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Pete in China (Happy Valley Beijing, Happy Valley Chengdu, Disneyland HK)

Peet

Giga Poster
I am currently enjoying my first visit to the bewildering, challenging and wonderful country that is China. Thanks to @gavin and @HeartlineCoaster whose previous trip reports and info have helped me know what to expect here and plan accordingly.

This isn't really a cred run; I'm here with my fiancée Sarah and we worked out which bits of China we needed to visit, and I found a manageable number of parks near our route to get some creds in; so there are just 2 Happy Valleys and a Disneyland to tell you about.

Initial note - getting the visas was an enormous pain, not to mention very expensive (£175 each).

I'll keep the non-coaster stuff short; I'm no travel blogger. On Sunday we took an organised bus trip to an off-the-beaten-track part of the Great Wall at Gubeikou, and hiked along it for about 3 hours, which was wonderful. The wall here is unrestored so it is fully authentic and crumbling away in places but still magnificent.
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Now, onto the coasters!

First up was Happy Valley Beijing on Monday. This park is within the city and easily acessible on the Metro with its own station at the entrance. It was a sunny morning, not many people around, and the long list of rides "paused" for the day didn't include any of the creds - a promising start to the day!

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The predominant payment method everywhere in Beijing is "WeChat Pay" which is inacessible to foreigners, and seems to have made credit cards redundant in many places including the Happy Valley front gate, so we had to hand over about £60 in cash for our 2 tickes. Annoying.

Once inside you can't miss Extreme Rusher which dominates the entrance area. I saw this as the most exciting cred of the whole trip as I hadn't done an S&S compressed air launch coaster before and it's completely unlike anything in Europe (except the SBNO Ring Racer). So we were straight into the queue and after a handful of test runs the ride opened and we bagged a front row seat.

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The launch is mighty, probably the highest acceleration rate I've experiened (and I've done Formula Rossa). It makes a great noise too! Then it shoots up, over the top, and down a 200 foot drop into a tunnel. This drop should be brilliant but it's neutered by some noticeable trim brakes half way down. From there the ride is good fun, with a few pops of ejector airtime, in particular on the outward banked corner near the end. The concrete trough on which the ride is built is clearly designed to be full of water but it didn't look like this had been the case for some years. The result is a rather bleak expanse of concrete over the whole footprint.

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Next up, Crystal Wing. It's a Superman clone B&M flyer, but with some good theming and a smart new paint job making it a really nice coaster. Similarly to Tatsu, the petzel loop is by far the most intense part of the ride, with the rest being rather tame.

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Lunch at the authentic Chinese KFC, (cash or WeChat Pay only of course), then on to the B&M family inverted coaster named "Family Inverted Coaster". I was excited to re-complete my set of B&M ride types, and this is an interesting addition to their catalogue. There is no swinging motion like there is on the similar Vekomas, which means that on the back row you get a fair old jerk when the track starts to roll on the first drop, the final helix is quite dizzying too. I can't help feeling they have made this ride more intense than intended, without actually offering much enjoyable thrill.

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Next we headed round the back of the park towards Golden Wings in Snowfield which was suspiciously quiet. Sure enough, it was clearly closed off for the construction of the new area, which I hadn't realised before. At least it saved us that SLC headache.

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After some peeking over the fence at Himalayan Eagle Music Roller Coaster (not testing today), we carried on round to the mine train "Jungle Racing" which was a nicely themed standard Vekoma mine train.

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There was time for a bunch of re-rides on ER and CW before heading back to the metro. Overall an excellent day at a surprisingly attractive and scenic park with very little queuing. From what I've read, 1 spite out of 5 is pretty good going for off-peak time in China, especially as it was only the SLC.

I was slightly disappointed not to experince any of the pre-ride stretches/exercises that I've heard about. Something I did encounter though was the policy of making you wait until everybody had collected their bags before letting anyone exit the station. This was inefficient for sure but it did make me feel safer leaving things, knowing that nobody could grab it and run at the end of the ride.

