David H

I agree, the park was one of the nicer ones of the whole trip. Of course, would we think this if it had been a busy day, and we'd been waiting in long lines all day? The weather and time of year of our visit certainly helped make our visit much better! But overall, the park was really nice, well themed and had a good variety of rides. And remember, for the GP, an SLC IS a big, signature coaster, as much as enthusiasts may disagree. It was also nice to see the Happy Valley chain changing up the theming a bit, since neither the of newer parks in Chengdu or Wuhan (coming up in two updates) had the western themed section that all the others had. Ah yes, it makes sense that that was the entrance plaza. It was hard to tell from my pictures, since I took it while walking by it in the middle of the day. Thanks for the translation, Kailisun. At least now I know what it was! Frankly, I'm surprised I remember as much as I do. This was nearly a year ago! We visited 40 parks in China alone! Plus, I hit another 15 parks before China and 11 parks after, for a total of 66 parks in one trip! (Damn!) Add another 21 parks on my Europe trip this Summer. plus 3 parks in the US. Not to mention all of the cities i visited! With 90 parks in the past year, I'm amazed I remember any of it, even if much of it's a blur! (And yes, I know you're just teasing.)

I think most of the time, the Chinese asked whoever they saw first for pictures, but sometimes they'd come up to a group of us and specifically ask for one or two people. This apparently happened on the recent ECC China trip a lot too. They made similar observations. But there were a few older guys with beards who were constantly asked for pictures. In the instance in the picture in question, there were several of us in the gift shop, but they definitely wanted a picture specifically with Bill, for whatever reason. I got asked a couple of times, which I'm assuming was because of my weight, along with my skin color. "Hey, guys. Let's get a picture with the fat American!" (I'm a very matter-of-fact person!)

I just posted a new update to my Asia PTR, and ran into two problems. First off,I couldn't get multiple pictures to load in IE10 at all this time. It would load up the select files window, but wouldn't let me select multiple files this time. But I've been having problems with java lately in IE (despite uninstalling and reinstalling it several times), so that might not be a TPR problem at all. But I thought I'd mention it, in case anyone else is having the same problem. It worked fine in Chrome. When I went to post, it gave me "choose files" boxes in the selection box, which were not there when I tried it in IE. However, I ran into the problem again of random file numbering order on the second batch of pictures I loaded. When I loaded up the first batch of pictures, the order numbers were fine and were even displayed in order. When I added the second batch, the second batch all ended up in random order. The first batch was at the bottom of the list, in reverse order from 24 to 1 in the proper alpha-numerical order. The second batch was in reverse order at the top from 48 to 25, but the files themselves were all randomized. I had to manually find and change all of them to put them in order. Once I did, it all posted fine.

More pictures from Happy Valley in Chengdu.... Mad Rats still isn't open. It looks so sad sitting there all alone! There's a good coaster hiding in there! Now everybody is getting into the stretching! It's not just a Ghost Castle. It's a 3D Ghost Castle! We'd see these guys again at several of the haunted attractions at various Happy Valley parks. One of my favorite pictures of the trip! Isn't he precious?!? (The hat is totally my doing!) I still wonder what the friends of these girls think when they see this picture! I wonder if Bill became a viral star on the Chinese internet? Yea! They got Mad Rats working! Time for dinner! Our hotel when it's properly lit up. I actually have no idea where this was, but I imagine it was near our hotel. I don't think I roamed very far that night. You don't care about this stuff. You just want to see the PANDAS in the next update!

