst wheel of the trip though.

Satisfied, called it a day.

 

[Gavin]

I'm still extremely distressed about Nanhu park. I "discovered" the looper, spinner and dragon, but completely missed the Jungle Mouse which actually WAS listed on RCDB.

I'll be heading back to Shenyang once HotGo get those B&Ms open though, so at least not all is lost.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Day 2 - Hotno Park

Grabbed a taxi the next morning and asked to head for the Hotgo resort. Was another friendly bloke, but somewhat useless and he must have smoked about 30 times during the journey.
The somewhat useless part came half an hour into the journey where he pulled over and asked a man on the street where Fantawild was.
Whoa whoa whoa,
whoa
whoa.
F*cked if I'm going to another Fantawild Adventure in a hurry (HA!).
In his mind, Hotgo was in the same place. In reality, I knew he was way off.
Opened up maps on his phone and got us to find the route for him and we set off again.

Another half an hour later we had left civilisation and the massive castle and a couple of B&Ms appeared on the horizon. Fully expected them not to be ready, but I wanted the woodie, so told him to follow signs to the Jungle World park. As he got near he pulled over to what looked like construction workers sitting around but he maintained were local taxi drivers.
Turns out the whole resort was closed. Turns out I've discovered a new adversary and stumbled across the only big name park in China with a seasonal opening. Wasn’t open at all until the following weekend, so cheers to the website for having a sh*t calendar.
Driver now had no clue how to leave the area, and while I got out my list of backup parks again, he jumped out of the car and into the passenger seat of another passing taxi for a chat.
Where to next? Botanical Garden mate.

Day 2 - Shenyang Notanical Garden

Got a rather spiteful view of Time Travel on the way out of the place. Didn't realise it was so terrainy and sweet looking.
This place wasn't too far down the road and we were soon pulling over at the side of the road by the big bridge to the entrance.
Desperate to get back to civilisation, taxi bloke had already acquired another passenger before we left. Thanked him for the detour and jumped out.

Crossed the bridge into the massive entrance plaza and spotted the ticket window. Asked about the rides. Nope.
Turns out I've discovered 2 new adversaries in China. All closed for the wind.
Not wasting my time with that sh*t then. Back over the bridge and into the car park where apparently a bus should be along soon. No way a bus was going to bother entering the run down car park with barriers everywhere, so waited by the side of the road while a dog barked at us for half an hour. A taxi would have done, but it was a desolate place.
Salvation appeared on the horizon. Bus back to the city.

It terminated at the main station, pretty much outside the hotel. Well that's the morning gone. Next backup park.

Day 2 - Sinbad Happy Castle

Jumped on the metro.
Went to the wrong mall. Had ice cream.

Went to the right mall.

This place had a certain charm to it, reminded me of Berjaya Times Square. Interesting setting but a bit sh*t really.

Felt so good to actually get on something, so Children Coaster (dont think it's called Jungle Explorer (?)) was an instant hit. Only 1 lap of magnificence though.

Spinner was up next, high up in a mall alongside some bad windows looking out over a construction site of a city. Oh yeah, that's where the resemblance comes from.

Were joined by a local couple, who received a swift nod, so had a full car on this. It actually span a lot and the bloke was loving every second of the girl's reaction. Not bad.

Took a lap of the park to see if anything else interesting was lurking. It wasn't.

Just to be sure, rode this suspended thing which takes a lap of the park. Nope.

Somewhat satisfied, called it a day.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Final day in the city and my backup plan list was running dry. Options were: risk the Botanical Garden being winded out again (they weren’t answering the phone), do another city park with basically the same boring lineup as the first day, or put myself through another Fantawild Adventure park.

Reluctantly…

Day 3 – Fantawild Adventure Shenyang

Bus pulled directly into the car park which was a welcome start. Looked to be about 20 cars total, with someone in a BMW trying and failing to do donuts in the open space.

