China 04/24 – Xiyou World of Adventure

Off to a new city the next morning, by the name of Huai’an. Why?

Day 2 – Xiyou World of Adventure

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More of a dark ride park for me this one, I remember looking online and exclaiming ‘damn this stupid hobby’ because, by visiting, I’d be obliged to ride Chinese Goudurix. We definitely peaked with coasters on the first day of this trip, so feel free to check out any time you like.

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There’s a big tourist centre and what could loosely be described as a citywalk with restaurants a significant walk away from the main gate, where tickets were purchased.

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I didn’t do much further research beyond the above, so headed in with relative excitement to see what we could discover.

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First stumbled across #1 Monkey King Patrol Mine Train, their cookie cutter mine train save for the monkey face on the front. The park is predominantly themed to Journey to the West, so Sun Wukong and his gang. Nothing new there on the Chinese park scene anyway.

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It had a few trains wait and was operated slow as hell, but had above average rockwork I guess. Even a few peaches to decorate the final brakes.

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Round the corner in some more rocks was the first dark ride of the day, The Monkey King is Born. Loosely billed as the origin story of old mate Sun Wukong, it seemed we were going around the park in chronological order at least.

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The ride was a Peter Pan-style suspended boat type thing, which I must admit I hadn’t expected as I can’t think of another one like this in the whole of China.

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It was built by Jiuhua Rides (who?). Wonder if they have more. Anyway it had some good stuff and some not so good stuff.

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Physical sets weren’t bad in places, a few need some TLC.

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The media based bits were poor, with a company logo or DEMO plastered all over them (made it easier to identify them for the database at least), sometimes not working, sometimes not synced up etc. Story was confusing too and not usually how it goes down. Eh, different.

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From there, stumbled blindly into this flying theatre. This one told the story of when Monkey got mad one day and kicked off, started some fights in heaven and then got stomped on by a big Buddha. Fantawild have a revolving theatre about it.

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Another weird one, it just didn’t flow that well, although it was a different vibe for a flying theatre at least. Ended hilariously by just fading to black on said stomping though. Where do we go from here?

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Next building had a show in it, said to come back later. Wish we hadn’t.

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Next building looked rather impressive and unique. Story was a new one too, something about spiders in a Pansi Cave Adventure.

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Monkey’s mate Piggy likes the ladies and some spider ladies had lured him into some cave and webbed him up good. The result was a motion-based trackless dark ride from a company I hadn’t come across before now – Playfun.

It lacked the motion part somewhat and it’s interesting to see the ‘inspirations’ being passed down throughout these ride systems now. From Transformers, to the Fantawild ones, now onto these more obscure Chinese brands, they all like to riff off of these same specific moments. Same framework, different story. Fun though. We got out of the cave.

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Chinese Goudurix was closed. I didn’t know how to feel. Mostly relief of course, but the cred hunter in me obviously wanted the +1 and to a lesser extent the morbidly curious coaster enthusiast in me wanted to at least try the largest coaster ever created by Hebei Zhongye Metallurgical Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. I’ve pretty much hated everything else they’ve ever done with a passion.

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The cobra roll in particular looks disgusting from off ride.

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But, credit to them, for all those places that claim something is closed for ‘maintenance’, there was actually genuine maintenance going on in the station. I fear it’s not enough.

What a pity, never mind.

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From there you reach the centrepiece of the park, the massive rock structure with palace bits sticking out of it. I had no idea what it was, but surely it must contain a ride, right?

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First attempt to clamber up some stairs led to a huge, but closed, door. And this sign at least. Know your audience.

Then, after a parade had passed through the plaza below, another tunnel further round led to the next dark ride. Not signposted at all from that particular end. Exploration at its finest.

One Belt One Road is trippy. Billed on the sign (if you enter from another angle) as Monkey goes to India to find a book, there’s very little Monkey going on and you visit several different locations. The vehicles are big motion based things again, shaped like a flower or shell, but rather than your usual jerky motions they have a rythmic sway to them. They slowly pitch you around and dance in front of each scene, for much longer than you would expect from most dark rides, it’s kinda funky.

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Enter Thailand, pass by some stuff, pause, turn round, sway and dance for a while looking at the same scenery, turn, move on.

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Enter Fata Morgana, the same.

Enter some projection room with fancy lights on a palace and fireworks, the same.

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Enter some British blokes on steam trains, the same.

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Then you end up in a Chinese High Speed Railway Station in your big conch and exit on the left.
And we haven’t got to the ride where you walk through a woman’s body yet.

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Well, that’s the next one, The Taking of Plantain Fan. The guy on the door could only really describe this one as ‘a film’, so we headed into the massive queueline which is more of a ‘walkthrough’ experience I guess. We’re looking for that plantain fan to help us cross the flaming mountains.

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You enter the mouth anyway, Monkey’s head is sticking out of the wall of the lungs somehow.

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Some long, winding pink ramps fill this huge chamber with a big glowing heart in the centre of it. I admire the commitment to theme here, as there’s a couple of service/backstage staff doors that also have their own winding pink ramps that are unnecessarily shaped.

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I thought this was cool, the statue rotates to form two distinct shadows.

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Then mountains. Then disappointment at a tiny room with seats that clearly can’t move. Is this not a dark ride? Then excitement at the fact that there’s no screen or projections, we’re just staring at a wall. Something must move.

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And move it did, it’s like Carousel of Progress but facing outwards, a revolving theatre that stops in several scenes. Monkey pretends to be the Bull King and goes to his wife to ask for the fan we wanted. She gives it, then finds out and gets annoyed, Bull King shows up, bit of a fight. Then the backdrop changes and random light show because we’ve got to show off our projection mapping technology I guess. Need I say, bit of a weird one.

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And we’re not done yet, around the next corner was yet another dark ride. A robot arm one to be specific, called Three Fights with Baigujing.

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This guy really didn’t wanna ride.

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Back to some more action based misadventures this one had a very similar vibe to the Suzhou Amusement park one with the big worm, cos it had a big floppy monster head instead, in a similar location, which wasnt very good. Here’s a diagram, woo:

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It entered the same revolving projection screens in an obvious fashion too. The system was rather fun though, had some hilariously overstated tip you up on your back moments for seemingly little reason, quite intense in that regard. This one we now know was made by [someone], there’s a plaque to prove it, I haven’t deciphered it yet.

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Behold! Actual maintenance.

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And we can’t have a trip without a cat photo can we.

Thus concludes the rides at this park. Stuck around for the two shows because I thought they might be impressive. They really weren’t.

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First one we had come across in the morning was trash, a Stitch Encounter style theatre thing that had the audience interacting with Nezha – the cool kid who usually beats up the dragons in Dragon King’s Tale. Many guests just upped and left halfway through, but as is the English way, I put up with it for fear of a slight on my character amongst total strangers.

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There was a better, more genuine theatre performance for the other show. It just wasn’t that engaging and by this point we were just so done with the damn Monkey King.

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He’s on every damn ride (except when he didn’t show up in India) and here he’s just being an ass. Ruins some woman’s tree. Gets his ass kicked by a guy. Restores the tree. Why are we supposed to like this guy at this point?

And then we left.

I had fun here, mainly because I enjoy all this discovery and new experience business. There’s nothing great going on in the park, I probably rated the dancing ride the most for the technology and effort in the early scenes. The place itself looks pretty good, but it feels way more than two or three years old already and there’s a marked step down in attraction quality when we compare it to the inevitable baseline that is Fantawild. Ah, my beloved Fantawild…

Day 3

China 04/24 – Suzhou Amusement Land
China 04/24 – Glorious Orient Huai’an

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