Day 20: Happy Valley Chengdu The main reason we visited Chengdu was for their Happy Valley park, our second of the trip. The weather wasn’t looking like it was going to cooperate, and it had already been drizzling. Luckily, it was mostly over by the time we left. But it wasn’t looking promising, so I brought my expensive raincoat, which I’d bought for the trip, and used for the first time on this day (20 days into an Asia trip during monsoon season!) And, of course, it cleared up, so I didn’t need it, and had to wear it tied around my waist for the rest of the day! But if I hadn’t brought it, you know it would have poured! So everyone else on the trip can thank me! The nice thing about the potential rain is that it kept away any crowds that may have come to the park! Our first stops were filming sessions on the park’s two biggest coasters, which they strangely built right next to each other, while other parks try to spread their signature rides side by side. At least this let them use a giant old-fashioned plane prop as theming for both rides. We started on Fly Over Mediterranean, an Intamin Mega-Lite, basically a smaller, shorter (and cheaper) version of their mega-coasters, but high on thrills. It’s one of four in the world, three of which I’d be riding on this trip. Strangely enough, it was my favorite of the four, even though the restraints were a little tighter on my in this model. For some reason, it seemed somewhat more intense than any of the others to me. But the whole ride, particular that insane middle section was just a bit more intense on this model, for some reason. If it had gotten two more riders to quality, it would have ranked at #6 in the world on Mitch’s steel internet poll. Put TPR on an awesome Intamin coaster, and you’ve got a great start to a great day! After a bunch of rides, we moved over to the park’s Vekoma SLC, Dragon in Clouds for our obligatory one ride for the credit. After the knockoff SLC’s, we were actually grateful to be riding an actual Vekoma SLC. That says something! After our filming sessions, we split up to explore the park. The first ride we headed to was a Sally shooting dark ride called North Pole Adventure, themed to Santa Claus and his elves. It was surreal shooting at Santa, elves, presents and little kids. Robb told us that the Sally people had once explained to him that, much like with the turkeys at Holiday World’s Gobbler Getaway where you’re not actually “shooting” the turkeys, but “calling” them, you’re not supposed to be actually shooting Santa and the rest, but he couldn’t remember what excuse they used for this ride. But you actually DID shoot at Santa and the rest with guns that looked just like guns, so whatever. Happy Valley bought several of these, which we’d ride at other of their parks. After shooting up Santa’s workshop, we headed to the very elaborately themed Vekoma mine train, Dragon in Snowfield, although strangely enough, none of which actually involved snow. The coaster is largely built over water, with fortresses and waterfalls everywhere. The Vekoma mine trains are actually some of the best in the industry, providing mild but decent thrills with a solid coaster layout. Vekoma seems to really shine in their family coasters. All of the Vekoma mine trains at the Happy Valley parks are clones. Next, we visited the park’s ice house (upgraded to an Ice World!), which was even more elaborate than the one at Floraland the previous day, with even more ice sculptures and a second smaller ice slide without cars that dropped you right into snow. Unfortunately, the Mad Rats spinning mouse coaster was down, but Robb had told us he’d keep an eye out for it to see if it would come up and text out everyone with a working cell phone if it did. We walked around hitting various rides as we went, checking back on Mad Rats every now and then. I wanted to make sure to hit the park’s really good haunted walkthroughs, the Ghost House and the more modern (and 3D!) Ghost Castle. I probably should have ridden the rapids and shoot-the-chutes, since it was one of the only days I’d have my raincoat on in a park on the whole trip, but on the shoot-the-chutes, the spectators can pay to SOAK the riders with what are effectively hoses. I really wish I’d taken a ride on the park’s Flying Island (which was actually on a little almost island in the center of the park) just to get pictures, but there often wasn’t time for that on this trip, since we left most parks fairly early. The park also had duck boat tours, which is something I’ve seen in many cities, but not in any amusement parks before, but again, there wasn’t time for that. In our travels, I saw what looked like a big raccoon on a leash held by a handler, who was selling the chance to take pictures with it. I took a few pictures, but didn’t stay long enough to find out that it was actually a red panda, and the pictures were a heck of a lot cheaper than holding a panda would be at the panda sanctuary. But many people on the trip did get pictures with it. Eventually, we made our way back to the Mega-Lite, not only the park’s star attraction, but one of the best coasters in the world. We were expecting long lines, but were pleasantly surprised to find the line at maybe 20 minutes at most, even with the horribly slow loading procedures. In fact, we were amazed to find that the park actually made everyone waiting for the next train do calisthenics! Seriously! After everyone lined up in the queue rows, the main ride op on the microphone would tell everyone in Chinese that they had to