China 01/24 – Oriental Heritage Mianyang
After a night in Chengdu it was time to start hitting up some parks not in Chengdu. First up was a train out to Jiangyou. Where?
Day 8 – Oriental Heritage Mianyang

Though named after the larger city Mianyang, the station there isn’t actually the closest to this park. A piece of information I’m sure you’ll all need at some point.

Gotta catch ’em all.

It’s that vibe again.

First up was River of Tales. I said this before
Chengyu – a name for four-word Chinese phrases that teach life lessons. They’ve come up on other Fantawild rides in the past, namely the evolution of the small world boat rides in many parks.
This is that, but an evolution prior. It’s not Chengyu. It’s ethnic groups.This is that.

See?

Another #1 Puppy Coaster? Don’t mind if I do.

Hang on though, this Puppy has an identity crisis. It’s got the newer purple discount Bugatti trains instead.

Ok this time that definitely is Nezha, riding a dragon. A fairly old ride by Fantawild standards by now, Dragon King’s Tale/Rumble under the Sea (the latter here) has received quite the entrance package at this park. Lots of TLC going on with it too, they had a ton of workers hosing it down and keeping it squeaky clean.

To the point that we were directed through the exit and got to board the vehicles at the offload station, then ride the short corner round to onload. Excluse.
No notable upgrades to the inside of the attraction, but it was always a bit of a banger anyway. Mean old Mr. Dragon has flooded the city and we follow the kid with the rings and the stick and the sometimes three heads in their successful attempt to kick his ass.

Rawr.

Quite the dark ride game here it turns out. Jinshan Temple Showdown/White Snake’s Fury (the latter here) is pretty peak Fantawild.

It’s had decent coverage before, but here it is again. Lady white snake turns into, well, a white snake. Monk bloke thinks she’s bad. Steals her husband.

Here he is, whether you get live actors or not seems to vary from park to park, but we got the monk bloke on ride for this one, smashing this bell a few times, bald cap and all.

After leaving the boat ride you get to watch the main event. The showdown. More actors, water projections, geysers, fire.

It doesn’t end well for anyone.

I told you these Boonie Bear Theaters were everywhere. Got confirmation again that the story was different and headed in.

This time the lumberjack bloke had invented a shrink ray, bear based shenanigans ensued and they got shrunk, spending the majority of the film miniaturied, in danger, running away from a chicken. There’s a shot where they get drowned in noodles and soup, with a slow mo of one them sucking up a giant strand amongst the chaos – definitely the most laugh out loud funny of the versions so far. They’ve got all the emotions.

Creds! This was just mud and the wrong name on RCDB. Guess what though, it’s another #2 Pine Tree Rockets.

With clown cars.

I swear the entrance for Legend of Nuwa gets more impressive every time. This one’s had coverage already this trip.
It’s great.

Hmm, seems familiar.

And yet somehow different. Magic Gallery here has also had an entrance facelift.

But there was more to discover.

It ain’t the Magic Gallery I know and love. Instead of brush boy, we’re introduced to belly buddha.

And everything from that moment on was quite the surprise. Different ride system with these cool canopies and built in speakers.
Different ride itself, it starts off a lot more focused on the ‘gallery’ aspect. Similar concept in that the guy can bring things to life, which plays out in a very different set of scenes and effects, many of which are clever and effective.
Later on he introduces the same old painting that is the ‘destination’ of both versions and you slowly back onto a full-blown motion platform before spinning round to face the projection, turning the exploration of said painting into full on flying theatre sequence.
This is exactly the stuff I love. Going in expecting your favourite ride and then getting something completely different and equally mind-blowing.

But what I’d love more is to ride one of these. Look at the intense layout on this one.

‘Star coaster’ here is an SLC again. It was closed for the morning, but maybe opening later.

It did.

The overwhelming elation of yes, +1, outweighed the trepidation that it’s a Chinese SLC and I caught myself having a moment here, starting to skip down the queue with joy for #3 The Grand Showman. Wait, stop, what are you doing?
This is what Fantawild does to me.

After coming back down to earth and preparing for the fact that it was probably going to be awful, it was fine. Manageable. Car crash of an airtime hill, but that’s just funny.

*Tune plays*
Skip.

Worse than an SLC was my sudden realisation of what this was. An undocumented ‘water coaster’ had caught my eye on RCDB for this place at some point.

Well here it is. #4 King’s Gate. It sucks so bad, why must we count these. I got the awkward station encounter you often get here, while every other guest spends a good 20 minutes psyching themselves up, purchasing a million ponchos and making a meal out of intricately preparing for what should just be a bit of fun.
You should buy a poncho.
Nah I’m good.
You’ll get wet.
Probably.
We’ve got ponchos over there.
Nah I’m good.
What about your clothes?
I’m already wearing a raincoat, not much different to your poncho.
A nervous laugh, then a radio call to pen the air gates.
Operator radios back.
You should buy a poncho.
Nah I’m good.

I wasn’t good, but there’s literally nothing you can do about it. Some rides are just so stupidly wet that your day is over regardless of what piece of plastic you put on. Probably a top 5 soaking for me. Tidal Wave levels of splashdown, the two tiered body, then legs. Then a million geysers go off as you slowly drift around in misery waiting for the awful experience to end, each one like 30 seconds in the shower.
In freezing cold weather.
But hey, they opened it.
Think that’s just about it for this park. Spent the rest of the day drying off and reriding the good stuff. Bad creds, everything else is amazing.
Bonus Cred

Earlier that morning we awoke to find this, right outside the hotel door. I swear it wasn’t planned.

Later that night I got my first ever Chinese travelling coaster as we hopped aboard #5 Chicken Coop.

Themed and everything, it even had a soundtrack. Just look at the terror on their faces.
You can buy one for yourself on Taobao for just £10k. That’s the dream right there.