Next up will be Happy Valley Chengdu next week. Thanks for reading!
 

Hixee

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Cool! I'll be interested to read about this trip, as this area is probably my next target in China.

Looks pretty good - I'm a big fan of the way Crystal Wings looks - very photogenic.
 

gavin

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Don't worry about missing the Beijing SLC; the one in Chengdu is an absolute delight!
 

Peet

Giga Poster
Since Happy Valley Beijing last Monday we have seen some great sights and been on a couple of alpine coasters so it's worth an update.

Tuesday - Forbidden City and Olympic park
Wednesday - Summer Palace

On Thursday we visited the most popular section of the Great Wall at Badaling which was a very different experience to our previous Great Wall visit. It's very easy to get to from Beijing by bus (number 877), and there are various methods of ascent from the car park up to the wall. One of them is a "slide car"; basically an alpine coaster (complete with OTSRs), so that was the clear choice!

There are 2 parallel tracks on this ride, which clearly can be run independently. Only the right hand track was running on the day. The way up is all lift, in individual cars, and you jump off at the top to explore the wall.

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The wall is amazing of course, although very busy.

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Once satisfied with the wall you can ride the slide car down again; for this the cars are clipped together to form a train, and a driver in the front car controls the speed using a brake. This is designed for transportation not thrills, I can see why rcdb doesn't list it; and I don't think I'll include it in my count. It was much more fun than walking or taking the cable car though!

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We got back to Beijing in time for a visit to the Temple of Heaven.

Friday - flew to Xi'an, visited Drum tower and muslim quarter

On Saturday we visited the amazing Hua Shan mountain; there was a spectacular cable car to the North Peak, a tough hike around the other peaks, and a different cable car down from the West peak.

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On disembarking at the bottom of the cable car I was delighted to discover another alpine coaster to take you down the hill to the bus pickup point instead of takng the stairs. This has exactly the same system of individual cars up, and clipped-together trains down. However this one is definitely designed for fun, and the driver didn't go too hard on the brake so it was a good little ride. It is listed on rcdb (https://rcdb.com/14379.htm) so I'm going to call this a +1 (yes, even though I didn't complete a full circuit as I didn't do the lift hill section, meh I'm still counting it).

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Sunday - Terracotta Army, Xi'an city walls, flight to Chengdu.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
+1 for more pics of mountains in Xian. Loved the pretty stuff round there.

Internal flights sound grim. Didn't fancy the train?
 

Peet

Giga Poster
Thanks @Hixee and @HeartlineCoaster, I don't really have time to cover the non-coaster stuff too while I am still out here (doing all this on my phone), I'll add some of the highlights of the hol on here once I'm home. Hua Shan is definitely a big highlight and I wouldn't do it justice without a PC so for now I'll stick with coasters.

Monday was Happy Valley Chengdu day. We were in Chengdu for the pandas and this park's ride line-up is too good to ignore; a 100 ft GCI, a mega-lite, and a B&M dive. However I had read mixed things about the park, particularly about not running all of their creds on quiet days, and it did not fail to disappoint.

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The metro doesn't go to the park so we took a taxi from our hotel in the centre of Chengdu for 42 RMB (about £4.50; everything is pretty cheap here). I nervously checked the closed rides board and sure enough the GCI and mega-lite were both listed. FFS. At least it was a quiet day and there was still the B&M. And an SLC (yay).

Our time in Chengdu was too short to come back another day so we went for it anyway. Headed past the SLC to the dive coaster at the back of the park.

RCDB calls it Western Regions Heaven although the entrance sign reads "Flying Apsaras in Western Region". Disappointingly my bag was too big for the novelty baggage handling system that this ride operates so I had to store it in the usual way. After some musical stretches it was time to ride. I really enjoyed this one; it has proper OTSRs so you can get some decent airtime. Like Baron there is no corner between the lift hill and main drop so you can't see what's coming. The drop is good, although no tunnel at the bottom which is a shame. The second drop gives a good bit of airtime too, and that one does drop into a tunnel and then up and over the spiteful GCI. The water splash at the end adds a bit of theatre, although it is more for the spectators than the riders. My only critisism of this cred is that the MCBR is far too hard; the train pretty much stops completely, then creeps forward very slowly and it kills the flow of the ride. Seems unlikely they will ever run 3 trains on this coaster so it's pretty pointless having an MCBR at all apart from it working as a trim.