Walked down the massive main street bit which is all set up for a second gate. Just wasteland for now, but will probably open before Hotgo. For a rare change, didn’t even care what was open and what wasn’t, so ignored the signs, no questions to the staff, bought tickets and headed in.

Castle centrepiece is in scaffolding making for a pretty sight. Quite a nice effect, from a certain point of view.

Came to Sky Sailor first, which was next running in about an hour. Seen several of them before, but hadn’t done it yet, missing the most recent one by about 5 minutes, so made plans to try it this time.

Water ride wasn’t open. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one of the themed ones open.

Cred then. Vesuvio Volcano. Mount Tanggula, but with a volcano instead. That same double lift mine train layout that is just absolutely everywhere now. Not as hilariously bad though.

Standard operations meant that took an age, so cred ran to the SLC to get it out of the way. Actually felt a bit windy today, unlike the day before when things were closed, so my thoughts on the lift were mainly ‘please don’t stall, please don’t stall, please don’t stall’.

I reckon it made an impact, had an overly long upside down moment in the cobra that actually felt quite cool. Rest was quite bad. It’s not the side to side that gets me on SLCs any more, it’s the weird backwards and forward pumping that some of them develop. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it just shakes your insides a little too much. This was the latter.

Slightly injured, cred ran back to the complete opposite end of the park (dedication) to arrive just in time for Sky Sailor.

Rode too many Soarin’ things on this trip, so I’m struggling to remember which this was…

Nope. Can’t.

Not bad, but obviously nothing special. Better than Ferrari Land.

Did a full lap of the park from there, seeing what else might be new to me/of interest again. Everything we came to was either closed or had a time slot that was way later in the afternoon, by which time we would have to leave.

Only thing even worth considering was Space Warrior in the end, the screen shooting ride that I really didn’t like previously.

Some of their dark rides have what I’ll call reception areas separate to the queue with benches and in this case, books and colouring pencils, as on quieter days they take regular breaks from running the ride, only operating in waves or a few cars at a time.
Stood in this reception area for about half an hour while the staff girl was waiting for ‘the call’ from the ride team.
Ended up having a good chat as she was rather friendly. Apparently only 3 ‘westerners’ have been there before (I reckon we can name them?) and life with Fantawild is rather boring.
Gave up in the end, said we’ve got a train to catch and told her not to worry, we’ve done this one in Zhengzhou. Shock face.

Gave up on the park as well, leaving nothing to chance with transport and stuff. Wasn’t necessary as for the first time I’ve ever seen, all the high speed trains were delayed by over an hour. Due to, yes, wind.

Didn’t mind this park as much as the previous iteration as there were zero stakes, minimum faff and no particular need to rush anything (though I still ended up running like an idiot). Still felt like achieving f*ck all (other than a +2) out of half a day out though and, ugh, just bothers me.

Somewhat dissatisfied, called it a day.

 

[Gavin]

Ugh, that's so **** about Shenyang. I had a great long weekend there. Dead parks (apart from the Botanical Gardens), but everything open.

I think I'm probably lucky in that I usually hit places at weekends (normally the worst time to go), so there's much more chance of everything running ok.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

^Yeah. City itself was alright though and like you say, once the B&Ms are finally ready, can give it another crack.


Had made a phone call a couple of days before to the place with the new S&S launch and found out that it wasn't yet open, so that's part of the reason I ended up at the above Fantawild and was in no particularly hurry to get to the next base camp, where the only remaining thing of interest was...

Day 4 - Quancheng Euro Park

Yeah, it's that place.

Anyone can cook.

First impressions weren't great, being told that several coasters were down and the rest had some faffy time slots going on.
The somewhat inspired main street area was a total construction site, so had to access the rest of the park through some weird side room.

This kicks you out in the new family area they've got going on. It's themed to Holland and plays German music, so a little of that Euro spark seems to be working its way into the park at least.
The relocated kids coaster is now here and though the sign has no rules beyond '1 adult per car', we were told no adults. Having done one 2 days ago with 2 adults in a car, what a d*ck.

