Conclusion

So in 14 days the group had managed to visit 32 parks and I came away with 62 new coasters added to my count. I'd also managed to experience a lot of what China had to offer both in the main touristy places and a little off the beaten track.

The humidity was a challenge to all of the group, it was certainly the worst I'd ever encountered. Even drinking as much water as we were it was never enough. Something to bear in mind the next time I come out here. A slight comfort was that the locals were feeling it too, the downside however is that their willingness to do their work (run rides etc) suffers.

China at the moment is extremely cheap, especially travel, which is a fraction of what we pay back home. I'm not sure I fully understood the Chinese social mentality, it's a lot more complicated than we have here, and whereas I was expecting a social structure similar to Japan or Korea where people are civil to each other, I got something totally different, where putting yourself in front of others is common place and there is little regard for the implication of a person's behaviours on others (examples would be people just spitting without looking where they're aiming, or the guy who wanted to know the time and looked closely at the watch of one of our group...whilst he was at a urinal).

If you're interested in China's history then Beijing is the city to visit. If you're interested in where the country is headed then Shanghai, particularly the Pudong district is the place to go.

China is becoming Westernised and KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut have invaded and are well established, especially in the main cities; perfect for those whose adventuring doesn't go as far as what they put into their mouths. However the best meal of my trip was spent in Qinghuangdao sat on impromptu crates made from beer crates and eating into a selection of cooked meats that I couldn't name but which tasted great.

Whilst English signs do exist, a guide is recommended to help with the language. To help us with our trip we used On The Go. A company with an established record of trips in Egypt and that had expanded into China following the Olympics. This company is highly rated with an excellent guide who went above and beyond what we'd asked for and in putting the trip together the company were able to meet our, admittedly unique, requirements very well indeed.

We will be heading back to China in 2012 and I'm sure we'll use On The Go again.

Our taxi driver in Beijing was a brilliant guy called John available at beijing-driver.com . He was recommended to us by friends and without fail I would recommend him too to others (which is exactly what I'm doing here).

A final thanks should be given to Yvonne whose idea it was to put the trip together, and who was flexible enough to allow me the bandwidth to squeeze more coaster opportunities into an already tight itinerary.

Shanghai Maglev

From the Bund we decided to go and ride the Maglev to Pudong airport. We figured it would be less hassle to do so without our luggage. The Maglev runs from Longyang Rd. station (it intersects lines 2 & 7) in the east of Shanghai and takes only 8 minutes to get to the airport outside of the city. It's currently the fastest public train in the world which is why we had decided to ride it out, only to ride it back again. In other social circles this is referred to as being a nerd.

Getting to the Maglev station turned out to be a bit of a mare. Having shown our driver on the map where we wanted to go and giving the international body language sign for fast train (think doing the Locomotion on Speed) he headed off and 40 minutes later had dropped us off at Shanghai's main train station instead of the one we'd pointed to. The crowds for taxis were too long to immediately jump another.

Beijing Main Rail Station...not where we needed to be.

So we took the metro from this station to the proper station ourselves and when we got to the station found all the lights out and the shutters down, which caused some verbal sewage to be vented. Fortunately they were just saving electricity, or hadn't paid the bills. The station was still open and we were able to buy our return ticket for about 80 yuan.

As for the ride itself it was really really quick but not as quick as advertised. It's claimed to reach over 400km/h and can do the journey in 8 minutes. The latter part is true but at only 300km/h no faster than the bullet we took to Tianjin earlier in the trip. I can only guess they ran it at 400 to get the record then turned it down for commuters. Perhaps the posters should be reworded to read "capable of such and such a speed". Still it was a fun train ride and I was surprised at how much it banks, just like my first hydrofoil ride last year in Korea.

and you don't get any odd looks for leaving the train and getting straight back on either. I can only assume it's regular behaviour for what has become a popular, if geeky, tourist attraction.

I found a sales-pitchy youtube clip that shows the Maglev in action (at it's quoted max speed nonetheless). It has better footage than the out-of-the-window in the dark that I took.

We were by now both completely wrecked so decided to forego a trip to the worlds highest observation tower in the bottle opener building and headed back to the hotel to crash.

Shanghai River Tour

In the evening we headed back towards the Bund, this time choosing to ride the touristy boats that go up and down the river. We were quite fortuitous in that we had just missed one boat and the one we ended up on was on the river when the sun went down and the buildings turned their lights on. So we managed to get some daytime and nightime shots. In hindsight this worked well as I can only imagine a return journey being quite dull as it passes the same stuff that you would have photographed to death on the way out. The cost of this was 100 yuan and it takes about an hour. The station to board the boats is about 20 minutes along the Bund Side of the river.

There now follows lots of Shanghai skyline shots...