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Sarah enjoyed this one enough to suggest a re-ride before I could, which is surprising as she hates Oblivion.

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I was worried that the nearby spinner might be spiting too as it wasn't running but the entrance sign assured us it would open at 12. So we headed off around the park in search of the mine train. We had to wait for the station to fill up before the music started for the stretching routine (for a mine train - really!?), and before long we were off. Like the Beijing one this coaster is magnificently themed, very nice indeed. The ride itself is just a standard Vekoma mine train.

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We continued our loop around the park, stopped for a ride on the flying island thingy which took forever to start as they were waiting for it to fill up. The views were worth the wait though.

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Then it was time for the SLC "Dragon in Clouds". Reports I have read made me think this would be the SLC from hell; it was certainly a rough one but I still managed to enjoy it enough for a re-ride. Unsurprisingly the extra helix at the end (compared with Kumali) does not enhance or redeem the ride experience.

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Finally the Spinner "Crazy Magic Carpet", now running as advertised. This was the only Chinese-built cred on the trip, and my first Golden Horse. There were no stretches dictated for this one. The restraints in the Maurer-style cars are inelegant to say the least. There is a car-style 3-point seatbelt, then a lap bar, then a chain which seems to hold the lap bar down. The track layout is similar to a standard non-spinning wild mouse, and it was fine. Sarah and I had to sit opposite each other to balance the cars in the absence of any other riders.

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After a few more re-rides on the dive we headed out. The GCI and mega-lite weren't showing any signs of life and they both did actually have men working on them.

We took a detour back to the park yesterday (Tuesday) after the pandas, but both spiteful creds were still down so no mega-lite or GCI for me this trip.

The final park on the holiday will be Disneyland Hong Kong.
 

Peet

Giga Poster
I have a bit of time at the airport to make a brief trip report of HK Disneyland so here we go. This was very much Sarah's choice of activity, but it's a handy +3 for me so no complaints! We stayed at Disney's Hollywood Hotel which was nice enough but very expensive. Started the day with breakfast with Mickey - you're never too old to meet Mickey Mouse for the first time right?

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On to the park - overall this is a nice park although noticeably smaller than the Paris Disneyland Park. The castle is under renovation and looks a total mess.

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First up was (hyper)Space Mountain; Star Wars and roller coasters - what's not to love? The cred itself would be pretty poor without the theming and special effects, but for a Star Wars lover it was lots of fun.
I imagine the illusion of going into hyperspace is pretty good on the launch on the Paris version, but here it happens on the second of 3 slow lift hills which is a little awkward.

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Quick thoughts on other rides:

Ant Man & The Wasp shooter - pretty poor IMO and it kept stopping. Also Sarah beat my score which made me cross with it.

Iron Man simulator - really good once you get over the fact that Iron Man is not voiced by Robert Downey Jr.

Small World - good as always, I had the music lodged in my brain for the rest of the day.

Winnie the Pooh - Yes we did go on this, no it wasn't my choice. I'm not exactly the target audience for this one but seemed good quality.

RC - a dubious cred but RCDB counts it and that's good enough for me. It was alright I guess; very short though.

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Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars - lots of fun, some good surprise tricks, and a good sense of humour was evident in the theming. Better than Big Thunder Mountain for sure. Spoiler alert: I think the backwards drop down the second lifthill is a unique element, I'm not aware of any other coaster that does this (it is a slightly different concept to Kärnan); can anyone correct me?

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Moana show - dreadful; a rush through of the story with no songs - pointless

Parade - the main parade was cancelled due to rain (it wasn't even raining at the time) and replaced with "Mickey's Rainy Day Express" (a land train with covered stages for the characters to stand on and wave) which I found a bit tragic. Again, not the target audience I guess.

