Dinosaurs along the way
Who would have thought that Cuba would host a still life version of Jurassic Park in the province of Santiago de Cuba. Makes life interesting when you're on the road...
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Leofoo Village Theme Park
Spent the day today with collegues at a theme park/zoo near the city of Hsinchu, about 2.5 hours North of Taichung. It was pretty good fun, but the combination of adrenaline, excessive heat, and a late night didn't make me feel fantastic.
Attached you'll see the Arabian-themed entrance, a circular roller-coaster-ish thing called the 'Ring of Fire', another really nasty ride which literally just drops you from a height of about 20 metres, two Bengal Tigers checking each other out in the carnivore section of the zoo, and a final image containing baboons, and the already mentioned Arabian-themed buildings in the background.
Hyperactivity and ADHD may now be valid reasons to jump the amusement park lines
Hyperactive children and those with attention-deficit disorders can now queue jump at theme parks because they cannot cope with the stress of waiting.
Tourist boards are offering the privilege so that they can skip the queue with their friends.
Teachers have criticised the scheme, saying that it undermines their efforts to encourage patience and it would be better for children with ADHD, attention deficit and hyperactive disorder, to learn how to wait.
Children with ADHD, which was recognised as a psychiatric condition 15 years ago, are given passes in most theme parks in the UK and many abroad if they can prove that they have the condition.
Sentosa Island and the Port of Singapore
Have you ever wondered what the Universal Studios Theme Park looked like while it was under construction? Well, neither have I. Regardless, here’s a glimpse of what it would look like if they built it today, because Universal Studios Singapore is presently being built today on Sentosa Island. The theme park is set to open in 2010 on the resort island directly off the south coast of Singapore. It will feature a replica of Hollywood Boulevard, which means I'll finally have a place to shoot all of my Los Angeles scenes. The cable car ride from the mainland offered outstanding views of the city and the islands, and I was reminded that Singapore is the busiest port in the world.
Flamingo Land
If you follow my Twitter feed (which you probably don't) you'll know that I went to Flamingo Land today with my family as it's my brother's birthday tomorrow. Naturally, I used this opportunity to do some true, hard-hitting reporting.
The new ride - Mumbo Jumbo - is actually pretty good. Supposedly, it's some sort of world record-breaking roller coaster - entirely due to one bit, which I can best describe as a "S-shaped" drop. We ended up queuing for about an hour and a half, and the ride itself lasts no more than about a minute. Whether I'd want to queue that long again I don't know, but it was still a great time.
Adventure #1 - King's Island, Mother's Day (May 10), 2009
I intended to start this blog the day after Mother's Day. But it ended up becoming another one of those things that I told myself I was going to do, and then didn't. I wanted to set up an elaborate Wordpress blog with a rockin' theme, because, well, that's how I roll. Usually.
But this blog is so not about a groovy theme and all the right sidebar plugins. It's a story, pure and simple, that I'm sharing as I live it. So it's gonna live on Posterous. And I have some backlog to catch up on. Anyway.
So this year, we hitched up the Explorer and headed East to King's Island near Cincinnati, Ohio. AdventureBoy (12) and AdventureGirl (5) had been buzzing with excitement about the trip for a solid month.
This trip was a follow-up to an unplanned two-day excursion to King's Island in late April 2008. One of the natives told us, while standing in the torturously long line for Sportacus' Skycopters, that Mother's Day was the best weekend of the year to visit the theme park. "Hardly anybody outside Cincy realizes the park is open already on weekends, the water park doesn't open till the next week, and most of the locals have Mother's Day plans," our source reported.
So sure enough, we were back. As our native friend promised, the crowds were light, the lines were relatively short, and the weather was absolutely perfect--not too hot and not too cool.
We arrived with a (for us) detailed plan of attack.
AdventureDad went to our local REMC the week before for discount tickets to the park. Check.
Early Saturday morning, we left Adventure HQ. Check. Sort of. We hit a bad traffic snarl just past Kentucky Speedway that left us stuck on the interstate for an extra hour that wasn't in the plan. But we pressed on.
We hit the nearby town of Blue Ash two exits away and secured lodging. Check.
After storing our gear at the hotel and hitting the park, we started out in Nickelodeon Universe. It's not for nothing that King's Island's kid's area is voted best in the world. Nickelodeon Universe has some pretty decent moderate thrill rides that even an adult adventurer can enjoy. Which we did.
As was the case last year, the Fairly Oddcoaster (the old Beastie, for those who haven't been in a while) was a favorite. We got a new picture of the family taken in mid-drop on the big hill to replace last year's hilarious photo. This year, AdventureGirl achieved 44" in height, which meant she was eligible to ride any ride in NU, and a few more in other parts of the park. She braved The Last Airbender ride with AdventureDad and AdventureBoy, but didn't want to do it again.
