“IIIIIIIIIIIttt’ssss Chrrrrrriiiiiiiisstmmaaaaaaaaass!”
I felt like shouting that out this morning to remind everyone as the morning activity was just like any other. Felt odd I won’t lie. I wished everyone a Merry Christmas and gave Benjamin a lollipop Suzy had given us last night, that was my “present” giving for this year. Haha.
So sticking to my plan (albeit a little later than expected) I set off to ‘Happy Valley‘, Beijing’s main theme park. I knew which subway station to get off at and also which bus number, but finding the bus stop took a little longer. Found it, on it, arrived… it. Paid my 160RMB/16GBP and waltzed on in at around 10:30am. The ticket staff tried pointing out which rides weren’t in operation today, turns out it was basically all of them.
Yay, Happy Valley!
The site looks nice and big with a huge ‘Atlantis’ tower in the middle (Disney what?) and different areas dotted around it, like Mayan, racing, ant world, etc. Have a walk around first, scout the place then get on them rides, was the plan. The main rollercoaster’s were easy to spot and looked quite insane actually but the worrying part was they weren’t doing… anything. I knew that certain rides opened at certain times with anything after 11am being the opening time (that’s what I gathered from the Chinese sign at the entrance).
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Holy Crystal Castle
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Extreme Rusher in the background, closed
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The map says ‘Funny Funcy Diving’ haha!
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Think this is some water show thing
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Jungle Racing, closed
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That’s Crystal Wing, went on that
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This was a restaurant
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Golden Wings in Snowfield, closed.
Right let’s just cut this short. I spent about 4 hours here and was on at least 4 different rides purely because nothing was bloody open. Jebus. Now don’t say “It’s fecking Christmas Dan!!” as that means jack shite here, this is just another day. The water rides fair enough as they are frozen BUT why everything else?! The park was quite dead, granted, but still wasn’t a good excuse in my eyes. Thankfully I did ride one of their main coasters though, Crystal Wings, it was really cool. You sit in the seat and then it tilts you forward so you are in the Superman position, bloody intimidating at first (seeing the ground like that with someone that doesn’t like heights too much) but bloody good fun too! Despite the somewhat negative write up of the park I still had fun. 🙂
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TROJAN HOERS, closed
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Olympic Culture Square
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Apollo Wheel, went on twice, good fun
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The start of Crystal Wing
As ever though the smog was about and really got to me at the end of the day, feeling a bit ‘guh!’ I left for home. I had a bit of a nap when I got in, recharge the batteries a wee bit. Yu came home and we had some noodles for tea whilst chatting about how different it is here during Christmas. Essentially each year builds up to this day plus New Year, at least that’s how I feel about it, not that I’m a Christmassy person at all I just think that’s how it is in our society. Benjamin came home and we started building some of his new Lego he got for his Birthday, then bed.
Well I hope everyone has had a great day, given and received many a present, eaten lots of food, drunk lots of drink and pulled many a cracker. Family and friends, I’m thinking of you all (soppy git!). 🙂