This indoor coaster was closed for some reason.

Looks fine to me.
According to some commentary on the train ride much later in the day, theyre getting 2 new coasters in there.

Battle of Blue Fire was closed until later in the day for 'maintenance'. This maintenance involved pumping empty trains out every couple of minutes for several hours which was rather impressive.
Seems strange though, as the park was so dead, once it actually opened, it only really operated for about an hour before no one went on it again and it stopped running.
Will get to the ride later.

First thing actually open was the 'Family Coaster-Medium'. A youngstar inspired ride called White Horse Coaster.

Hilarity came into play here as you must wear a mandatory padded green jacket to ride. This protects you from the not much going on that the ride has to offer.

Bit of theming, bit of shelter from the scorching heat of the day, wasn't too bad actually. Couple of near misses and accidental wonky air time moments.

A subtle nod to Europa Park. I wore my Europa Park shirt to this place, hope someone got the joke.

From here, entered another indoor bit where some kiddie flat rides used to be. Found them later in the new area.

SLC was opening later.

Didn't fancy a splash.

Spinner #1 was opening later. (No picture for some reason, so have a closed water ride instead).

Animal Crisis. The deceiving exterior would have you believe this ride was inspired by Madagascar or something, but it's a bit darker than that. Once inside, there's lots of images and stories on the walls of an apocalytpic future in which humanity is facing a crisis or some sorts.

That and glowy tunnels.

Once on the ride, which is a Spiderman type thing, it involves following 3 superhero people (ice shooty woman, fire shooty man and lightning shooty man) around various scenes fighting various monsters (big water snake thing, big land snake thing, hybrid man spider in a lab that produces gargoyles, big godzilla boss fight type thing).
Interspersed with this is some general city destruction, random appearances from zoo animals like a herd of rhinos sliding across a fountain courtyard with poor graphics.
They win in the end, get statues erected in recognition of their heroics, and you get various treasures and gems for tagging along.
Quite liked it. Quality of the ride was a bit lacking compared to the real deals, but it's on a similar scale to the earlier Fantawild ones and I thought it was a decent effort. There's a couple of good physical sets thrown in, while you're spinning madly between scenes. One particular 3D screen effect as you head down a tunnel and burst into another scene was rather visually striking and effective.

Mine train was next. Finally, a unique layout. Not even two lifts.

Had a couple of rough tracking moments, but also got a little intense in some parts with some sharply banked curves as it wound its way down the mountain. Kinda good, if only for being different.

The Motorbike thing was closed. Half glad cos I hate this things, but at the same time, spite!

Spinner #2 was open. Not great.

Having completed the first lap of the park, found some tigers out the back of the new kids area.

They've tried to add a a sense of danger to the exhibit.

But it doesn't look like the tigers are interested.

Sat down and had a snack while waiting for things to open.

There's another building like Animal crisis on the opposite side of the park. It's quite symmetrical this place. Wondered what it housed, turned out to be another flying simulator. Might as well give it a go later.

Got to Blue Fire as it finally opened and took a couple of laps.

Launch section is a bit of a different experience, being concrete, some blue lights and pop music.

The original of this has faded into obscurity somewhat in my mind (except the theme, which I sang to myself on the first lap), so it was nice to run a little refresher course on it.

It's actually better than I remembered. Associated it with being solid fun with a lack of air time and force before (other than the last killer inversion), but there's definitely some there when you're snapping in and out of the mid course and on the twisty hill through the loop.

The inversions range from good to great, it is forceful in places, a solid package.

Did the flying simulator thing from there. All I remember from this one is wondering how it worked, with the pods all starting horizontal but being hooked into what looks like a permanent ceiling with tiles and lightning fixtures, somehow shifting into the vertical position, but not far enough apart so you can see lots legs dangling above your head. Film was eh, I guess.

Stuff inside about the park? I can spot Hulk in there and maybe even a 4D. What else can you spot?

Oh God, the SLC. It looks so awful off-ride. The green padded jackets are back on this one.
Didn't make me feel any safer.

