PTR: Bill's Epic 3 Weeks in China w/TPR!

[larrygator]

I never saw the trees with IV bags. Were any close enough to inspect? Were they there for hydration or as a bug control tool?

 

I did notice very nice landscaping at some parks but never saw any of the sculpted trees.

[Nrthwnd]

^

I didn't get close enough to the bags to read anything, Larry.

Then again, probably totally in Chinese too, lol! And I think

it was the only park I saw these in. They could contain some

type of feeding solution for the trees. Liquid fertilizer, etc.

 

As for not seeing certain trees, I remember it was sometimes

getting to be a little bit of"tunnel vision" for a lot of us, when

we had to find a park and hopefully coaster(s). I know I probably

missed a lot of stuff in these parks, here and there.

 

Not to mention small park names, coaster names, guides' names...

[David H]

I don't think I ever noticed the IV bags. I certainly don't remember them!

[Nrthwnd]

And now... On to Shanghai!

 

We started with an early plane ride from Wuhan to Shanghai, and once there,

we wasted no time in touring around the city.

 

We toured through an in-city rock garden area, which apparently a lot the locals as well

as tourists, toured in. And there were plenty of "gift shops" to browse in, being constantly

followed by the staff, offering deal upon deal, depending what you were looking at.

It is here I found my (the staffer called it) "Man's Fan." Eh, it looked alright, and I needed

one as the weather started to Get - More - Humid.

 

Then, there was a group lunch, and touring up into the Oriental Pearl Tower

for a great view of the city. AND a CREDIT in the lower..uh...orb of the tower! Woo Hoo!

 

Then some more touring around, a Group Dinner and finally for most of us, a One Hour

Harbour Cruise (with beer!) showing off all the lit buildings (and some with films and/or

programmed lighting across them) to end the day. Whew!

 

I must also note the sellers (hah) at the cruise dock who literally attacked us with

whatever cheap gizmo they had to sell. I think some of the group bought stuff,

and even haggled down some prices that were originally 'quoted'...or actually yelled

at us, heh heh. Good fun!

This is morning in Wuhan. On our way to the airport.

Our 'breakfast' enroute to Shanghai. Nothing was understood - except that (cdn.co.) McCain's smilie face looking back at me! Huh. They're in China, too!

Driving to our hotel from the airport. First view of Shanghai City.

And we're here in time, for some kind of Tourism Festival the city has just started celebrating. Cool!

I love lookin at architecture and Shanghai had all sorts of neat buildings to see. Like this beautiful temple.

Then, this one, that sort-of reminded me of the facade of a new HKDL attraction, about to open...next year?

This is it! Our lovely 'crowned' hotel we're staying at for a few nights.

Getting checked in, but only for a few minutes. Then we're off!... (l-to-r) Nick, Jon, David. Josh in back there.

It looks like Total Confusion, but we're all there (amongst more in-your-face sellers) ready to tour a city rock garden!

Walking to The Garden. It is "somewhere on the left, inside" our guide told us. Okaaay. Eventually...

We're in it! So of course, The Photo must be taken. With my (now common) Starbucks' Ice Frapp. And see all the people in back? It - was - crowded!

And THIS is when I started to notice KODAK all over China! Um, didn't the company declare bankruptsy (sp?) some time ago? Apparently China didn't hear it. Cameras and film were everywhere we went. And in HKDL too, including the tradtional Photo Spots! Huh.

Finally! Some garden with rockwork, lol! It was interesting to actually find some "quiet spots" amongst all the people touring through most of it.

And I see you, our lovely hotel! We actually weren't too far away from it.

These were broom-makers we passed, while going through the garden. Looked fascinating to me.

Here's my caption... Stacey: Don't - you - touch. Russell: Mmmmm.. fish'n chips. Ben: Mine, Mine, Mine! Neil: .

And now - The Tower of Pearl. (with a credit inside, hee hee) We had lunch first, before going up inside of it.

And then I got distracted with more amazing architecture! Far left building with hole at top is nicknamed "The Bottle Opener", lol. With a great viewing platform I heard, too! Back with more pix, sooner than late....

[Nrthwnd]

Back to the Pearl Tower of Shanghai!

 

We noticed some little pinpoint flashes coming from the top orb of the tower, then realized it was others taking pix of their friends etc. on the "viewing platform". And this is one of those things, where it's just thick plexiglass between you and ... the ground, lol.

 

And then there was the coaster inside of the bottom Tower orb. It was one of those where you start off going right into the downhill, and eventually a lift hill brings you back up to the station. It was neat, although a short short coaster ride. But it was fun.

 

After the Tower, we headed to a station that had one of the MagLev trains running, between there and the airport. We got literally a car to ourselves, and were then treated to 300 km+/hr. trip on the train (an 8 min. ride - we timed it!), also with passing another MagLev (3 min before the airport) that nearly threw some of us out of our seats LOL! Awesome!