So this is what happened to Thunderbird 2 after the International Rescue drug smuggling outrage of the 80s.

By quite a mile this has been my favourite skyline, so futuristic looking!

Sun Sea Sand Resort

The final park of the day, and the trip was located a few miles East along the coast at the Sun, Sea and Sand Park. This is a large man made strip of beach, protected from the dirty sea by a rock wall and unlike the last place, this is a resort that did actually have some public using it, despite the heat.

As you approach the resort you can see the coaster way off in the distance, and the only way to get there is to walk...so be prepared for that.

There are land trains waiting by the car park that give the impression that they can drive you there; they can't. They're only able to go to the entrance about 200 metres away and you still have the 3/4 of a mile or so in the hottest heat imaginable to get there...

We've made it to the entrance. Now the real trek begins.

...and when you do you may find, like we did that the coaster has no cars. Yep it was all a waste of time a little upsetting to some that the entrance gate still took our money knowing that there was nothing for us. Myself and the guide consoled ourselves by climbing all over the ride and claiming another lift hill conquered!

So with the trip at an end we made our way back to the hotel to say goodbye to our guide who's efforts were in short, amazing. A couple did head back to Happy Valley to ride the coaster they failed to do so initially, and their feedback was that the crowds are much less on a weekday than a weekend, which ironically was when we were down to visit in the initial itinerary. In the 2 hours they were there they were able to walk onto the dive coaster and only had to wait about 4 cars on Fireball before riding that.

Palm Beach Resort

Heading out of Shanghai, sweat pouring from us, we decided to head south to the coast. The sheer stupidity of going somewhere hotter than the humidity we had suffered the last few days was obvious but the need of the group to ride more coasters was greater. Stupidity > Common Sense perhaps.

The first seaside resort, Palm Beach Resort, is home to 3 coasters, with no operators around to run them and no people bar our coach of Western tourists to ride them. Our guide had a job finding someone willing to run the rides but after some coersion, and getting one guy out of bed who refused to work in the excessive heat and serve foreigners, we got the rides running.

First up was a rather unique coaster, and certainly not a dragon or mouse. This one looked more like a school project. Someone had taken a Chance Toboggan, replaced the coffin cars with normal cars and added a loop to the track. It was a mess looking at it and just as bad to ride. I nearly didn't get on it, my chest proving to be too big for the restraints. They did lock but would pop open when I exhaled. In the end they somehow stayed in place but I pulled it in just in case. The ride, relying on a circle loop, was forceful but I did survive it. I hope the school kids that built it passed their course with a decent grade.

Ow ow ow !!!

Second up was...another dragon. This one had been turned up speed wise offering a much faster and lateral force filled ride than any other on the trip. Clearly this ride operator wanted to give us some pay back for ruining her day.

The final coaster over on the other side of the beach enclosure was another Jungle Mouse, but this one was much bigger than the others we'd ridden. Clearly another model but less common. It was fairly decent but I still get a feeling that the car will shoot off some of the corners, fortunately they never do.

This resort was just a place to go to accumulate some credits, but the bonkers death machine is enough of a draw for the hardcore or plain stupid to make the trip worthwhile. It's about 45-50 minutes South of Shanghai straight down the Puxing Highway.

Luxun Park

Our final day of the trip had us taking in 3 more parks around Shanghai; one in the centre of the city and two on the beaches to the south.

But before we did those our tour guide surprised with another previously unlisted park that he'd found on his morning run. The park in question was Luxun Park, not far from the hotel and a park that had been open for about 80 years. We've no idea how old the childrens park was that he'd found but given that it couldn't be seen on the satellite imagery, I'd suspect it was a pretty recent addition.

It's that adidas poster we'd passed earlier in the trip. It's also across the road from the park.

Again the park was being used for morning constitutionals.

Another small city park with a good collection of kid friendly rides.

Along with the usual spin rides there was a single powered dragon coaster. China really is the Land of the Dragon. I've never known so many on a trip before. As for the ride there was not much to say other than it ran as well as all the others really.

Another nice find from our tour guide who was really going above and beyond to find our group what they needed.

As with Heping Park the locals were out in force doing their dancing and morning exercises. In the UK we only use parks for walking dogs and sound systems are frowned upon.

So it's a nice change to see so many people using the park to start their day and sound systems, albeit basic ones, playing their music...even funnier to us when you realise it's all old people that are bringing the systems in.

Batman was in the area. Shame his budget isn't what it used to be.

Luxun Park is behind Hongkou Football Stadium, the station for which sits on lines 3 & 8

Shanghai Zoo

The second park of the day was another childrens park, this time buried inside Shanghai Zoo, a massive open space where the animal enclosures are hidden away amongst the trees and separated by vast open spaces. It's not unusual for Tom Jones to have to walk an age to get from the elephants to the crocodiles.