It was a survival experience. Nothing too lasting, but still rather grim.

Had another weird moment of upside-downess on the stupidly shaped second inversion. Almost becoming a regular feature, as is losing its speed ridiculously from just how badly it judders around.

Spinner #1 was open and forcing people to sit on opposite corners to reduce the spin. Even Maurer can't pull off layouts like this decently and this one just rode crap.

All available creds complete, took another couple of laps on Blue fire before they gave up for the day again.

Wishing Lost Gravity was here too.

Went to Gods Station to find out about the train. Had 40 minutes to wait, so thought we may as well catch it from the beginning.

Wandered past the kids coaster to see if staffing had changed. It hadn't.

Hopped on the train that goes round the perimeter of the park, which is much larger than the ride section would make it appear.

There's a cave bit on the first corner of the park where you can see more tiger stuff.

Located on the far edges are 2 mountainy bits. This one is the fiery one.

You can walk to them, but it's a long way, it's hot, and there isn't much in them for now except a few dinosaurs.

Then out the back they're apparently working on a massive zoo expansion.

Then there's the icy mountain. Again you could walk here, but it's a long way, it's hot, and there isn't much in them for now except a few ice age creatures.

Third station by the SLC was a ghost town. Wonder why.

There's another tunnel section on the final corner, but only remember it being bricks or something.

Eww.

I like this model of the park at the entrance. Shows a good scale of ambition. Shame it hasn't quite come to fruition yet.

Somewhat satisfied, called it a day.

 

[Pear]

You missed out on the knockoff motorbike. That one is infamous for being so bad that riders are required to wear helmets on it!

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Still not convinced by the helmet story. What would you be hitting your head on?

 

[Pear]

The description of this POV states that riders must wear helmets:

If you look a little after the 2:00 mark you can see the shadows of the riders and they are wearing helmets and shaking quite violently as well.

 

[Gavin]

No helmets when I did it. It was fairly soon after the park opened, so I guess it could've happened later. It was absolutely f**king vile though.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

The next basecamp was Nanjing, where I had allowed a couple of days to make up for the fact that last time I visited it was a total washout and I achieved exactly nothing in the area.

With a quick phone call ahead to ask 'Is the woodie open? Yes. I'll hold you to that', first thing on the agenda was a bit of vengeance at a certain Crappy Valley, which was within striking distance after another hour on a train.

Day 5 - Happy Valley Shanghai

It's taken me 3 visits to get this place dusted off and I rather resent it right now, but I don't get beaten that easily.

Just to be extra spiteful it was completely rammed on a weekday. Too far gone now. Straight into the queue for Fireball.

Took about an hour (the current record holder for me in China) with one train operation and the famed exercise faff going on.

This one is unique in that it has it's own exercise song built into the sound system, so you can hear the torturous inefficiency and you know exactly what's coming for the whole time you're in the queue.

Train 2 basking in the sunlight.

Finally got on the damn thing and it's really good.

It has more big hills than most Gravitys in the region, always good to see strong variation in layouts.

There's also a fantastic section of about 6 aggressive twisty hills progressively downwards in the second half, the sort of stuff theyre really good at.

Definitely in the upper reaches of their stuff over here, I'll enjoy plenty more of that later...

Final cred needed here was Mine Train Ulven #2, so sweated over to the other side of the park for that.

It has better theming and rides about the same, just doesn't quite have the charm of the original.

Back row was a must, for the very punchy first drop. At least it's not another Vekoma/Golden Horse. Damn Turkey for spiting me the set.

Wandered over to see if the B&M SFC was worth a quick spin. Closed.

Be rude not to ride a Megalite while you're there. Closed.

How's the dive doing? 1 car and longer queue than the woodie. Disgusting.

Back to Fireball then.
Queued another hour. Loved it again.

Then as I ran back round for another go they did a Phantasialand and closed the ride 3 hours and 40 minutes before the park to clear the queue. Heartless bastards.