stretch, and would count off one to eight at least 4 times. In the first two sets, the riders would have to stretch their necks forward, back and side to side. And on two sets, it was stretching the torso. We were amazed, taking pictures of the sight of a station full of people stretching before riding a coaster – with the empty train usually sitting in front of them! I have no idea what this was supposed to accomplish. I imagine someone somewhere thought that this would help people from getting hurt on the ride? I’d seen a sign to that affect earlier on the trip at Lotte World, but dismissed it as foolish, But here we were watching a park making a station full of people stretch! And why was it ONLY on the Mega-Lite? But we would run into the stretching again at other Happy Valley parks, on their other Mega-Lite, in fact. Maybe there was some sort of injury on one of them? After a bunch of rides, it was almost time to meet up with the group again. On this trip, TPR had required meeting times at many of the parks. We would get together and vote on whether to stay or to move on. There had been a bunch of chatter towards the end of our time there, with people lobbying to get others to vote to stay longer. After all, there was an awesome world-class Mega-Lite with only a 10-20 minute wait! And we don’t have any in the US! Amazingly enough, the group voted for the first and I think only time on the whole trip to stay longer (an hour or two) at the park! Probably because we weren’t heading to any other parks that day, and there were no credits to get otherwise! Still, it shows the power of a great Intamin (with short lines) on a group of coaster enthusiasts! We also got another bonus from our extended time at the park. Soon, word got around that Robb had sent text messages out saying that Mad Rats looked like it was about to open. So, almost all of us headed there, and sure enough, it opened! I’ve never seen anything done like this on any of the six other group coaster trips, and it was really cool! It would have sucked if it had come up and most of us had missed it! Unfortunately, a small handful of people had opted to leave the park to eat outside, and Happy Valley does not allow free reentry. So they had to choose between a credit and paying another $30 or so for the one credit! I do want to point out one of my favorite pictures and moments from the trip, which happened at this park. We quickly discovered that the Chinese – especially outside of cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which get a lot of western tourists, are fascinated with seeing white people, and often ask to take their pictures with us. People with characteristics they see less in Hollywood films, like older people with grey hair or beards, redheads or fat or tall people, were in particular demand. Throughout the trip, various TPR people would be stopped by locals, particularly teenagers, to have their pictures taken with them. While we were shopping in one of the gift shops, a bunch of teenage girls asked to have their picture taken with my roommate Bill, an older gentleman. As he was getting ready, for some silly reason I handed him this small girls’ sequined red and black hat from the shop, which he put on for the pics. I really wonder what the Chinese girls made of this, since there aren’t a lot of openly gay or trans people in China! But it made for one of my favorite pictures on the trip! He looked absolutely precious! In any case, with our last credit achieved and a bunch of extra rides on the Mega-Lite, it was soon time to leave Happy Valley, have dinner and head back to the hotel. Because tomorrow was time for PANDAS! More pictures in the next post.... The entry area for the park. Art the entrance of the park is a big shopping area, with stores and restaurants. Too bad you can't reenter the park without paying! Several of the Happy Valley parks were having some big magic festival, but we didn't see any evidence of it. Parhaps, it was just at night or on weekends? Me with one of Happy Valley's ant mascots. A study in contrasts. Intamin Mega-Lite goodness, next to a Vekoma SLC! Get excited guys. I know it's early, but you're on an Intamin Mega-Lite! That's better! Neil and Martin are getting into the spirit! When I think of Vekoma SLC's, I always think of dragons in clouds, don't you? At least it's a REAL Vekoma SLC, not a Chinese knockoff. Trust me: that's an exciting thing! Time to shoot Santa! Hit the elf! The only dragons in the Dragon's in Snowfield theming. Note the lask of snow! Still no snow. But otherwise, very nice! Vekoma's standard mine train cleverly puts both lift hills in the same structure. I'd imagine that saves some money. Not just an ice house. An Ice WORLD! Someone's gonna have wet pants! See! Again, the glasses and my camera got all fogged up. Still a little fogged up, but nice theming! You know what's next! SKLOOSH! Several of the Happy Valley Parks have circus themed areas. But the Chengdu park didn't have an old west themed area. I don't even remember what was in here! You can see how close the city is. Time for some more Intamin goodness! No, no no! I said Intamin goodness, not Vekoma head-banginess! Not everyone in this group seems to be getting into the stretching. You've got to love drunks as theming! You can buy BOOBS in the gift shop! I always thought they made good pillows! Outside the Ghost House. No, it's not a big raccoon. It's a red panda! Elissa wasn't a fan. She teased everyone who liked them, calling them the red-headed stepchildren of pandas!