River Cruise - nice ride, good finalé, but the guide was a bit wooden with her acting.

Rafts/Tarzan's treehouse - this was nice, very scenic, the false tree is not convincing anyone though.

Lion King show - an excellent 30 min run through of the story with all the big musical numbers, very high quality.

Mystic Manor - a brilliant trackless dark ride with an original storyline, and some good laughs.

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Then we went back for a ride in the dark on Grizzly but it had broken down and people were being evacuated which was disappointing.

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Teacups - it was there
Carousel - see above

There were easter eggs of Disney characters all over the park which was nice, this set was my favourite:

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We both really enjoyed the day and I'll look forward to seeing how the park develops over the next few years.

Internal flights sound grim. Didn't fancy the train?
Yeah I did look at trains but in the end the flights were quicker and competitively priced. Our only issue was a very slow check-in process with Hong Kong Airlines in Chengdu leading to a bit of a dash to board. I think some people must have missed the flight. Sichuan Airlines (Xi'an to Chengdu) were absolutely faultless.
 
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TilenB

Strata Poster
Spoiler alert: I think the backwards drop down the second lifthill is a unique element, I'm not aware of any other coaster that does this (it is a slightly different concept to Kärnan); can anyone correct me?
Expedition Everest? I haven't ridden either of those coasters yet, but it does seem to be quite similar?

Great report, though! It's nice to read somebody's first time experience with China, especially regarding that Apple Pay-ish payment method they have in Beijing! I had no clue those things were so popular there and it's a shame you have to use cash to pay everywhere.
 

gavin

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It's a shame about two major coasters down at Happy Valley, but if it's any consolation, the GCI is one of the weaker Chinese woodies.

Antman is a bit s**t, especially after a couple of goes. The stopping and starting was a problem when it was Buzz Lightyear, so it's great to see that issue hasn't been addressed. To be fair, about half of that is due to having to stop it to let disabled people on and off.

I disagree with you about Moana though. Yeah, it's crap for anyone over 8, but as a piece of children's theatre it's actually pretty good in that it's an "up close" show which addresses the kids directly rather than having to very rigidly follow a backing track.

I'm guessing you skipped Mickey and the Wondrous Book?
 

Peet

Giga Poster
Expedition Everest? I haven't ridden either of those coasters yet, but it does seem to be quite similar?

EE is slightly different as it is a booster wheel lift and it holds you at the top. It's also obvious that you're about to go backwards from the broken track. BGM uses a chain lift, there is no hold at the top, and the track ahead crests the hill and goes out of sight so it will come as a surprise to most first-time riders to find themselves going backwards. But yeah fair point it is basically the same I'm splitting hairs really.
I disagree with you about Moana though. Yeah, it's crap for anyone over 8, but as a piece of children's theatre it's actually pretty good in that it's an "up close" show which addresses the kids directly rather than having to very rigidly follow a backing track.
That's fair enough; my reviews for the kids' stuff need to be taken with a pinch of salt!

I'm guessing you skipped Mickey and the Wondrous Book?
Indeed! I assume I didn't miss out too much?
 

gavin

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EE is slightly different as it is a booster wheel lift and it holds you at the top. It's also obvious that you're about to go backwards from the broken track. BGM uses a chain lift, there is no hold at the top, and the track ahead crests the hill and goes out of sight so it will come as a surprise to most first-time riders to find themselves going backwards. But yeah fair point it is basically the same I'm splitting hairs really.

That's fair enough; my reviews for the kids' stuff need to be taken with a pinch of salt!


Indeed! I assume I didn't miss out too much?
Well, it depends if you're into shows or not. If you are, then you missed one of Disney's best.
 

Peet

Giga Poster
As requested, here is a bit of a report on some of the other stuff we got up to in China.