Dive was still open so took a token lap on that. Normally easy to get whatever seat you want out here, but the locals spite you on these. You may be first in your row of 10 to pass through the air gates, but by the time you've sprinted to put something in the boxes on the far side, they've nabbed all the outside seats, swapped rows and caused a massive confusion amongst everyone by not leaving enough space for the relevant groups and it takes 5 minutes to sort out.

Park complete.

 

[Hixee]

Normally easy to get whatever seat you want out here, but the locals spite you on these. You may be first in your row of 10 to pass through the air gates, but by the time you've sprinted to put something in the boxes on the far side, they've nabbed all the outside seats, swapped rows and caused a massive confusion amongst everyone by not leaving enough space for the relevant groups and it takes 5 minutes to sort out.

I found this really frustrating too, but I ended up just bossing people around when they sat in the seat I wanted.

Agree about the 'return leg' bit of Fireball, that bit was excellent!

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

but I ended up just bossing people around

You big bully
Must admit I'm usually far too nice to the locals. Generally works out for me though.

Boonie Bear says go to Fantawild Wuhu!

Day 6 - Oriental Hertiage Wuhu

After not being able to do anything here last time, had greater than normal anxiety for Jungle Trailblazer, so made the possibly wrong decision of doing that straight away.

Everyone else clearly had the same anxiety, or they just follow the 'suggested route' like sheep and do everything once like they always do so the queue had about 200 people in it. Busy right?

At 1 train every 10 minutes, this might have topped my record in China set the previous day.
All a bit fruitless really, as it was empty for the rest of the day, but wasn't gonna let it go all Steel Dragon on me again.

Again, finally got on the damn thing and it's really good. Wasn't a huge fan of the previous iteration with an inversion as the layout was a little lacking, but this one has a bit more going for it.

Got the same big hill start as Fireball. The double down into the inversion is amazing. The rest is filled with the stuff they do best, little twisty hills and little straight hills that go on and on and just chuck you about in all directions.

Only got one minor nitpick, that high up turnaround thing that doesn't really do much, so having now done all of the unique layouts of Jungle Trailblazers (achievement unlocked), I'm currently torn between putting it 2nd or 3rd.

Indoor mine train clone had a bit of a queue from the natural flow of guests, so headed over to the Boomerang.

Only 2 trains worth ahead of me, but they've reached new lows with this one.
For some reason, they've decided to not put storage bins on the platform at the far side of the train, rather a storage bin area at the point of batching, below the station.
Guests still exit at the far side of the station, so the impact of this is that you have to wait for them to slowly bumble along an exit path, return to the storage bit before the patch, faff around with their stuff, leave by the gate, forget their stuff, come back in, faff around with their stuff and leave again before they start batching the next group. All while the train and station lies dormant. Classic.

Land of Lost Souls was now empty, so got that done. Was rougher than the previous iteration (Jinan?) and was missing the big screen at the end. Still a tad more interesting than the outdoor ones.

Went back to Trailblazer and was told it was down for half an hour while they fixed the water spraying fans in the queueline (life savers).

Believe I've already done everything else this park has to offer, but thought might as well have a spin on one of the dark rides while waiting. Devil's Peak was closed until later, Nuwa had a f*ck off huge queue, Dragon King's Tale it is. (Exit pictured above, all their exit signs have another confusing name above them).
Same as Xiamen, this wasn't running the preshow or the spinning water tunnel, assumedly because they can't be bothered.
Love the ride though, great attention to detail in all the screens.

Went back to Trailblazer and racked up several laps on the bounce. Great stuff.


That's about all of interest to come out of today. Let's have a bonus picture round of signs!

Some more beautiful than others.

Legend of Nuwa layout.

Dragon King's Tale layout.

Over to Dreamland then.

Fantawild Dreamland Wuhu

Space Warrior layout.

Fantawild Dragon!

Wizard's Academy yu-gi-oh card.

