Asia TR: Day 16, part 1: Beijing Shijingshan

[David H.--REMOVE "STOPSPAM" to reply]

The original version of this trip report, along with 44 pictures and
comments about them, can be found at:

http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1312319#p1312319

Day 16, part 1: Beijing Shijingshan

This was the first day of actual coastering on the TPR China tour! (Well,
unless you count the alpine coaster up to the Great Wall.) And it was a big
day, in terms of numbers of coasters � the biggest day of the whole trip!
There were 16 credits to be had, if you count powered coasters, which I
don�t. But only two of them were powered, which still leaves 14 credits in
one day, which is pretty impressive. And not one of them was a coaster I�d
ever need to ride again! But they were nice parks, and I�m glad I went.

The first park we visited was Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park, just west
of downtown Beijing. It was actually a decent sized park, with a ton of
coasters, most of which were actually adult or at least family sized and
most of which were what we called Chinese knockoff coasters by the Beijing
Shibolai Amusement Equipment company. For those who don�t know, Chinese
knockoffs are coasters by Chinese coaster companies that rip off other
coasters by other companies, much like Chinese companies do with so many
other western products. Yes, they even do it with coasters!

On different days at different parks, we�d visit them in different ways as
a group. But usually, we�d start on some or all of the coasters together,
then split up. At parks like this where there was virtually no one else in
the park, we generally stayed together through all of the coasters, then we
had a set amount of time we agreed on to explore what we�d like.

Robb and Elissa decided to start first with Feng Shen Coaster, to give us a
true taste of what to expect from coasters in China � rides that might kill
us! Feng Shen was a Chinese knockoff shuttle loop coaster -- or Circle
Reciprocal Coaster, according to the manufacturer�s plate. What made the
ride scary was that at the top of the loop, while the train was upside
down, it basically dropped an inch or two onto the tracks, and made this
horrible scraping sound. We figured that if we didn�t die on this coaster,
we�d probably be safe on the rest of the trip! From there, we headed to
Mine Coaster, which had some decent caves for theming, along with trees
growing all through the coaster�s structure! It was also a tight fit, which
caused many to bang their knees!

Then we went to Shenzhou Coaster, a knockoff SLC � where I experienced my
first ever denial from riding a coaster, because I was too big. I handled
it fairly well, but it was still a sad moment. I actually might have been
able to fit, but didn�t get the chance to try. They had told us that we had
to be under 200 pounds to ride. Most of the bigger people had opted not to
bother trying, so we didn�t hold up the group. But when I saw people who
were pretty close to my size riding, I decided to give it a shot, along
with some others. But when the ride ops saw us all heading up, they gave us
all motions that we couldn�t ride. It was a shame, but I didn�t want to
cause any trouble, especially not on a group trip. The one good thing is
that everyone who did ride agreed that it was horrible and painful! So I
didn�t miss much.

Next, we rode the Worm Coaster, one of many wacky worms that we�d ride on
the trip. The most interesting thing about it was the closed ticket booth,
shaped like the head of a worm. That was actually one of the neat things
about this park: some of the rides had ticket booths in the shape of some
character.

Then we caught a ride on the Golden Horse spinning coaster called Spinning
Coaster � which, like most spinners in China, didn�t spin all that much.
Then it was time for my second denial ever � and at the same park. The
coaster was Atomic Coaster, a Senyo knockoff of an Arrow loopscrew. I
actually tried on this one and almost made it. Oh well. Again, I hear that
I didn�t miss much, though it supposedly wasn�t as awful as the SLC
knockoff.

Robb decided to check out the station for the Spinning Batman coaster, even
though it was pretty clearly closed, although the station was wide open to
the public to enter. The coaster clearly hadn�t been running in quite some
time, judging from the stats of the station � although I guess in China,
that may not be a good way to judge! There was sand all over the floor, and
some holes in the floor of the station! There were sandbags in the coaster
car seats. And inexplicably a moped in the station! That�s another credit
we weren�t getting that day! But people who�d been on the last TPR China
trip had said it was awful, so again no big loss there.

Then we tried to ride the indoor themed Jurassic Adventure coaster, which
turned out to be my 900th coaster, although I didn�t know it at the time. I
mostly lost count during the trip, and had a vague idea that I�d be hitting
it that day. Later, I�d post a picture on Facebook of myself and Neil on
Spinning Coaster, thinking that it was my 900th, but I was slightly off.
But the first train of TPR people broke it! It got stuck just after the
lift hill! Robb was all excited, taking lots of video! Eventually they got
it running again, and since this is China, they didn�t bother to make sure
it was safe, and just let us foolish American credit whores ride! And of
course, we did! It was an ok ride and had a surprising amount of
non-animatronic dinosaur statues and fake trees inside.

From there, we wanted to ride the Crazy Mouse, but while the station and
the plot of land and the footers (with screws sticking out of them!) were
all there, the coaster itself wasn�t! Next was Space Trip, a neat
Schwartzkopf-esque family compact coaster with lots of big swooping turns.
I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I�d expected to. Apparently, there
are two other versions of this model, including one more in China and one
in Cuba. Ironically, there was one that closed a few years back at Sun
Park, the park we�d be visiting very soon.

We had a little time to explore the rest of the park. For the smaller
parks, TPR generally bought us tickets for all of the coasters, and
anything beyond that we�d have to pay for ourselves. But in most cases, the
rides at these smaller parks were at most a dollar or two. Most of us opted
to hit the haunted attractions here. The park had a haunted walkthrough,
which was really cheesy, and in some parts falling apart! But they keep the
lighting on a lot of these so low that you have to take pictures so that
you can see everything with the flash! We also rode the shooting dark ride,
themed to �American Adventure�, which was just awful, but in a �so bad it�s
good� kind of way. The guns couldn�t even remotely aim either. Most of us
barely hit anything, and we�re mostly experts at these rides!

When our time was up, we gathered up and took the bus to Sun Park.

to be continued...


"With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured,
the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us
all irrevocably." -Capt. Jean-Luc Picard
"The Drumhead", _Star Trek: The Next Generation_

[Edwardo]

Yes, but how well did GRINDR work?!