 

Then a group dinner at one of those ornate "floating restaurants" one sees in tourism flyers etc. Very pretty.

 

And to cap the evening off, a one-hour harbour boat cruise, which started out us being mobbed by people selling mostly crappy things one wouldn't pay two bucks for, at the loading dock. But with most of the city buildings lit up and some with complex lighting on them.... the whole thing was really a spectacle to see, from the water.

Okay, back to the tower. Going up....

Sorry 'bout the bad lighting. Am still new with the camera as to using natural light, using flash, etc. But this is a view out of the top orb of the tower.

Nick and myself. Easy to see, lol!

Neil here, doing what I am about to ....uh....do.

And here I is. Not looking down for ANY money, LOL! It - was - high.

After the "upper floor," we headed down to find and ride that credit. And...we did!

I think he's showing how much room he las left in there? Enjoy the ride, guys.

Also in the main entrance floor, a Coca-Cola shop, with bottle displays, this one being of the 2008 Olympic series in Coke bottles.

Mid-day sun. On our way to the MagLev train station.

Of the two, i like this one the best. But - it's still smog and 'stuff' hmm?

Our "personal car" on the MagLev. Not really, but it felt that way.

Chilling out, before rocketing towards the airport, lol. The ride back and forth was great.

Our next group dinner location. Very nice!

I got this shot after we had dinner and were leaving to go to the boat cruise dock.

The Harbour Boat Cruise. And there's our Pearl Tower all nice and brightly lit up.

More buildings seen along the waterfront.

At first we thoguht this was the floating restaurant we'd just been too! Then somebody pointed out it's "tail" was different than the one we were at, lol.

Lots of buildings with great moving images and films sweeping over and around them.

It was all great. So much.... electricity used, heh heh.

And there was beer on the boat! Happy TPR People.

For a brief moment, this looked like something out of Fantasmic! Arrrrrrrrrr.

And one more shot, before we're off the boat, and back to the hotel for the night.

[gisco]

The hotel you stayed at in Shanghai can be seen in the new James Bond picture. I pointed it out to my wife and she didn't seem impressed!

[Nrthwnd]

^ I know!

 

We saw "Skyfall" last week, and I kept going

"there it is, there's where we stayed", lolol.

And the Pearl Tower was seen in the movie, too.

 

Also seen in a recent episode of "The Amazing Race."

[cfc]

^I caught Skyfall last Saturday night, and was very amused to see the hotel and Pearl Tower being featured.

[Nrthwnd]

^ (Sidebar)

 

And we loved the opening credits sequence with

the title song by Adele. Very trippy, heh heh

[Nrthwnd]

And so, the next two days of the tour.....

 

Sad-And-Pathetic Credits Days!

 

Although there were a few larger parks included these two days of dragons, worms and spinny mice, lol!

 

And don't worry - although I don't show them immediately, amost of these S-A-Ps will be "featured" in an upcoming post. That also means, I can't remember which coasters went with which parks... but that's okay. It was all great!

 

A few of the park names were as follows: Fisherman Warf Park (beach home of the insane looping tobaggan!); Shanghai Zoological Park; Chang Feng Park; Zhongshan Park... and Jin Jang Park, which was actually the largest park of the day for us, with one of The Largest Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerangs I had ever seen - or ridden - in my entire life! It was awesome, and amazingly smooth, for myself.

 

After all of the parks we visited this day, there was of course another group evening meal, and then a lot of us split up all over the city, with several of us ending up on the People Only Boulevard a few blocks from our hotel. I forget it's name, sorry. Parks and little coasters aren't the only things that got me blurry, heh heh. Street names, too. But it was nice evening break from...everrything else.

The is Jin Jiang Action Park - home of that Massive Boomerang! And totally surrounded by the city, too.

Park Map of JJAP. Still not good at focussing on these things.

There's that big boomerang there - called what else? "Mountain Peak"

Not that we didn't find s-a-p coasters in big parks, too. Note the TPR line at the left. Pathetic, really.

I guess I was so impressed by this huge thing, I took another shot of it, as we were leaving the park.

This was a "Pet Mall" we encountered after the day's parks. REALLY sad and pathetic. So many small cages/enclosures and pitiful conditions for the creatures. I could not bring myself to look through it with all the mewing, yelping and "other sounds" coming from it. )o:

I enjoyed the Street Art in China cities, that would just POP out at you, when you turned a corner, etc. Very cool.

This (what I call) City Art Commision was very cool, too.

Now, it's after dinner and we are on The Boulevard I can't remember the name of, LOL!

Couldn't resist taking this shot. I believe it's for Happy Valley Shanghai. If only their woodie went like this thru the woods, lol.

Street People! Hi guys. And Ledgy (green shirt) looks especially "happy," there. Another fried tarantula eaten, buddy?