So, they would have accepted one or two vow renewals -- which are not weddings (at least not legally). But not gay commitment ceremonies, which are not real weddings (at least not legally.) Nope. Not discrimination at all. LOL. If they were smart, they would have just said, look, someone screwed up. He's been disciplined. We apologize. It won't happen again. Then went ahead with the contest, and allowed the gay couple (or more) to participate. They'd have saved themselves a whole lot of embarrassment and bad press -- and done the right thing. And they probably would have gotten some GOOD press out of it. It amazes me how companies and PR people, who's job it is to understand the media and the public, so often get situations like this wrong.

^^ No, because they were offering to let people re-exchange their vows as one of the options, which is in no way a legal ceremony. It's illegal to get legally married again to someone you're already married to, unless you get divorced first. And on a less legalistic, but more humorous note, it's not legal to marry a zombie.

Right now, Cedar Point's Facebook page is full of people complaining because they tried to hold a fake marriage contest during Halloweekends, but specifically excluded same sex couples in the contest rules. Their justification was that the state of Ohio doesn't allow gay marriage. But the "marriages" in the contest weren't even legal ones, so that is irrelevant. When a gay couple (who are active in the enthusiast community) complained about being excluded, they canceled the contest. When they canceled the contest, they claimed it was because they didn't want to take sides. But it seems to most people that they already have. Compare this with Six Flags America, who recently hosted a very public gay wedding on one of their roller coasters.

Good point. I wonder if that was why. The weird thing, though, was that I don't think they ever actually checked his ID or passport. So, he could have written anything on the sheet.

Maybe they thought that Martin looked particularly shady? It's understandable how they could think that! Seriously, though, they had this sheet ready, with lots of names and info already filled out. It seemed a standard procedure at this pharmacy.

I haven't tried adding pictures yet, but when I tried to edit my PTR post, the picture preview thumbnails are now there.

Just so you know, I took the apostrophes out of my filenames. I guess there was still one, from the one I uploaded individually just to test if it would work. But I don't think that was responsible for any of the other problems. I guess it's good that I have a batch rename program. I'll have to set it to work on the thousands of pics from that trip!

Great news! And yes, the comments are often inane! Especially that Janet person who seems to want to post over and over lies about test dummies being decapitated!

So, I played with the new multi-uploader, with a more complex update than most people have posted and ran into a bunch of problems. I'm using Windows 7 and MS Internet Explorer 10, if that matters. Here's the PTR update I posted, for reference. http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1344736#p1344736 So, the first problem I ran into is that the multi-uploader wouldn't accept any of my pictures! Instead, after uploading everything (with the files and percentages visibly being uploaded and going through) it eventually gave me this failure notice: Could not upload attachment to ./files/asia__12_-_days_18-20_-_chengdu_195.jpg. Could not upload attachment to ./files/asia__12_-_days_18-20_-_chengdu_196.jpg. Could not upload attachment to ./files/asia__12_-_days_18-20_-_chengdu_197.jpg. Could not upload attachment to ./files/asia__12_-_days_18-20_-_chengdu_198.jpg. etc... At first I thought it was the long file names, or maybe the hypens in my filenames. But after a bunch of trial and error, it turns out that the multi-uploader doesn't like apostrophe's. The filenames were in the format of Asia '12 - Days 18-20 - Chengdu 195.jpg Note that when adding the files individually, there aren't any problems with apostrophes. I even added one manually just to check if it still worked. Once I figured that out, I tried uploading pictures. It worked, but it paused for several minutes after it had said that the uploads were 100% done. Eventually, the first batch of pics was uploaded and ready, sending me into preview mode. But for some reason, it didn't give me the preview pictures themselves. Just the boxes with an X in them as placeholders for where the pictures should be. Not a big deal, though. So, I uploaded the rest of my pictures. For some reason, it then renumbered all of the pictures I'd previously uploaded to #1 in the posting order, and numbered the latest pics I had added as 2, 3, etc, I figured that was just a glitch that didn't matter. After uploading some more pics, I only had a few with higher numbers, and everything else was 1. I went to preview my post, and all of the pictures were out of order, in random order, other than those ones with the 2, 3, etc, which were at the end. So, I had to reorder them and manually change every single number! After I did so, everything posted correctly. So, apparently, when you add further groups of pictures, it resets all of the previous ones to 1. Which means that the person will now have to manually renumber every single picture into the right order. If not, they'll all get posted in a random order, since it thinks they're all supposed to be first. In short: -- apostrophes are not allowed in filenames for the mutiuploader -- there aren't any picture previews in the preview page -- if uploading more than one batch of pictures, ALL of the posting order numbers have to be manually changed. I hope this helps.