Sunday 7th - Great Wall at Gubeikou
This is probably still the absolute highlight of the whole trip. Gubeikou is about 2 hours drive outside Beijing and we were on an English speaking coach tour. We got off the coach and walked through a town towards our first glimpse of the World's most famous wall:
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The wall here is unrestored, not like you see in the usual pictures, so it is crumbling away which in some ways makes it even more spectacular. It's also much quieter; at times it felt like we had the Great Wall of China all to ourselves.
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It turned out to be a great time of year to visit as there is beautiful blossom everywhere.
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It was passable up to this tower which was the point to turn back and head down into a nearby town for a well earned late lunch.
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This was an amazing way to experience this Wonder of the World, it was incredible to see the wall snaking endlessly over the tops of the mountains in both directions.

Monday 8th - Happy Valley Beijing, see previous post

Tuesday 9th - Forbidden City


After a beautiful day at Happy Valley, on Tuesday we woke to heavy rain. We pressed on regardless since we had no spare days and all of the things we needed to do were outdoors. First we tried to visit the Mausoleum of Chairman Mao - a strange attraction where the embalmed body of the man considered a tyrant by most of the world is still worshiped by many of the Chinese people. There was an enormous queue in the rain which we tried to join but were told that no bags were allowed. After discovering that the bag storage system was to leave them in a pile in the rain, we decided to give the corpse viewing a miss and head across Tiananmen square to the Forbidden City.
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A large portrait of Chairman Mao at the entrance of the Forbidden City was an adequate substitute for viewing his actual body. The ticketing system here is interesting; they scan your passport at the ticket booth, and don't give you any actual ticket. Instead you simply scan your passport again at the ticket gates and it lets you through.

This was my view for most of the morning:
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Unfortunately I am at just the right height to be beaten in the face by all the umbrellas, I was lucky to get out of there with both my eyes.

Anyway, the Forbidden City is huge and beautiful, although the architecture does get a bit samey after the 7th pavilion.
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The roof detailing was pretty special.
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After that we headed out of the North Gate and into the park opposite where there is a pagoda on top of a hill with fantastic views back over the Forbidden City.
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From there it was a bit of a trek to the next metro station where we took the train further North to the Olympic Park.
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That's all for now, next up will be the Summer Palace and a return to the Great Wall.
 

Hixee

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The ticketing system here is interesting; they scan your passport at the ticket booth, and don't give you any actual ticket. Instead you simply scan your passport again at the ticket gates and it lets you through.
Wow, nice trick of public surveillance that. :p
 

Peet

Giga Poster
Wednesday 10th - Summer Palace
After a washout the day before, this was probably the hottest day of the holiday. Appropriately, we headed out on the metro to the Summer Palace on the Northern fringe of the city centre. On arriving at the North gate we headed straight down into this idyllic little shopping village:

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It was so beautiful that I didn't even mind that it was full of souvenir shops (Sarah and I are at opposite ends of the scale for enjoying tourist tat shops).

With our bags a little heavier with all the useless tat / treasured trinkets (delete as appropriate), we climbed up the big hill that dominates the palace and this enormous lake unfolded beneath us:
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Heading back down the hill towards the lake we started to get better views of the pagoda that crowns the Summer Palace (looking back up the way we came):
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Down at the bottom we found one of the palace's key landmarks, this not-very-seaworthy looking boat:20190410_130907.jpg

Time to catch a (different) boat ourselves across the lake to the island that you can see in the earlier picture of the lake. It's linked to the shore by this rather beautiful bridge:
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And here is the view back towards the hill:
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After that we had a lovely stroll back up the side of the lake, meandered through the various exhibitions, mini-palaces and pagodas before heading back towards the entrance and getting lost in the extensive gardens. The people had thinned out enough by this point that is was possible to find secluded little places in the gardens like this one with nobody else around:
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By the time we headed out we realised it had been 5 and a half hours since we entered! I'm not sure where all the time went but is was a wonderful way to spend all that time and I would definitely recommend it over the Forbidden City (although maybe the difference in the weather has tainted my opinion!).
 
