Let’s get this out of the way so that you’ll know the overall tone this report is going to take and you can decide whether you want to read it or go and do some knitting or something. I **** ING HATE CHONGQING AND EVERY PIG **** ING PEASANT IN IT. The pictures I’ve uploaded don’t make it look too bad, but this place is pretty much on the same level of Podgorica and Hanoi in terms of places I’d rather chew off my own testicles, without an anaesthetic, than visit again.
The train from Chengdu was great: just two hours and very comfortable. I went pretty much straight from the panda sanctuary after making a quick detour to pick up bags, so I got to the hotel around 7pm. It was in a very busy area, but there was basically **** all of any interest around it. I walked up to People’s Square as there’s some really impressive old building (back to it later), figuring it would be busy, it would be nicely lit since it’s a famous tourist spot, and I’d be able to get something to eat, but there was nothing open, nobody around apart from a few homeless people and the city’s most famous building was just sitting in pitch darkness. Back to the hotel for room service then.
The next day I’d planned to do three parks, but managed to squeeze another one in at the end of the day.
Chongqing Amusement Park
This place was just a short Metro ride away from the hotel and was clearly visible from the station exit:
I arrived at 10 since that’s when most of these places tend to open in China. As expected, with it being a Tuesday morning, it was empty, but with staff around getting things ready/opened.
The first coaster was, predictably, a Golden Horse spinner.
The log flume never opened in the half an hour I was at the park.
The main coaster here was a typical knock-off looper.
It was **** ing dreadful.
I’d been realising that a lot of the parks in these reports look closed due to the stupid times I visit them with nobody riding anything, so I took a couple of “proof” pictures.
I waited for a front row ride.
These things look really nice from the right angles: very traditional and nostalgic even though these knockoffs aren't anywhere near as old as the Arrows/Vekomas they've copied. This one was only built in 2007.
The ride op must’ve then remembered it needed testing, so sent the empty train around right after I’d completed the first test run.
I didn’t fancy this cable car:
The park, especially the ferris wheel, was really well situated high on a hill next to the river for some excellent views of the city. I’d seen pictures of the Chongqing skyline and thought it looked pretty fab; I was actually looking forward to this place way more than Chengdu, which I knew **** all about.
However, because the city is filthier than a $5 daytime whore’s dirty-knicker bag , this is the view of the skyline - which was really **** ing close - I got:
I decided to try this again later, preferably at night. Taxi onto the next park.
Fantawild Sci-Fi Theme Park
I knew that there were just two crappy coasters here, so I intended to run in, grab them, and **** off, but that was not to be. I ended up here for over 3 hours. It was weirdly located in some kind of retail park. It was absolutely tiny, but turned out to have quite a bit of decent stuff in it.
It was a pay-to-enter, all-inclusive place, which I wasn’t expecting, but turned out to be worth it. The whole thing was one of the weirdest park experiences I’d ever had though. After I’d paid and gone in, a staff member said, in perfect English, “This way please, Sir, I’ll take you to your tour guide” before leading me through the totally empty food court/shopping area.
I thought that maybe they were expecting somebody else, some other foreigner and just assumed that I must be him. Anyway, it turns out that I was handed over to a guide who already had about 6 other people waiting with her. I don’t think this is normal practice since as we were being escorted around to each attraction, she’d speak to people over a walky-talky to get stuff ready for us. I’m guessing that they do it when the park’s dead; it was actually really efficient.
Also, there was an ENORMOUS school group who came in just after us, and they moved us around just in front of them for the whole thing, so maybe that was another part of it.
Here’s my group:
The first thing we went to was a sort of Stitch Live/Turtle Talk type thing, but really awkward and with little interaction welcomed from the 7 fully-grown adults in our group.
The character was called Doobie, and at this point I was feeling like I’d smoked a big fat one.
This was closed, but if I had to guess I’d say it was a Soarin’ ripoff:
Next up was the first coaster. I was pissing myself with excitement at the thought of riding a Golden Horse Spinner, especially since the last one I’d been on had been a whole 45 minutes previously.
The other coaster was a tiny kiddy thing, which we would’ve walked straight past, but I shamelessly asked if I could go on it because “it will be funny because I’m so big”. The others in the group have pictures of me shamelessly making a tit of myself; I, fortunately, don’t.
Next up was a show called Mysterious West, which was actually excellent.