Day 19, part 2: People’s Park, Xinhua Park, and Chengdu. (Note to those coming back to this TR after a while away, while I didn't post new updates during my new vacation: there's also a new update for Floraland park just above this one.) After Floraland, it was time for a bit of credit whoring. We stopped in to two more small amusement parks inside two city parks in Chengdu: People’s Park and Xinhua Park. Neither park really stands out in my memory, since both were small and had exactly the same cloned coaster: a Golden Horse Space Car, a small kiddie coaster with a helix, similar to so many other kiddie coasters we’d ridden, and would continue to ride on the trip. For the record, the coasters were called Space Car and Outer Space Flying Car. For both amusement parks, we had to walk through the large city park, past some nice statues and people doing exercise, martial arts and dance routines, to get to the coasters. They seemed to be selling goldfish EVERYWHERE, whether it was in actual aquarium tanks, or makeshift ones in the middle of walkways, or even in small kiddie swimming pools! At Xinhua, one woman was making candy out of melted sugar, making cool lollipops with intricate shapes. Mostly, we just traipsed through the parks, got our credits, walked around a bit, and headed out. After the two parks and dinner, we headed back to our hotel. Martin wasn’t feeling well, so a few of us headed out on a quest to find him some medicine (I gave him some to hold him over, since I always bring a pharmacy with me on trips, especially overseas) and an ATM. Along the way, we found an entire street full of pet stores, bursting with overcrowded pets, most of which were in cages out on the sidewalks. There were the usual goldfish everywhere, but some of the stores actually had some tropical fish. But the other animals were so overcrowded that I just wanted to buy them up just to set them free! I’m not an animal rights activist by any means, but seeing 6 puppies or kittens in a small rabbit cage makes me sad. Eventually, we were successful in our quests for both the ATM and the cold medicine, though the medicine took some working. I used my fine charades skills to mime someone coughing and sneezing to get the pharmacist to understand us! Strangely enough, in order to buy the medicine Martin had to fill out this sheet with all sorts of info about him, including I think his passport number and what hotel we were staying at. I’m not sure if that’s the case for all drugs, or just for foreigners. Or if they were concerned he’d be making crystal meth out of the drugs. (Martin looks a little shady that way!) But it was kind of weird. They headed back to the hotel to rest, while I headed out to see more of the city. It was getting dark out, and I wanted a closer look at all of the bright neon lights on many Chengdu’s taller buildings. As we’d headed into the city the first night, we noted how almost every taller building was all lit up with many colors, making for a gorgeous skyline. Several cities we’d visit would have lots of nice lighting, but I think that Chengdu had the most. Even the smaller hotels or business buildings had some sort of flashing and changing light patterns. So, I headed toward the city’s center, just walking around and taking a ton of pictures. As I hit the main hub, it started to rain lightly. I was a big hungry, so I stopped at some local fried chicken place, and tried a few different very tasty pieces of chicken, which had different spices and seasonings on them. While there, some local kid was fascinated about this visiting white kid and struck up a conversation with me. Needless to say, he was surprised that I was in his city – and his country -- to ride roller coasters, but we talked for a while before I headed back to the hotel. He invited me out clubbing with his group of friends the next night, but there wasn’t really time for that at this point in the trip. Still it was a nice gesture. I walked back to the hotel in the light rain and called it a night. This was actually some of the only rain we got on the trip. And none of it really interfered with our coastering very much. We were VERY lucky, considering that we were there during typhoon season. In fact, right about at this time, a typhoon was threatening Hong Kong and Southeastern China – right where we’d be heading soon. But luckily, it beat us there, and managed to suck most of the moisture out of the air! A pond in the park on the way to the coaster at People's Park It looks like we're headed in the right direction.... Getting a little culture on the way. A nice landmark to something. Now, this looks like something we might be looking for.... Yes, you're going to have to do some work now! This is how crazy busy the coaster was before we got there. Soon the coaster would be full of adult Americans! They sell goldfish EVERYWHERE in China. Even in the city park. We've actually moved on to Xinhua Park, though you wouldn't know it from looking at the coaster. It's exactly the same model, with a slightly different paint job. Whores! WHORES! And more whores! Bjorn seems kind of Zen about his whoriness! Yeah, this didn't look too dangerous, right over the helix! Watch out! Elissa, it's not worth losing your head for the credit! The lady making lollipops out of melted sugar. Neil's enjoying his! And more goldfish. With a real fancy $2 filter that looks like a blender. Or maybe it IS a blender, and that's why the cocktails taste so weird? Some cool building we saw on the road. A park fountain on the way to the hotel. This was the lovely view from our hotel room! Let's get a nice closeup of those fine Chinese construction skills! Even the stores have tons of lights and neon! The view of the river from the bridge next to our hotel. Anyone want some "purple romance"? LOL! Once it was dark enough to kind of hide the collapsing building, the view of the city's neon lights was gorgeous! All of the building's lighting patterns were constantly changing. Time to see some of those lights up close! The TRON building. The Sichuan Science and Technology Museum, which I only know because I zoomed in the picture! More TRON. Our hotel. By this late, many of the city's neon lights were off. Our hotel's funky lobby. This vase was in our hotel room. Classy!