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Peet

Giga Poster
Thursday 11th
We returned to the Great Wall, this time a restored section at Badaling which is easily accessible from the centre of Beijing by bus number 877. Take the metro to Jishuitan and walk 5 mins to Deshengmen Arrow Tower. The buses leave every 5 mins (apparently; we only had to wait 2!), and you can pay the very small charge for the bus on your metro card.

I've already covered the coaster-type slide cars that take you from the car park up to the wall in an earlier post. Here's some more views of the magnificent but crowded
wall here:
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And here's me enjoying the slide cars on the way back down:
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We got back to Beijing in time to squeeze in a visit to the Temple of Heaven:
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This was pretty, although I was cross that we needed to pay to enter the park, then pay again to enter the area immediately around the temple, and we STILL weren't allowed to actually go inside but had to peer in through some doorways.

Friday 12th
Time to say goodbye to Beijing and hello to Xi'an. It was just an hour's flight with Air China and cost about £60 (top tip; it turns out internal flights are much cheaper if you don't book them until about a month in advance). It was pouring with rain when we arrived so we had a bit of a snooze and then headed out in the evening, first stop was a beautiful hidden gem of a mosque:
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Then we paid a visit to the drum and bell towers:
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We went inside the drum tower which was well worth the small entry fee and had a drum claiming to be the world's largest drum.

Then we explored the bustling Muslim quarter for a couple of hours and got some delicious street food.


Saturday 13th
Okay - a big one. To give you an idea, Sarah was more than happy for us to go to Lewa Adventure so I could get on Flash, and I chose for us to go to HuaShan instead, and I don't regret it.

We took the impressive high speed train for about 30 mins from the airport-like Xi'an North station to HuaShan North. From there we took a free but miserably slow and crowded bus to the visitor centre:
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There are two cable cars up to the mountain, both requiring another bus from the visitor centre; we thought we would take the West one and bought tickets accordingly. However on arrival at the bus loading area we found an enormous queue for the West one and nothing for the North one, so we swapped our tickets and before long we were on a bus, 20 minutes later we were at the foot of the spectacular North cable car:
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Can you make out the cable cars in picture!?

Here's a shot from on board:
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And the view from the top:
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The mountain has five "peaks", the North peak is a short climb from the top of the cable car:
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From the North "peak" the only way is further up (hence the inverted commas!), the views start to get really good on the way up, here's a shot looking back down to the North peak and its cable car station:
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It's a tough climb, it took about an hour and a half to get to the central peak with some magnificent views along the way.
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The central peak itself isn't much to write about but it's the start of a loop comprising the central, West, South and East peaks. More of this sort of thing:
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And some of this sort of thing:
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There were a few of these "sky ladders" which are more or less vertical in places and good fun. They're also all optional; Sarah selflessly opted to take the staircase on this one to get the pictures:
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The other adrenaline experience that this mountain is famous for is the plank walk near the South Peak. Here's a picture from Google:
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However sadly it was closed on this day, possibly because it had started to rain by this time, this is as close as we got:
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You can just make out a couple of the planks in the middle of the picture.

After making the route from North to Central to East to South to West peak, we took the other cable car down from the West peak. This gave us our favourite Chinglish translation of the holiday (point 7 - no passengers with habitual abortions...):
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We queued for nearly an hour for this, the station is in a cave that was clearly blasted out of the rock for the purpose:
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Here's how it looks from the cars; pretty special:
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The West cable car is even longer and more breathtaking than the North one; absolutely fantastic. And at the bottom there is the surprise bonus cred mentioned in a previous post:
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The bus from the bottom of the roller coaster takes about 40 minutes to get back to the visitor centre. From there it was back on the very slow and crowded bus to the station; I would recommend taking a taxi between the station and the visitor centre as it was an ordeal in both directions. We bought train tickets and didn't need to wait long for high speed train back to Xi'an. Overall it was an amazing day; it's hard to decide if this or the first day at the Great Wall was the trip highlight. I'm sure Flash is great but I would not have missed this for it (poor planning to not allow time for both!).
 
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