Bacon? Sorry no beef today.

Bacon?  Sorry no beef today.

The other day I went to my first Chinese theme park.  The park was called Happy Valley, and it is smack dab in the middle of the city.  It is actually on the east side of the fourth ring road if my directional skills are accurate at all.  As we pulled up in the taxi, I had already formulated my opinions on what this theme park was going to be like.  

The analogy I have been using to help describe how things in Asia are is as follows:

In South East Asia, you travel around and every where you go, every single restaurant offers an absolutely scrumptious looking 'American Breakfast'.  I might have written something about this a few years ago on the Thailand blog.  It is as if all of the restuarant owners in South East Asia took a very big long look at an IHOP advertisement, or a Pancake House menu or even the famous Denny's and Sherris breakfast specials.  So, after doing their 'research' the owners of these fine establishments said "Oh, thats easy, we have all of those ingredients, we will make an American Breakfast of our own and be famous!".  This is where the problem lies.  Although all of these entrepeneurs took a big long gander at what makes an American Breakfast, they never actually ATE one.  They did not know that a typical American breakfast includes pork sausage, not just a hot dog.  They did not taste the juice, so they never new it was orange juice that comes with a typical American Breakfast, they just saw that it was orange, and picked any orange liquid to put in a cup and serve to you with breakfast.  (You would be surprised how many types of 'orange' [as in the color] juice there is.)  They serve breakfast with two slices of plain white bread, but not toast.  They always did the egss correct though, sunny side up.  It is a great case of, "Awww, you ALMOST did it!" and everybody when they are traveling orders one American breakfast, then learns their lesson and switches to pork rice soup.  

Apply this 'copy-cat' method to making theme parks and what do you get?  Basically, a straight up knock off of three or four famous theme parks put into one.  A runaway train ride, a rollercoaster that goes through a huge mountain, a splash mountain ride involving rabits and wolves, a bug world taken straight out of "A Bugs Life" but titled 'Ant Land'.  Kiosks selling mouse ears, and a plethora of depressed looking performers banging on trash cans, or doing dances to pop hits such as PSY's Gangnam Style.  People standing in lines chain smoking, and putting their trash in little decorative jars that are supposed to be part of the rides decor/ambience.  Food carts selling beer and other snacks such as potato chips, strange ice cream, bbq meats and hot dogs (without the bun, on a stick).  Flower beds that are being worked on by masses of laborers, nothing seeming to be complete.  The front sign of Happy Valley looked very sad and dirty, like nobody had washed it since it was originally built.  All the restaurants in the park were empty.  It was a very strange place after being to tons of major theme parks in the United States.

The ambience of the park was just totally off.  It was as if the designers saw what succesful parks in the US were like, and tried to recreate them on a surface level without ever actually fully understanding the system.  It is once again the case of the American Breakfast.  Anybody who has actually experienced Disney Land knows that it is the ambience that makes that place fun!  The happy music, the parades, the characters, the interactive experiences around the park, the well known story worlds that magically have come to life.  Take any of the actual 'rides' out of Disneyland and you have a lame ride at best, but when you are there and in it you have a total experience and the rides are great. 

I am just trying to give you guys a feel for what the place was like.  (For gods sake, the ride commonly known as the 'Extreme Scream' in the US, in which you are launched one hundred eighty feet in the air unexpectedly to free fall back to the surface of the earth in a fit of stomach renching, adrenaline rushing glee, has a COUNTDOWN in China!  A womans job is to say, 3, 2, 1, goodbye.  WELL!  That defeats the whole purpose of the ride, the total anxiety before hand while you sit, locked into your seat, awaiting your unavoidable fate.)  All this whining aside, the important thing is we still had A FANTASTIC TIME.

It was about forty dollars US to enter, which is expensive for a middle class family in Beijing.  We went on a Saturday and the lines were totally short, and it seemed that there were more workers than guests in the park.  The rollercoasters and rides themselves were top of the line, maybe more like things you would find at a Six Flags type of theme park... you know, things that make you want to throw up.  