One of the reasons I wanted to do this set of trip reports was so that I wouldn't forget all of the little details that make trips memorable. Since it's been almost a year already, a lot of them are already fading. (In fact, I left for Tokyo 9 days from today, last year!) So it's good to hear from others on the trip to fill in the holes. Feel free to keep adding in your own reminiscences, everyone, even if you've been to the parks, but not on the TPR trip. One thing I'm discovering is that in the midst of all the fun and dashing around on this trip, I managed to not get pictures of a lot of things I wish I had. At the time, I was expecting that I'd be able to see everyone else's pics, but others may not have cared about or remembered the same things I did. Something to remember for future trips. After all, one of the big advantages of having a digital camera is being able to take TONS of pics. Especially if you upload the pics to a laptop every day or so, like I do. (I've had a friend on another trip lose her camera on a coaster towards the end of a trip, and lose ALL of their pictures of the trip!) Still, it's weird to realize that I took 19,000 pictures on this trip (yes, you read that right) and am still missing lots of things I wish I had pictures of! I don't actually remember riding any dark rides at Floraland. I'm not sure if that's just my memory going bad, with much of the trip a blur, or if I didn't ride any there. I know I didn't get any pictures of any. And I'd usually try to hit them up, since they're always unique. But there were a lot of great flat rides there, so I may have just run out of time. I remember thinking before we got there that we probably had too much time there, but it turned out that we could have used another hour or so. And I'd completely forgotten about the unique "onride photo" system at the coaster there! Thanks for the reminder.

I'm surprised to see several negative comments about the ride. I was there last month with ACE, and everyone seemed to really love it. And that tends to be a pretty picky crowd, especially when it comes to looping coasters. It was easily the best Eurofighter I've been on. Our ERT session on Karacho almost got rained out. We had a couple of hours at the park before closing, then a few more the following morning. But about an hour or two before closing, the heavens opened up, for some of the only rain we got on the entire trip. The rain stopped only a very short time before the park was closing. But they still managed to open up G'Sengte Sau for a short time, to give some people time to get a ride in before they closed. Unfortunately, I'd given up hope on the rain letting up, and had slowly dashed with friends from point to point all the way back to the front, so I had to walk all the way back to that part of the park, and just missed G'sengte Sau (though I did get to ride the following morning.) But they quickly had Karacho open for our ERT session, and even opened up a special walkway cut through under the loading station so we wouldn't have to walk all the way around. They did have all trains running, and were loading the coaster very efficiently. And I don't remember the mid-course being on much, if at all. I honestly thought it was the best use of the Eurofighter technology I'd seen yet. Pure fun, with a lots of drops and directional changes that flowed into each other well and didn't seem awkward. If I hadn't already sent my Golden Tickets ballot in, I'd have given it the vote for best new ride. Honestly, it was one of the best surprises of the trip. I hadn't been expecting much for the coaster (or the park, to be honest), but loved it (and the park)! I even squeezed in one more ride the following morning.

Is Zombie Paradise gone? What about the haunted walkthrough? The one where you wrote down a wish, and got a surprise at the end? Those were definite highlights of the park. Still, it's good to see Thunder Dolphin running again, even if I missed it this time by a year. It wasn't by any means a top coaster for me, but it was still fun and a great experience, between the view and the neat interaction with the building and the hubless wheel.