Anyway, had the 2 park 1 day ticket, but had too much fun on JT and turned up too late to be able to do much here (no regrets).
Lots and lots of show stuff with timings that had all given up for the day.

Got the cred. Bit of a stain on Fantawild, particularly a Dreamland. Bad ride and no theming.

Didn't get the worm.

Caught a 4D cinema thing I hadn't done before - Origin of Life.
From dinosaurs to bullet trains, it covered just about everything. Mildly interesting.

Also begrudgingly ended up waiting for Space Warrior out of lack of things to do yet again. Actually got on it this time, gun didn't work at all and only had kid sized glasses, didn't care.

In summary:
Oriental Heritage - very good if you haven't done that stuff before. Still very good for, you know, unique layout woodie.
Dreamland - bit sh*t. Probably needed the 2 big shows to step it up for me, but they're an arse to fit in. If you're new to the game, Jinshan Temple Showdown, Wizards Academy and Qin Dynasty Adventure (all closed 2 and a half hours before park close) would make it worth the visit.

Here's a pic of that last one closed, as @Hixee missed his snap of it.

Boonie Bear says come back for the food festival. I'm good.

 

[Hixee]

Similar feeling to me, then. I did the parks in the other order, and suspect I missed the queues all day (everything was a walk-on), but equally might have just been a dead day!

Jungle Trailblazer is really good, I really enjoyed it - glad to hear you think it's one of the better ones. Must get myself to some of the others now.

 

[Pear]

Out of curiosity what would you say is the best Jungle Trailblazer? The only other one I can think of is the Zhengzhou version.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

^Good thinking. That would be the one.

1. Zhengzhou
2. Zhuzhou (Fjord)
3. Wuhu
4. Jinan
5. Xiamen

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Time to see what else we can mop up around here then.
Phoned Suzhou Giant Wheel place due to the iminent threat of losing Stingray. Ride's still closed.
Phoned the mall park with the motocoaster. Still a building site, not answering the phone.

Oh well, had my eye on this place for a while.

Day 7 - Gingko Lake Park

First impressions were mixed. Pretty much the most expensive park in China (other than Disney). Seemed like a lot for what they had on offer.

The amusement park isn't a massive part of it though, once inside it's like a big glamorous version of the city parks, so good place for a stroll.

That was nice.

Onto the main event then.

I've got a bit of a thing for Jet Coasters, so seeing that there was one relocated from Japan to China with no RCDB pictures definitely had my interest.

Being the weekend, it was managing to hold a bit of a queue, around 30 mins.
Can't quite believe it, but they run it with 2 trains!

Not well admittedly. It has 2 lifts, the second train isn't sent until the first train is well clear of lift 2, then with all the regular loading and unloading faff it ends up sitting on the brake run for 3-5 minutes. Still, a positive effort.

Technically 3 lifts. Bit of an unconventional transfer and storage section.

Ride was glorious, as all Jet Coasters are.
1 accidental air time moment in the first half.
1 accidental dodgy moment at the end where it looks like they've retracked it badly for the transfer stuff.

Not quite sure what curve radius refers to. Thoughts?

2 more creds to hit then. The amazingly named SLC: Flying and Floating Over the Clouds and Water, and a baby Jet Coaster cutely named: Cho Cho Train.

But then it rained.

The end.

I wish.

 

[Hixee]

Not quite sure what curve radius refers to. Thoughts?

I'll hazard a guess it's one of two things:

• The minimum radius curve on the layout. This is the sort of info that could be useful for the manufacturer, as it might mean they can send it down a different production line (maybe they have bending machines with extra-tight bending capability, which might not be needed with a larger bending radius.
• The minimum radius curve the trains themselves can actually traverse (this was talked about in the Alan Schilke interview for Wonder Woman - possibly why it's in my head).

Admittedly not something you see on every ride plaque.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

I know it's not like me, but today you'll have to suffer through pure sightseeing. No creds were squeezed in.