This was the auditorium when we arrived:
This was it 3 minutes later:
There was a set of a Native American’s house on the stage, with a fire, and with invisible screens in front. Some really old Chinese bloke - I say old; Asians tend to look great for their age until they hit about 35 and then they turn to s**t thanks to all the cigs and booze, so he might have only been a few years older than me – pretended to be a Native American and interacted with the smoke signals from the fire (projections on the screen).
It was really well done, and the old bloke had his positioning and timing absolutely perfect. There was also a cool illusion at the end where he disappeared by walking through the back wall. The kids were **** ing terrified; it was ace.
Being really impressed with Mysterious West, I had high hopes for their special effects show.
We had the whole place to ourselves.
Again, for 3 minutes.
It was f**king s**t. It went on for almost 45 minutes and literally all it was was dragging kids up on stage for some really, really, shockingly piss-poor green screen effects.
This enormous building just housed a less-than-mediocre 4D cinema.
The cinema itself was nicely done out, but the screen quality was appalling.
The worst thing about it though was the horrendous subject matter. It was about how life “evolved” on a planet which is billions of years old!!!! I was almost physically sick when I realised that it wasn’t going to include any actual facts, like a talking snake, a man made from dirt, a woman made from one of his ribs and “dinosaur fossils” placed by Satan in order to fool us and lead us away from The Truth. Infidelic Pagan scum!
In here was a pretty large-scale simulator ride themed to space:
It could’ve been very good, if somewhat dated, if, again, the screen resolution hadn’t been so shoddy. It was really big with multiple cars facing a large screen, so the actual ride tech wouldn’t have been cheap; they just ruined it by making it impossible to forget you were looking at a screen.
The final thing here was also the best: Dino Rampage.
The inside lobby area - the whole building was supposed to be a natural history museum – and queuelines were also cool.
The ride turned out to be a Spiderman-style, 3D dark ride.
Again, it suffered from not having the best screens, but they were way better than the 4D Theatre and Space Simulator at least. It was actually a really good ride! It was really long, with some really fast movement from the cars, all synced really well with the screen. The story is basically a city being attacked by dinosaurs. Obviously, it was no Spiderman or Transformers, but compared to a couple of others of these that I’ve been on, I was actually pretty impressed.
I’d intended to squeeze another two parks into the first part of this report, to get a full day at a time done, but it’s got a lot later than I thought it would and I’ve got Game of Thrones to watch. I’ll finish up Day 1 tomorrow.
The train from Chengdu was great: just two hours and very comfortable. I went pretty much straight from the panda sanctuary after making a quick detour to pick up bags, so I got to the hotel around 7pm. It was in a very busy area, but there was basically **** all of any interest around it. I walked up to People’s Square as there’s some really impressive old building (back to it later), figuring it would be busy, it would be nicely lit since it’s a famous tourist spot, and I’d be able to get something to eat, but there was nothing open, nobody around apart from a few homeless people and the city’s most famous building was just sitting in pitch darkness. Back to the hotel for room service then.
The next day I’d planned to do three parks, but managed to squeeze another one in at the end of the day.
Chongqing Amusement Park
This place was just a short Metro ride away from the hotel and was clearly visible from the station exit:
I arrived at 10 since that’s when most of these places tend to open in China. As expected, with it being a Tuesday morning, it was empty, but with staff around getting things ready/opened.
The first coaster was, predictably, a Golden Horse spinner.
The log flume never opened in the half an hour I was at the park.
The main coaster here was a typical knock-off looper.
It was **** ing dreadful.
I’d been realising that a lot of the parks in these reports look closed due to the stupid times I visit them with nobody riding anything, so I took a couple of “proof” pictures.
I waited for a front row ride.
These things look really nice from the right angles: very traditional and nostalgic even though these knockoffs aren't anywhere near as old as the Arrows/Vekomas they've copied. This one was only built in 2007.
The ride op must’ve then remembered it needed testing, so sent the empty train around right after I’d completed the first test run.
I didn’t fancy this cable car:
The park, especially the ferris wheel, was really well situated high on a hill next to the river for some excellent views of the city. I’d seen pictures of the Chongqing skyline and thought it looked pretty fab; I was actually looking forward to this place way more than Chengdu, which I knew **** all about.
However, because the city is filthier than a $5 daytime whore’s dirty-knicker bag , this is the view of the skyline - which was really **** ing close - I got:
I decided to try this again later, preferably at night. Taxi onto the next park.