Day 19, part 1: Chengdu. Floraland After spending our first night in a new city, Chengdu, we were ready to hit our first park here. Floraland was one of those parks that when we looked at the coaster list, seemed like a place you would only go for the credits and not much else. After all, they had an SLC knockoff and a spinning mouse. Woo hoo. But it turned out to be one of the parks that I enjoyed the most on the trip, for a bunch of other reasons. For a medium sized park, they put quite a bit of money into landscaping and theming, though most of the theming was more for the park itself than for specific rides. The park even had its own mascots, which were pretty reminiscent of Mickey and Minnie. Needless to say, we headed straight for the coasters. The SLC knockoff called Dragon Rider was an SLC knockoff. Do I really need to say more? It wasn’t quite as painful as some – or had we just gotten used to them, and desensitized to the pain? I’m fairly certain that no one rode twice. From there, we headed over to the spinning mouse called Revolving Pulley. Like most of the spinning mice in China, it spun, but not all that much. Check. Check. Now what? Robb insisted that we head over to the Tagada ride. Most of us had never heard of these rides, but those who had were excited. I’d first seen one of those in the TPR video at Gyeongju World in Korea. I’d been particularly disappointed that the ride hadn’t been open on my visit two weeks prior, since it had looked like a CRAZY ride in Robb’s video. And here was my chance to ride one! Watching the ride in motion, we knew it was going to be crazy. For those who don’t know, a Tagada is a round ride that spins. The ride op not only controls the spinning, but can make various parts of the ride bounce. Since this model had padded seats and a padded floor, the ride op was free to literally THROW us all over the place. And he did! The ride op seemed particularly overjoyed to have such a willing group of American victims, and gave us some particularly crazy rides, sincging along to songs like a newer dancier version of ”I Will Survive.” In fact, since we hadn’t all fit on the first ride, I jumped right back on for our second ride! I can’t describe how crazy these rides were, but the floor was covered with experienced enthusiasts rolling and bouncing all over the place, laughing our asses off. On the second ride, I was mostly able to sit up, after being bounced onto the floor – mostly. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard on any ride before or since then! Since then, I’ve ridden two Tagadas at German fairs, but since those rides weren’t padded, they weren’t nearly as much fun, since they kept us in our seats (mostly.) If you haven’t seen the video that Robb posted of our second ride, go look it up now. It’s hysterical! It’s so rare these days for many of us jaded enthusiasts to get a new experience at a park. And this was quite the memorable experience! The other ride that Robb insisted we hit up was the ice house. I’d seen some of these at parks in Japan, where the attraction is mainly a cold house with various ice sculptures and decorations, mainly meant to give you a chance to cool down in the hot summer heat. But this one was one of several in China that had an actual slide made out of ice, hearkening back to the Russian ice slides that are the precursors to modern day roller coasters. (Or montana rusas – Russian mountains – in Spanish.) We had a blast on the slide, even if it wasn’t particularly thrilling. Still, sometimes old-fashioned fun is great. After that, we split up around the park. A bunch of us found a giant frog hopper. Basically, the same ride that parks have for kids, but a larger model for adults. A few of us braved a Booster knockoff, which I didn’t manage to get a picture of. Still, if you know what the ride is, you’re asking yourself what the hell we were thinking, trusting our lives to a very tall Chinese knockoff ride with seats on a very long stick. After I got on the ride, I asked myself the same thing, wondering if we’d made a fatal mistake! I grabbed a couple of “meat on sticks”, which were flavored with the local Sichuan – which our new tour guide made sure to tell us was properly pronounced “soo-chwan” , not “seh-shoo-wan” as most Americans pronounce it. – spices. Luckily, these weren’t as hot as the local fare is known for being, but they were tasty enough that I went back for more! Chengdu is in the Sichuan region of China. Soon, we were on our way to more parks. But as we left Floraland, we noticed another park down the street. Apparently, this was a MAJOR expansion for Floraland that they were building. There were at least three coasters there, including a large multi-looper. The bus pulled over for a short stop, and many people got outside to take pictures, but I opted to just get a few from inside the comfortable air conditioned bus. I’ve never been all that excited to take pictures of coasters and rides that I cannot yet ride! Agreed! Floraland has an impressive entranceway for a medium sized park! We should have paid to have all of our pictures on here, just to confuse the locals! There's all this nice theming in the midways, but surprisingly little on the rides, other than in the ice house. Why does this seem a little familiar? The park has nice landscaping, too. What do you mean NO HAMBURGERS?!?!? Does that mean I'm not allowed on the SLC knockoff? (Secretly grateful and releived!) Can't you almost hear the screams of pain? It's almost over! More random theming. I feel like I've seen one of these before.... It spins... a little. I'm sure the name makes much more sense in Chinese. Robb and Hanno look like they're really enjoying their ride! What a cute kiddie ride! I don't think I managed to ride any of the Top Scan knockoffs in China. Too bad, because I really enjoy the rides. Then again, I'm still alive, and maybe I might not have been able to say that if I'd ridden them! The Tagada. Notice that we're all (mostly) sitting -- for now! Oh crap! Here we go! While Dan struggles in the middle, I'm happily sitting with my arms up! Then again, it's my second ride. I managed to stay up for most of the ride -- on my second ride! The really cool ice house. Don't you hate it when everyone accidentally wears the same jacket? I'm so fashionable! Sometimes simple pleasures are the best! Do you think Neil will enjoy it? I guess so! The ice slide is built into a castle setting. Some nice ice sculptures in the ice house. Hmmmm.... The ice house was so cold that it fogged up Jon and Brian's glasses -- and my camera lens! While my camera lens was still foggy, we apparently travelled to Spain. A nice fountain with a Frisbee knockoff in the background. But wait, what's that I see? Let's zoom in.... Mermaid boobs! See, now you're glad you read this update, aren't you? Adult frog hopper. Floraland spared no expense in investing in the very latest in cash register technology. Yes, it's a cardboard box! The upcoming major expansion to Floraland, as seen from the bus. (Cue lots of nerds rushing out to get pictures!)

