Asia 01/16 – Window of the World Shenzhen
After a breakfast that tried to kill me, the plan for the morning was to head out to Knight Valley and score the amazing looking (and imaginatively named) Wood Coaster. Following some confusion, there was actually a bus literally outside the hotel that went all the way out to the resort, which is way beyond the city to the east. The bus took the most tedious of journeys imaginable, all while I wasn’t feeling too good and after a good couple of hours, it dumped us at the end of the road that heads into the resort.
Immediately we were swarmed by a crowd of old people trying to sell us plastic buckets and spades. Granted, there is a beach here at Dameisha, but we were clearly heading up towards the park which is in a beautifully mountainous location upon which those wouldn’t be the most useful of tools. They followed us all the way to the car park barrier, ignoring both a plea for ignorance and a direct no before eventually finding someone else to bother.
That turned out to be the highlight of the journey as upon arrival at the ticket desk, we were informed that the wooden rollercoaster was closed for maintenance. The one and only reason I came. Because of the nature of the location, I never even laid eyes on the ride that had spited me so badly, hiding somewhere a mile up in those trees. It was time to get back on the bus and endure the exact same journey all over again, this time without even excitement to carry it.
The other plan for the day was a park in the city, opposite Happy Valley and back where we started, that had an insignificant cred.
Window of the World Shenzhen
The first things we came across were dinosaurs. The majority of this massive park is based around recreations of landmarks and there is very little focus on amusements.
How thoughtless! It turned out we were going against the ‘recommended route’, but the afternoon was pressing on and I didn’t care. I want the cred.
And it’s located inside this cave, decorated by a man in pain. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this ride. There were some cool looking promo videos in the queue that showed intense volcanic activity being the scenery for a magnificent rollercoaster. This was slightly true, though the ride never picked up much speed or did a whole lot. It had a good atmosphere but ended up mostly forgettable.
The only other ride we tried was the Bobkart nearby, the first one I had encountered and one of the longest in the world. It was great fun, accelerating far quicker than I had imagined for something completely under guest control and with enough speed there was even a semblance of airtime over the bumps in the layout, which seemed to go on forever through the trees. They aren’t creds, but I’ll have to find more of these now.
Satisfied with some form of completion, we whiled away the evening looking at the sights.
The attention to detail was very impressive, particularly when the stereotype for any Chinese imitation of something is to be of poor quality.
And they had absolutely everything. It just went on and on.
By the end of all that it was time to collect the luggage and head back over the border to Hong Kong.
Part 5