Day 8 - Terracotta Army

So this place isn't what I imagined. For some reason I pictured it out in the sticks a bit, but instead it still feels like it's in the city, which is a bit run down and sh*t.
The bus wasn't great, taking 90 minutes for what was meant to be an hour and then dumping you in the hell next to the actual attraction which is 100 people running over and shouting at you to come buy their knock off tickets/MERS food/knock off souvenirs.
This observation is mainly in comparison to the Great Wall buses, which all had a dedicated guide telling you during the journey what to do when you get there to avoid that crap.
Powered past it anyway and into the legit ticket office. We had arrived painfully early to avoid any ridiculous levels of overcrowding and this worked, getting us through the turnstyles within 5 minutes, slithering past 10000 tour groups of confused old people already causing chaos.

Another swift 10 minute walk through some trees and here we are.

The place is split into 3 'pits', the first one having all this lot standing to attention:

Also not quite what I imagined. Pictured it to be a little adventure through some narrow old tomb or something (mainly thanks to Fantawild), rather than an aircraft hanger. But that would probably be disgusting.

Pit 3 (?) has some broken ones.

Pit 2 (?) they haven't fully dug up.

It was all nice, quiet and relaxed in those bits. They had a few exhibits to the side with stories and individual statues in glass (making for terrible pictures).

There was also a seasonal exhibition hall which had stuff in, but by the time we reached that it was a total scrum and couldn't really see anything. Something about light and dark. Meh.

For one of the 'big things' to do out here, I wouldn't really rate it personally. Might be because I'm more of a visual person as opposed to history and stuff. As we'll come to later, I'd say there's better 'culture' elsewhere in this city.

Heading back out of the place, there's an assortment of shops, restaurants and stalls.

Got this guy to thank for all that apparently. Smug.

Included free in the same ticket is the Emporer's Mausoleum, so jumped on the shuttle bus for that next.

Heading into the place there's an assortment of stalls and animals.

They were all just setting up for the day, so it was still very early.

Again, not what I was expecting. The tomb is an underground pyramid thing, under some grass in a closed off area. They ain't done yet.

Turns out it's a bit of that.

Some of that.

And a whole lot of this.

Here's a model of the 2 for reference. Terracotta buildings on the left, whatever this place is on the right. All those surrounding areas of trees, now run down suburbs.

Looked like you can just walk out the back of the pit area and into this other place, rather than all the way off the left edge of the screen to take a shuttle bus, but that would be too clever.

Legs already tiring, decided that was enough of that.

From the plaza outside, found someone offering the next thing on the agenda.
Jumped in some bloke's minivan with 1 other customer and off to

Huaqing Palace

This place seems more seemlessly integrated with the city, rather than having slums form around it. I actually really liked it.

Palace is an understatement really, it's a whole complex of its own, similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing but not quite so 99 things the same.
It wasn't built as a place to rule China from, it was built as a place to chill out with the ladies.

Also comes with a free mountain.

Some of the buildings have museumy stuff.

Others just sit pretty.

Also linked to Huaqing Pool, in which some of the areas are hot springs.

Wisely decided to take the cable car up. It did an E-stop not far into the journey which was rather fun and then resolved very quickly. A woman at the top decided to have a hilarious shouting assault on the ticket window about the incident, claiming they shouldn't have stopped it like that. All they could do was laugh in her face.

An overview of the size of the palace area.

Still going up.

Bit murky at the top.
From here it gets a bit more complicated, as you've entered normal civilisation again, public roads and houses.

There's a team of golf buggy people on hand who do pick ups and drop offs at the various things to see up here. They'd have you believe the sights are spread across '3 mountains' meaning 'walking up and down each', but that's a slight exaggeration/sales pitch. It is walkable, though as we'll soon find out the sit down is rather welcome.

Stop 1.

Stop 2. There's a bird park thing up there. Didn't fancy it.

Stop 3. A nice quiet temple area.

Stop 4. More, busier temple bits.

Final stop. Still more. They all have different shrines and statues for different Gods within. Not meant to take pictures inside though.