Well, given how long it's taken me to get last year's TR done -- and to be honest, all of the anti-ACE hate on here (I try to stay out of these fights and not take sides) -- probably not. Until then, I've posted some pics on my Facebook page, though I had them tagged to only be viewable to friends, so that potential thieves wouldn't know I was away. (A good tip for all of us travelers!) Between the two trips, I have over 31,000 pictures to sort through! (19k from the Asia trip and 12k from Europe!) Let me get this one done first before I decide, though.

^ Well, if there's ANY airtime on the return run, then you can probably thank the new trains. I rode it last October with the old trains, and there was none.

I'm now back from 4 weeks in Europe. I had an awesome time, hitting lots of parks and coasters! Highlights include Disneyland Paris (with Extra Magic Hours, thanks to the discounted season pass I got), OzIris, Tonnere de Zeus, Expedition GeForce (which was running even better than on my previous visit), Wodan and Blue Fire (and pretty much all of Europa Park!), the new Karacho and Olympia Looping. The surprise of the trip was definitely Phantasialand, without a bad coaster in the bunch, particularly it's amazing Colorado Adventure, which was nothing like you'd ever expect from a mine train! But I also got to explore a lot of cities I've always wanted to visit like Prague, Budapest, Vienna and Lisbon, as well as take more time to explore cities like Paris and Amsterdam better. The fun of the parks and coasters was balanced with sobering visits to Auschwitz and the Anne Frank House, reminding me that the same humanity that makes these fun rides is capable of such extreme horrors. All in all, an amazing trip! But this thread is about my PREVIOUS trip to Asia. Now that I'm back, updates will resume shortly with Chengdu, China.

Correct, Jon. I'm at Europa Park's Hotel Colosseo right now (along with a few people who were on the TPR China trip.) Sorry for the delays. I ended up adding to the beginning and end of the trip fairly at the last minute and left a week and a half early, which gave me a ton of last minute planning to do, and no time to post updates! I've already been in Paris for nearly a week, Prague, Krakow, Auschwitz (yes the Nazi concentration camps -- a VERY intense experience!), Budapest, Vienna, and quite a bit of Germany. From Budapest on was part of the ACE Central Europe trip, which I'll be on just over another week, which will take me through more of Germany, plus bits of the Netherlands. From there, I'll be taking short stops in Lisbon (with Sintra) and Amsterdam, before heading home. Anyone who wants to keep up with that journey can friend me on Facebook, (David Hamburger) since I don't have the time for more than some pictures here and there. Don't worry. I promise I haven't abandoned THIS trip report. When I get back (first week in August) this trip report will resume in Chengdu. China! Hopefully, the break will give people time to catch up, since I've posted a LOT in this thread so far! It's good to hear that some people are enjoying it.

You just jinxed it, Robb! I'd say great PTR, but it's Japan, so that's a given.

Personally, I like Bizarro a bit more in the front, but it's great in both the front and back. I'm actually usually more of a fan of the back on hypers and out and backs. It's sad to hear how quickly the ride operators have devolved. I popped into the park a week ago Monday to see some friends at the ACE Con, and the ride operators everywhere went out of their way to be nice and helpful. I've gained some weight in the past few months form being out of work and from having a bad knee for the past few weeks, and had trouble fitting on Bizarro, but the ride ops actually helped me fit, and even asked one of the guys to help, when the women couldn't push as hard. (And before you ask, yes, I'm dieting now!) But all across the park, everyone who worked there was super nice and helpful. And I heard the same thing from everyone there. Clearly, they pushed customer service on the employees for the Con. It's sad to see that employees have already forgotten what they learned about customer service from that week.