I managed to come across the Gorilla enclosure and the elephant house. Both enclosures seemed to be of a decent size and the animals weren't doing the pacing back and forth that usually happens in zoos, but they look a bit bored and probably need more to keep them occupied.

I found this walking around the park and it's the second zoo we'd been to that allowed their Valts to roam free. They can't pose a risk to anyone!

As for the coaster, yep it was another dragon. This one was alright but again fairly derivative.

Stunning statue that we passed on the way out of the park

The smallest car in the world, nothing more than a board, some wheels and a car battery to power them. This was actually being driven on the road. Nuts!

Shanghai Zoo is located on Hongqiao Road, in the west of the city close to Hongqiao International Airport. There are no metro stations close by so a taxi is probably the best way to get there.

Pearl Tower

When we arrived in Shanghai we decided to go and visit the Bund, the old area on the bank of the main city river, opposite the Pearl Tower.

The buildings here are of European and American style, totally different to the modern high rises across the river.

But the buildings in Putong are just so cooooool!!

As part of the tourist trap that this area is there's a train ride under the river with a light show that looks very good on the posters. However the reality is not as exciting, the lights were pretty average.

With so much LED displays in the city it seemed a bit backwards to have an attraction that relied on so much neon. The pods that you travel in however are pretty cool, with turntable track at each end that rotates each pod around ready to travel back. We thought it so poor that we chose not to take the return journey even though we'd paid for it.

Instead we headed to a nearby mall (Grand Mall) and the food court for dinner. The whole floor was pretty vacant but I guess it was due to the time of night rather than the quality of the food. We had a good plate of pasta but were aware as we ate that places were being closed around us. It turned out that we were the last people on the floor and everything had closed, all except one shutter that was half open and that indicated the way to leave. So close to a lock in, what a China Crisis that would have been!

Fantawild

Today we headed out of Nanjing and south towards Wuhu, the city that inspired Blur to write that "Song 2" track. This small city is home to 2 parks, one large and one much smaller.

The first was the bigger of the two, Fantawild, which has nothing to do with fizzy drink and wasn't too wild. There was a small queue that met us as we'd arrived before it opened, but nothing to worry about. Even realising there was a second entrance and seeing a similar sized crowd we weren't concerned.

When we got in the park we realised that the coasters weren't going to open straight away and the staff were pointing us to the few spin rides that were but we stood our ground and the reluctantly opened up early.

First up was a suspended mouse which made a change for this trip. It looked rougher than it rode in fact we came back to the station fairly surprised with how tame it had been. This ride suffers from really slow throughput mostly due to one train being on the track at a time, the others sitting in the station waiting their turn.

Second coaster was another junior coaster, a couple of which we'd ridden elsewhere. This one had a little bit of theming, some of which got close to us more longer limbed westerners.

From there we headed around to the SLC, the new attraction for the park but this still had another hour until opening and we were advised to go for the mine train over the other side of the park, which was now operational.

After a 40 minute nicely behaved queue line we got to the ride and it was really really good, easily the best coaster in the park. It has a double lift, just like the one in Happy Valley, but this one has much better scenery and theming and like the junior coaster a couple of near misses that made the ride more thrilling than most.

Heading back to the SLC we joined the queue line and could see some of the group riding it. However when we got close to the front the park closed the ride citing high winds, which we couldn't feel at ground level due to the shelter but we could see flags that looked quite active. So we sat it out waiting for the winds to drop, they never did and the ride was eventually closed. Our guide did do his best to get us primed for the ride re-opening but it never happened in the hour or so we had before we departed. You win some you lose some! Those that did ride it said it was roughest they'd ever ridden so perhaps it was better to lose.

The park is a rip off of Disney and Universal and lacks a real reason to visit it to be honest, other than a few credits. None of the rides are particularly unique or run particularly well; the mine train being the best of a bad bunch.

Zheshan Park

From that park we headed into the city to Zheshan Park, a small forested park with two amusement areas, each of which is the home to a coaster.

The first one near the entrance to the park and under the big wheel is a powered dragon. On our visit the train had been given a fresh new coat of paint, so no riding here! It was probably in preparation for the main holidays in October.

The second coaster out in the centre of the park had a jungle mouse, which was as decent as the others but still not as good as the first one on the trip. The old woman who was running this ride did so very well, allowing multiple trains on the track at once, something that Fantawild could do with learning.

Cat, Dog and Mouse in perfect harmony!

I think they got the stencil the wrong way around.

The best statues of the trip.

Leaving this park we headed back to Shanghai and the final leg of the trip. The drive was estimated to take 6 hours so a good chance to catch up on music, trip reports and sleep...not all at once.