The winner was a roller-coaster that you are suspended horizontally from, so you fly through the ride as if you are superman.  Really fun.  At one point it does a inverted loop and it has to be one of the craziest feelings my body has ever had! 

We road the "Extreme Scream" four times in a row - I do not know what was better, watching everybody squirm before 'take off' or riding it yourself.  A few times my subconcious was asking me whether or not these rides were safe for someone basically twice the size of a typical Chinese Male, but I just told my subconscious to screw off.  (These thoughts came often when I was hanging suspended upside down, totally being held up by the restraints of a ride...)

Another great ride was called the "Merciless Human Accelerator".  I think a ride can only have such a kick ass name if it is named in Chinese, then literally translated to English via a translation program.  Basically it is a variation on the ship ride that rocks back and forth.  This son of a bitch sways about one hundred and sixty feet up on each side, then twirls at the same time.  This is one of those rides that looked like nothing from the ground, but once you were riding it you knew you were in deep shit.  It just kept getting higher and higher, and spinning faster and faster.  Everybody on the ride was screaming and having fun until the peak hits and you have a stomach renching turn at the top of the apex of a sway.  Then everyone is silent and wanting this personal little hell to end.  Haha, it is actually really funny.  "AAAAHHHHHH, OH MY GOD!  WOOOOOH"  universally becomes "Oh my god, I am gonna be sick."  (I was too, about six hours after the fact).

Me and Deybis convinced our friends Moira and WenWen to come with us through the haunted house.  This ride was really weird, it was  a huge building made up into a halloween style haunted house.  Me and Moira decided to go in front, then Deybis and WenWenin the back.  We busted into the first hallway and I immediately knew what I was in for.  I can not see a damn thing.  Nothing... at all.  I am taller than everybody and stuff is hanging from the ceiling and I have absolutely no idea what is going on.  I must have been wandering off the path, just randomly walking around each and every room until I found an exit.  Moira on the other hand, was absolutely terrified.  Screaming at the top of her lungs, clinging to me like a boa constrictor.  I could not figure it out because I literally could not see a single thing the entire time.  I heard nothing other than puffs of air and Moiras banshee style screeching, and I saw a few hanging bodies or skeletons when I walked into them. 

Apparently I was missing something.  Maybe people were jumping out and scaring us, and I just could not see them, or maybe the puffs of air were terrifying my side-kick, honestly I was so lost.  The haunted house was incredibly long also, maybe 800 meters of walking around a two story building in the dark, fifteen minutes of total confusion.  At one point the floor changed to some sort of mushy, or bouncy material, and at one point I saw some sort of dark figure stop and point at me and then run quickly through a bunch of mirrors to disapear into the darkness again.  

Eventually I drag Moira through to the exit.  "Why were you so scared?  I did not see anything! Literally, I was just wandering around like a fool in the dark"  Moira, who is studying English said "Very scary!"  Then told me in Chinese that she was very scared, and that was a awful attraction.  I couldn't agree more, totally awful.  

It was not until twenty minutes later or so while we were eating some sort of BBQ meat at a little cart that the mystery was revealed.  Deybis tells me that throughout the 'haunted house' ride, he would randomly reach out and grab Moira by the shoulder, or whisper something in her ear, or grab her by the ankle.  "HAHAHA YOU SON OF A GUN!".  While I was wandering around stupidly in the dark, Moira was really having a scary experience (as well as giving me a bruise on my right bicep!  Ouch!), all because of WenWen and Deybis behind us!  I had no idea the whole time.  Apparently their night vision is better than mine.  They never told her, and the only way she will ever find out is if she reads this blog! YOU GOT PUNKED!

There were other fun rides too, but those were the highlights.  Although the park was depressing, our team still rallied and had a lot of fun putting our bodies through a nightmare of loops, twirls, ups and downs.    

Love,

Mack