Theme parks in China

16th July 2010, 23:00 GMT

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Themeparks in China come in all shapes and sizes, but all of them are fun. (Image: Radio86)

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Shijingshan Amusement Park

Shijingshan amusement park, located in the Shijingshan district of Beijing, is a little controversial. Though it’s creators say all the characters and theme of the park are entirely created by them, one can’t help but seeing a striking resemblance with many Disney characters as well as many others like Shrek, Hello Kitty and Bugs Bunny. To this day, management denies any wrongdoing, although some alterations have been made.

The park is divided into five areas:

Eastern Area

Western Area

Adventure land

Fantasy land

Dream world

Together these areas cover 350,000 square metres and house over a hundred rides and attractions, including eight rollercoasters and a 4D cinema.

Dalian Discovery Kingdom

Dalian Discovery Kingdom is located in Jinzhou District in the city of Dalian. It opened in 2006 and is currently the largest amusement park in the Liaoning Province. The park features 20 rides including three roller coasters, two water rides and a vertical drop tower. Apart from these there are a number of special shows including a stunt show with car and motorcycle stunts, jumps, explosions and the like, in the afternoon there’s the Discovery Kingdom Parade, and in the evening there are two more shows including Romeo and Juliet at the weekend. The park is also home to a real church, which has hosted many weddings.

Happy Valley Beijing

To the east of Beijing, built and operated by Beijing OTC lies Happy Valley. It is part of a chain of four theme parks, with sisters in Chengdu, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Happy valley features different landscapes and themes accompanied by more then 40 rides, a seven screen IMAX theatre and a shopping complex.

Beijing's Shijingshan Amusement Park (Image: Wikipedia)

The different area’s of Happy Valley are:

Firth forest; which acts as a portal to the other areas.

Atlantis; where the theme revolves around the discovery of the legendary ‘lost city’.

Aegean Sea; Greek culture, history and mythology featuring rides such as ‘Trojan Horse’

and ‘Odyssey Trip’

Lost Maya; where visitors enter the lost civilization of the Maya empire.

Shangri-La; the thematic backdrop of which are the Tibetan planes and the southwest of China.

Ant Kingdom; which features fictional cartoon ants and their world.

Minsk World

Not so much a themepark as we’d think of it as it’s build around and based on a real former Soviet aircraft carrier; the Minsk, is Minsk World. Four of the carrier’s decks, including the flight deck and hangar deck can be visited. Various aspects of life onboard are setup as exhibits. There are two main dance performances for visitors to the ship, which are well-scheduled throughout the day. The second dance performance is actually a musical of the adventures of the Minsk crew as they explore faraway lands.

Window of the World

Window of the World is, as it’s name suggests, a collection of famous attractions of the world. On 480,000 square meters are 130 reproductions of icon buildings such as the Eiffel tower, The Pyramids, and the Taj Mahal. All in close proximity of each other. There is also a variety of international restaurants and mini exhibitions on famous figures of the world’s history.
Some of the major attractions are:

The palace of Versailles

The Acropolis

The Matternhorn

The Tenple of the Emerald Buddha

Sydney’s Opera House

Mount Rushmore
[*]The Statue of Liberty

The Window of the World is a good way to see all the most beautiful sights of the world conveniently in one place.

Why travel all over the world if you can see all the main sights conveniently in one place? (Image: Wikipedia)

World Chocolate Wonderland

The first of its kind World Chocolate Wonderland delivers exactly what its name suggests. A chocolate theme park. It’s situated in Beijing, north of the Bird’s nest, and opened its doors on the 29th of January 2010. The purpose of the park is to bring a little ‘sweetness’ to the lives of the Chinese as well as allowing them to learn about chocolate’s history and its impact on other cultures.

The theme park is 19,9742 square metres and contains exhibitions made from almost 80,000 kilo of chocolate. These exhibitions are divided over three main halls which are all temperature controlled in order for the chocolate to maintain solid.

One of the centrepieces is the world’s biggest chocolate model of the Great Wall measuring 12 meters in length. Furthermore, World Chocolate Wonderland contains a replica of the famous Terracotta army comprised out of 500 life-size figures.

Unfortunately, World Chocolate Wonderland has currently closed its doors, but it will reopen in January of next year. So if you’re planning on going to China around that time, be sure to put a visit to on your ‘to do’ list. And if you’re going prior to that? Well, then there are all the other parks to choose from!