China 01/20 – Anshun
They seem to have got more proactive about ‘restricted’ items on the big boy trains now. Apparently a can of deodorant in sealed luggage is too much of a fire risk these days, so that’s a pain.
Took a morning train down to Anshun, dumped the bags in the station and hitched a ride to
Not so Great Xingdong Tourist World
I fully expected this. It was yet another case of hope, it may have slipped under the radar and be ready now. It wasn’t.
There was an even more eerie silence than usual for Chinese parks around the entrance. None of the turnstiles were manned or open. The ticket office was open, seemingly empty, but a woman appeared out of nowhere, behind a ticket desk, to tell us the whole place was closed.
It’s a pretty laughable situation so we literally asked the question “why are you even here then?”
She laughed too and appeared to contemplate her life for a second, I thought we had broken the ice, but then she turned back into a robot and gave some made up scripted excuse like the weather or maintenance.
There’s this A4 bit of paper up, the gist of it being it’s closed for ‘equipment inspection, weather, etc.’ We’re still working to turn this place into a wonderful experience for everyone. You can now pay a nominal fee (50p) to get a previously reported experience – walk in, look around and take pictures of nothing running. We’ll let you know the opening time on 20th November 2019 (This was 2nd January 2020).
Right.
A group of locals also rocked up to the park after us, only to be disappointed and start kicking off at the woman before walking off again. The communication levels are really bizarre.
I didn’t particularly go out of the way for this, so I’m sort of at peace with it. The city was directly on route this day and there was backup stuff to do here so the time wasn’t wasted. I know it’s a lot of interesting looking rides, but none of them are gonna be life changing are they?
I started using Didi on this trip, and that was pretty life changing. You can say up front on a map in the app exactly where you want to be picked up, exactly where you want to go. It’ll tell you how much it’ll cost and then find you someone for it. There will always be someone miraculously 2 minutes away. They’re incentivised to give a good impression and get good ratings. They have better cars, they don’t smoke in your face continuously and they don’t try to rip you off.
And the most important thing? It meant I had the means to get proper down and dirty with the creds in this country. Something I’ve always held back from previously. Let’s go.
Shen Jun Ecological Culture Town
A place of many layers. The outskirts of this place is a construction site. Within that, there’s these fancy looking buildings.
Within that, there’s what looks like your regular Chinese amusement area, but much more shiny. Within that, a window to load your top up card. And creds.
The Jungle Mouse was a great start. These places always look deserted until money changes hands and then people start appearing out of the woodwork to get things going.
So we were giving the eye to a couple of blokes on benches near the ride as we approached, any one of which could have been the ride operator.
Turns out they were just strangers chilling, as we reach the top of the stairs a young girl wakes up from her nap inside one of the mouse cars, cuddling a stuffed toy. There’s the operator!
The main course was the classic powered dragon. The Changsha Maglev of the coaster world.
And for dessert, this bad boy.
They’ve had the sense to pad the hell out of the restraints on these things with really soft, comfy stuff so it’ll never try to hurt you like that mean SLC.
What it will do is shake your brain uncomfortably around in your skull. Can’t be good for you.
Is any of it?
There’s a half finished hotel next to this ride, implying the whole resort is still a work in progress. I wonder if this amusement section is just filler until something more significant actually gets done. They should band together and set one up inside Xingdong while no one is looking.
From there we booked our next ride.
Ruofei Park
At first all we encountered were vast monuments within sprawling public spaces, which can often lead you to think is there really something for me here?
Always have to dig a little deeper.
Ashamed to say this was actually my first one of these Worm things. I’ve been turned away from ones that aren’t pay per ride. Money talks.
Legit ducking was required each time it cycled through the apple tunnel. Like that support on Fury 325.
Second Jungle Mouse of the day. Place your bets on what total we’ll reach in the trip.
Mickey Mouse and anime girls in perfect harmony.
Park was a bit of a tease in that there was an old map outside implying they had once had another big looper thing. I went for a closer look at the area it was supposed to be in, but just got shouted at by a bloke because it had turned into some paid zoo area for which I hadn’t paid. Have to make sure.
+5 then. Pretty much all the city has to offer at the moment.
Back to the station and onwards to Kunming!