I was born in March, 1953 (3/53?). So this shop sign was too good to resist taking a shot of it, heh heh.

It was Sept.19 when we did this tour day. I assume "something" was becoming available at midnight, here? And it was opposite a GAP (see reflection). How brand name neighbourly of them, LOL.

Final shot of the day. I liked the bamboo used in their scaffodling and with the lighting this looked very nice. Then - when I got back - I saw The Moon in there!

[gisco]

Talk about opposites in those last two pictures. Hi-Tech Apple store then the low tech bamboo scaffolding!

[cfc]

I was pleasantly surprised by the Giant Inverted Boomerang, too--much better than expected.

[larrygator]

Talk about opposites in those last two pictures. Hi-Tech Apple store then the low tech bamboo scaffolding!

 

Although most people were probably ignoring the guides, one of them did talk about bamboo still being used for scaffolding on most construction projects as it holds up better than steel in very high winds.

[vuurvogel]

All your pictures show a fun and awesome trip. Now I have to save, not only for 2014, but also for 2016

[cfc]

Talk about opposites in those last two pictures. Hi-Tech Apple store then the low tech bamboo scaffolding!

 

Although most people were probably ignoring the guides, one of them did talk about bamboo still being used for scaffolding on most construction projects as it holds up better than steel in very high winds.

 

I remember that being mentioned, too.

[Nrthwnd]

^ and all above (thanks EB!)

 

I got to actually see this bamboo scaffolding years and years ago,

at our (EXPO) World's Fair in 1986. The Hong Kong Pavillion was totally

covered (see pix below) in bamboo, with workers changing the setup

daily, to show the different techniques of doing this kind of scaffolding.

 

It was fascinating to watch them scramble up and across the framework.

As it looked, the day the pic was taken. On the building it does say HONG KONG.

The pavillion with Hong Kong Rep in front. (o:

[Nrthwnd]

Another day - more credits than ever - and one in particular......

 

We did as many as we could,with the bus driver and guide getting us there as fast as possible (huff huff), we managed to rack up a good number of worms, dragons and spinny mousies I am quite sure most of us will never ride again, LOL!

 

For a lot of us on the tour though, i know that it is also the parks themself that lend to an interesting random version of "find the coasters" within some really lovely and winde spread parkland. Within whatever cities we were in at the time!

 

And for myself, Luxun Park was really a unique small park experience. And that park, I will post in a separate post, following this one. You'll see why.

 

At the end of the day (I believe Century park was our last one with s-a-p coasters?) there was a split up of people - and for the life of me, I can't remember why some of us chose another Tea Demo (moi inlcuded) and the others chose _________ ? But for those of us that chose Tea, I am pretty sure we weren't as impressed by the presentation as the first one we attended. And the tea bulb didn't bloom so great in the glass, either, heh heh. And then - a group meal of course!

I believe our first park of the day. Name of? I forget, already, lol!

First time I had ever seen a DOUBLE ROW one-of-those-things. (o:

This park also had something a bit bigger for those of us who craved..... bigger.

And even had one of these bobkarts! And yes Ledgy, that IS the direction you have to go. (Silly person.)

This caught my eye on the way to more credit(s) in another park. Very meandering and soothing, yes?

An ocassional (usually) bad dark ride was found, and ridden... and forgotten.

And I got a kick out of trying to "square the star" from the bus, on our way to Luxun Park. And that park will be in the next post, k? So AFTER Luxun park's visit....

Another streetway, another sculpture. This was called.... SunDial. Uh huh. Ok.

We hit Century Park, I took another lousy blurry map pic, we did the credits - and we're out!

I do remember that these banners in CP were very cool - notably for a small shoutout to Canada there. Impressed!

And after Century Park, this was when the group split up - and there was SPACE IN BACK of the bus! Our charming model Jon.... shows us how much space.

But before dinner - More Tea! (demo)

She was "okay" but not as impressive or "bubbly" as our first Tea Host, back in Beijing.

Heck, the "blossoming flower" didn't blossom that great or look that appealing (as compared to the first one we saw). Then dinner, then back to hotel.

[cfc]

An ocassional (usually) bad dark ride was found, and ridden... and forgotten.

 

Ah, but at least it had this!

 

[Nrthwnd]

^ Oh darn, I KNEW there was "something" about that particular dark ride....

 

Thanks for reminding me, Chuck.

 

(The panda! It was the panda!)

 

EDIT TO ADD: BTW, the poll I got going here, (B/W vs. red pandas) is still... "Red Ahead"

[gisco]

^^Awesome themeing!

[Nrthwnd]

^

"Best Thing Inside a Dark Ride" I do now remember people saying, after coming out, lol.

 

So for now we're just left with Luxun Park to tour through, not for the credits

(of which i think the park had only....one?) but I think the park itself was very nice to

walk/run/whatever, through. It was all set up for Some Major Festival, we weren't sure.