Unwisely opted to walk back down to the bottom from here. It's a long old way, must have been a couple of thousand steps downwards, interspersed with winding pathways.

All those stairs turned the legs to jelly and it was somewhat more difficult to walk for the next couple of days.

The 'Remonstration Pavilion', something to do with this if you want the history lesson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi'an_Incident

Finally back down at base.

Oh good, more learning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Guifei

And that just about rounded off the day. Time to catch another faffy bus.

Bell Tower was on the way back. Tick.
A successful sightseeing day.

Well done if you made it this far, here's a bonus teaser for next time.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Back to the important stuff then. Jumped on a free shuttle bus with a handful of guests, one of whom was bringing a cat to the park.

Bus dumps you the other side of some big food court that you have to walk through to get to the park. I believe they're linked, but you can never be too sure.

And here we are.

Day 9 - Lewa Adventure

Ticket lady said all of the rollercoasters 'should' be open. Hmmm.

Had a bit of faff upon entering the park, where the bag scan found a couple of snacks of ours and they didn't like that. They did however let us store it at guest services for free.

Powered over to the back of the park to find out for myself if I was instantly going to hate this place.

Where other rides had opening times, this had nothing. It's a humourous read though.

Staff guy in front of some tensa barriers says they're just doing some cleaning before opening for the day. 10 minutes. Well that's a relief.

Camped out the entrance with a few others. They've obviously got some appreciation of quality here. 20 minutes later he got the call, everyone excitedly rushed up to him again, only to stand and watch him slowly take down 5 of the barriers one at a time, walk them over to another area of queue and set them up again.

From there, he lead us to the cattlepen holding section where we waited another 20 minutes, watching the staff wander backwards and forwards at the station, occasionally looking over at him and saying nothing. Gets another call. Safety announcement spiel. We're in.

First impressions were really good. Going up the lift with the loop track above you is quite a surreal sensation, making you think it's not going to make it up there, but then it just keeps on climbing. The power-dives are great fun, as are the gallops and vrilles.

It's very well paced and rather graceful about the whole execution, with a great mix of forces all round. Couldn't feel the trims on the hills, which all had a decent kick to them. The zero-G is spot on and the twisty section at the end adds a bit more flavour.

Operations note: The station has an exit ramp, but they weren't using it for the first half of the day, resulting in that same old problem where the already ridiculously low throughput is destroyed again by having to wait for everyone to slowly bumble out of the station and back down the entrance ramp. Didn't matter at all on this day, as they were struggling to fill trains, but I hope they don't pull that nonsense with any sort of queue. False hope.
If one of the ideas out of this great mystery is true, that they purposefully run these things slower to keep costs down, it gets cancelled out by them missing out on potential revenue from not diverting you through the exit shop.

Interesting note from the ride plaque: Trains have a life of 10 years. Structure has a life of 50 years!

What other things do I have to suffer before I can come back for more then?

SLC?

Another great sign, 'tortuous way' sounds about right.

But the demon of spite says it's closed all day.

Not to worry. Been a whole 3 days without a mine train clone.

Sabertooth tiger, eyes filling with blood, says come on in.

It was a thing. Operator was having a good time singing.

Another Chinese youngstar?

Demon of spite says no.

There's another worm thing here but with specific signage saying no adults. Fair enough.

Not a Vekoma Boomerang? This had no signs at all, but apparently it's f*cked. Bit disappointed, rather wanted to try that.

You guessed it.

Another hideous loopscrew thing? This has a maximum height of 1.73m. Got the briefest of eye ups from a staff member who said nope, you're too tall. Laughed in his face. Next.

Which only leaves the Motocoaster. I believe I've only done a Zamperla original of this and this one was somehow better. Slightly.
It's still moving for the sake of motion.

And that's the park. I'll leave you with some Flash porn then.

Racked up a fair few laps and it seemed to get even better over those hills, both front and back. Great stuff.

Headed out mid afternoon, got a train to catch.

Farewell demon of spite.