I personally really like The Last Airbender. It's a very smooth, moderate thrill ride that is a nice change of pace from coasters or, as my parents would say "throw up rides." AdventureBoy and I rode it later.
Runaway Reptar was a runaway success, and the entire Adventure clan hit it several times over the course of the weekend. A marvelously smooth metal coaster, it's just an enjoyable, if brief ride (although it's longer than Flight Zone.) We also hit the Scooby Doo ride, because really no trip to KI is complete without zapping some ghosts and hearing Shaggy say "Zoinks!" about 57 times.
After we finished up NU, we moved on to Coney Mall, which we'd learned last year, has a nice collection of carnival rides a short distance from three fairly enjoyable coasters (the Racers, Adventure Express, and Backlot Stunt Coaster). Since AdventureGirl still isn't quite big enough for the coasters, AdventureDad and I took turns riding the Scrambler, the big Carousel, and the Monster with her while the other rode the coasters with AdventureBoy.
And may I just say, AdventureBoy has really bloomed in boldness this year. Last year, it was a struggle to get him on pretty much anything. This year, he attacked almost all the rides with the same gusto as his sister. Bravo, AdventureBoy. Way to conquer those fears.
We regrouped to ride the SpongeBob 3D Ride, wherein I once again failed to grab the ephemeral projected 3D pickle, but once again succeeded in keeping down my lunch. Go, me!
At the end of the day, we returned to the hotel and ordered in some LaRosa's Pizza. The next morning, we hit the hotel pool, and had a bad scare when AdventureGirl slipped in over her head. Fortunately, I was only a couple of feet away--but it was a scary few seconds. Suffice it to say, swim lessons for AdventureGirl are now on the list of "stuff we need to make happen."
Day Two at the park, we flipped the schedule. We started out the day in Coney Mall and the adults hit one or two other bigger rides in Action Zone and Rivertown, then ended up back at NU. I took a pass on The Crypt this trip, since I'm the only one who wanted to ride it, and I couldn't see making everyone else wait for that one ride.
I do have to say, props to anyone bold enough to do Diamondback. We watched it from the line for Backlot Stunt Coaster. It. Is. In. Sane. Anything that dwarfs Vortex and Son of Beast is just out of my league. We are just not that adventurous--yet.
By the end of Sunday, we headed back to HQ, exhausted and happy.
Suoi Tien Park
Ever wonder where the Buddhist monks go for fun? Why Suoi Tien Park of course!
The Buddhist-themed amusement park located in Vietnam has a heaven palace, which features a giant water park with huge smiling statues. It's the park creator's vision of what heaven would be like. Of course, the park won't be complete without a "Hell" version of the water park, which is located on the other side. Somehow, hell looks a lot like heaven, but with huge ugly frowning statues...
But of course, we don't visit a Buddhist-themed park for religious stuff. We are there for the bat caves and crocodile lake with over 1,500 crocodiles of all sizes!
dream, Tue 3/3/09
My family and I were in this large shopping centre-theme park sort of place. It was amazing - it had everything: shops, apartments, restaurants. It was basically a city but covered. We ran around and did various things. There was even a house within this complex. Though the theme park was supposedly in Hong Kong, the multi-storey house was in Britain - Croydon, to be precise, because we went to this house to visit an old family that that known us for decades. They'd known me since I'd been born.
The house had five storeys. It was an old-style mansion, and someone had taken one of the floors and decided it would exclusively look like the British Victorian era. The people there, we all knew one another either from England or Australia. I couldn't believe how well-off my Croydon family contact were. The eldest child was missing. His mother told me he was perverted. I later found out all this meant was he liked to go out and party.
My parents had gone supermarket shopping and bought so many things. I didn't understand why they got things perfectly available in Australia. It had all been weighed and fine to take back home to Australia.
When we exited this Croydon mansion, we apparently drove to this Hong Kong theme park. I had an apartment there. I couldn't find it. I went into a lift with a girl who looked like she might be from Japan. She reprimanded me for speaking so loudly in the lift. The lifts moved flawlessly - so fast and yet not jerky at all. It took us to a car park.
The theme park shut down. The workers disappeared, and the lights went off. I finally found my apartment but it was too late. A girl I once knew watched me running with my family and laughed with her family. We finally got told to go in one of the lifts. A boy had retrieved a book and purse I'd left there. I was grateful. We got into the lifts and they led to the car park, so we could leave. Some people had to sacrifice themselves in order for us to leave, by jumping off a tall ledge.
My former lover N smashed jars of sweets to distract people from seeing us. Somehow we all made it into cars. A friend from a musical society promised me beer at his house. We used the one seatbelt to buckle us both into one seat.