The banner coming into Shanghai alluded to a Tourism Festival happening as we were there.

 

But all of what we saw, it didn't look as though it was to be used ongoing. So many of what

you'll see was also set up for night lighting and some of the creations themself, were strung

with lots of lights.

 

I would have loved to come back to this park, and see it at dusk, or early evening. Then again,

this may have all had been a setup for China's end-of-Sept. Moon Festival. I never found out.

 

Whatever the case, I also wondered if any of this would look awesome

under a black light...?

 

Enjoy what's here.

Entering Luxun Park. Wait, it gets much better.

EEEK! And I was soooo hoping a few of the umbrellas twirled, too.

Then there was this along a walkway, that showed me that some of the it was also strung with lights. Cool!

Now THIS is one of thsoe creations I would have LOVEd to see at night! Very nice.

So much colour! It was so eye-popping! Some of this looked light they were floats too. But I don't think they were. Possibly 'backdrops' to shows or just for the size of the crowds that show up!

Even on the lake (?) that was inside the park itself!! This all looked very awesome, even in the daytime.

More arches, more black light colours, more lights., more more MORE!

And there was a nod to Buddha and Pearl. (o:

Peking Opera Masks! Size XXXL One per customer, please.

Another wonderfully colourful setup. I don't know if it's even religious in content, hah. (I think the colour fumes are getting to me...)

Ahhhh. another archway. Nice solid colour choice.

And then there was this one, which kept giving me....dirty naughty thoughts...

I liked the stuff on the waterway, but totally forgot to photograph what was winding all around this and me - a DRAGON in plates! Chuck's TR of it has a better shotn, and in the main TPR-TR too. Truly amazing - and scary if even one plate loosened or broke! "The China Chain Reaction", heh heh.

And here we leave Luxun Park - with a team of Battlefield Floats ready to take to the field. Yes it's back! ~FLOAT WARS~ is Ba-a-a-a-a-a-ak!!! (HA HA not really - though I wish, maybe...)

Edited December 5, 2012 by Nrthwnd

[cfc]

That was a pretty impressive display in that park--even in broad daylight.

[gisco]

I loved those China trips. Did anyone on this trip see or get their ears cleaned by guys with tuning forks?

[Nrthwnd]

^ I don't think anybody did the ear cleaning thing, Bob.

But maybe somebody did do it, and isn't fessing up, heh heh.

 

I think somebody mentioned it also being done with wax, too?

 

But - tuning forks???

[Nrthwnd]

Now - if anybody is keeping track...

 

It's another Happy Valley Day! This one of course is Shanghai's.

 

Rain. We got it on and off at this park. We thought that sometimes, one or more of the

coaster were going to shut down due to weather. But we did get to ride everything,

including their big woodie, called Fireball. And a dive coaster. And a minetrain. And a mega-lite....

 

Sweet.

 

And after all that park was covered, we headed on our way to a park we hoped would still be open,

as it has a really REALLY unique flying coaster.... Stingray.

 

Well, the park had just started to shut down and ready itself for a "bought event" there by a

company for all it's employees. But Robb & Co. worked their Need-To-Film magick, and we all

got in, and got at least one GREAT ride on Stingray. I really enjoyed it, and didn't think there

were any wierd parts to it, enough to throw your body out of whack, lol.

 

After that, we headed out to our next group dinner. A "country-style" dinner we were told.

It - was - creepy. The restaurant itself as we arrived, looked like a Chinese version of "Psycho".

Don't know why. It just did. And the meal wasn't too much different from what we had in

previous meals. But it was all so hushed, even from our servers. Felt - wierd.

 

And then - out to a resort for an overnight's stay....

So this is The Map for Happy Valley Shanghai. Easy to read, yes?

Even He was here! Why? I have no idea!

This is what a Dive Coaster. Called "Diving Coaster". Did I miss something at the Name-This-Coaster meeting? Ah, originality...

And there a bit of SPLASH too, with this one. It was IMhO a great dive coaster. I really enjoyed it.

And here's a group ready to get their woodie on, hee hee. This is Fireball.

Jon, Betty and Cheryl with Fireball in back.

And the mine train called what else? "Mine Train Coaster". It was nice and twisty, this one was.

Some "ethnic dancing" going on here. And I swear I actually saw a the same-such dance group in 2 other Happy Valleys! Hmmm...

This is the entrance to Suzhou Giant Wheel Park. We timed it tight, but everything worked out great. And I think that's pretty much The Whole Group waiting out front, there.

And this is the Giant Wheel in question. No time to ride that, though...

THIS is what the rush was for - STINGRAY. I loved it. I want one for my own park, PLEEEEZE? It was awesome.

And our "Country-Style Dinner" destination. Things are starting to blur here. Definitely not holiday lighting here...