Fantawild Sci-Fi Theme Park
I knew that there were just two crappy coasters here, so I intended to run in, grab them, and **** off, but that was not to be. I ended up here for over 3 hours. It was weirdly located in some kind of retail park. It was absolutely tiny, but turned out to have quite a bit of decent stuff in it.
It was a pay-to-enter, all-inclusive place, which I wasn’t expecting, but turned out to be worth it. The whole thing was one of the weirdest park experiences I’d ever had though. After I’d paid and gone in, a staff member said, in perfect English, “This way please, Sir, I’ll take you to your tour guide” before leading me through the totally empty food court/shopping area.
I thought that maybe they were expecting somebody else, some other foreigner and just assumed that I must be him. Anyway, it turns out that I was handed over to a guide who already had about 6 other people waiting with her. I don’t think this is normal practice since as we were being escorted around to each attraction, she’d speak to people over a walky-talky to get stuff ready for us. I’m guessing that they do it when the park’s dead; it was actually really efficient.
Also, there was an ENORMOUS school group who came in just after us, and they moved us around just in front of them for the whole thing, so maybe that was another part of it.
Here’s my group:
The first thing we went to was a sort of Stitch Live/Turtle Talk type thing, but really awkward and with little interaction welcomed from the 7 fully-grown adults in our group.
The character was called Doobie, and at this point I was feeling like I’d smoked a big fat one.
This was closed, but if I had to guess I’d say it was a Soarin’ ripoff:
Next up was the first coaster. I was pissing myself with excitement at the thought of riding a Golden Horse Spinner, especially since the last one I’d been on had been a whole 45 minutes previously.
The other coaster was a tiny kiddy thing, which we would’ve walked straight past, but I shamelessly asked if I could go on it because “it will be funny because I’m so big”. The others in the group have pictures of me shamelessly making a tit of myself; I, fortunately, don’t.
Next up was a show called Mysterious West, which was actually excellent.
This was the auditorium when we arrived:
This was it 3 minutes later:
There was a set of a Native American’s house on the stage, with a fire, and with invisible screens in front. Some really old Chinese bloke - I say old; Asians tend to look great for their age until they hit about 35 and then they turn to s**t thanks to all the cigs and booze, so he might have only been a few years older than me – pretended to be a Native American and interacted with the smoke signals from the fire (projections on the screen).
It was really well done, and the old bloke had his positioning and timing absolutely perfect. There was also a cool illusion at the end where he disappeared by walking through the back wall. The kids were **** ing terrified; it was ace.
Being really impressed with Mysterious West, I had high hopes for their special effects show.
We had the whole place to ourselves.
Again, for 3 minutes.
It was f**king s**t. It went on for almost 45 minutes and literally all it was was dragging kids up on stage for some really, really, shockingly piss-poor green screen effects.
This enormous building just housed a less-than-mediocre 4D cinema.
The cinema itself was nicely done out, but the screen quality was appalling.
The worst thing about it though was the horrendous subject matter. It was about how life “evolved” on a planet which is billions of years old!!!! I was almost physically sick when I realised that it wasn’t going to include any actual facts, like a talking snake, a man made from dirt, a woman made from one of his ribs and “dinosaur fossils” placed by Satan in order to fool us and lead us away from The Truth. Infidelic Pagan scum!
In here was a pretty large-scale simulator ride themed to space:
It could’ve been very good, if somewhat dated, if, again, the screen resolution hadn’t been so shoddy. It was really big with multiple cars facing a large screen, so the actual ride tech wouldn’t have been cheap; they just ruined it by making it impossible to forget you were looking at a screen.
The final thing here was also the best: Dino Rampage.
The inside lobby area - the whole building was supposed to be a natural history museum – and queuelines were also cool.
The ride turned out to be a Spiderman-style, 3D dark ride.
Again, it suffered from not having the best screens, but they were way better than the 4D Theatre and Space Simulator at least. It was actually a really good ride! It was really long, with some really fast movement from the cars, all synced really well with the screen. The story is basically a city being attacked by dinosaurs. Obviously, it was no Spiderman or Transformers, but compared to a couple of others of these that I’ve been on, I was actually pretty impressed.
I’d intended to squeeze another two parks into the first part of this report, to get a full day at a time done, but it’s got a lot later than I thought it would and I’ve got Game of Thrones to watch. I’ll finish up Day 1 tomorrow.
