Dec. 27 – Wrapping up this trash year with visions of a much greener place. Mitsui Greenland is one of Japan’s larger amusement parks, including a racing stand-up coaster and a coaster shaped like a dinosaur. But the real story is how I ended up riding their Ultra Twister forty-two times in a row.
Dec. 21 – The first theme park I’d experience in Japan was Space World, which sadly closed in 2017. Despite its retirement, this unusual space-themed park had one of the more modern coaster collections in southern Japan, including a hot pink version of Magnum XL-200, obviously a personal highlight of mine.
Dec. 14 – This is a smaller transitional update, as I said goodbye to Korea and hello to Japan. The day started in Busan, South Korea, with a quick visit to the Busan Tower, before taking a hydrofoil to the southern Japanese port city of Fukuoka, which is known as the originator of tonkotsu ramen.
Dec. 7 – My final full day in South Korea was a two-part adventure in the cultural city of Gyeongju.
First up, Gyeongju World is a jarring combination of world-class theme park and a carnival park barely held together by duct tape, although its star attraction bore more than a passing resemblance to a favorite of mine at Cedar Point. How would it fare in comparison?
I spent the second half of the day exploring two locations in Gyeongju designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, as well as walked up a big hill and later ran back down the hill to catch a bus. Just another day of backpacking across Asia, back in the day when such a concept was safe and permitted.
Nov. 30 – Two of South Korea’s overlooked parks in the middle of the country, one of them now defunct, form this week’s update. Kumdori Land in Daejeon is home to a race of cartoon mushroom aliens to teach kids about the wonders of expos, as well as one of the largest coasters Vekoma ever made. A little further down the peninsula in Daegu is Woobang Towerland, a peculiar name for a peculiar park that nevertheless held some pleasant surprises.
Nov. 22 – There was a brief time when South Korea’s largest theme park (and Asia’s 5th largest) was home to possibly the best wooden and the best steel roller coasters in the East. Sound amazing? Well, Everland is… more disappointing than that. But there’s still some interesting things to be found if you know where to look.
Nov. 15 – No amusement parks, but this was a very fun update to write and reflect back on one of the weirdest tours I’ve ever taken. So weird, I even lied about it not including an amusement park. It’s in there, just not where you’d expect it!
Nov. 9 – After a roller coaster of a week, why not unwind by reading about more roller coasters? Best known for their confectioneries, Lotte has become one of Korea’s most powerful corporations, and Lotte World is one of Korea’s largest theme parks. While it’s not quite a Willy Wonka-style wonderland, Lotte World is nevertheless just as weird in places.
Nov. 1 – The first two parks I would experience in South Korea were not particularly glamorous, but had some unique if not exactly comfortable attractions. First up, Seoul Land was most notable for its utterly bizarre Crazy Mouse coaster, along with a handful of other decent attractions. After that, I headed to Children’s Grand Park in Seoul, made famous a year after my visit by Gangnam Style, but mostly famous at the time of my visit for having one of South Korea’s oldest steel looping coasters. I actually visited a third major theme park on the same day as these other two, but that report will have to wait for next week.
Oct. 26 – New country, new experiences. My journey through South Korea began in its capital and largest city, Seoul. No major unexpected adventures just yet, although fans of Bong Joon-ho’s body of cinematic work may be in for a pleasant surprise.
Oct. 19 – Final update from China, and it’s a good one. While China is home to plenty of questionable IP rip-offs, World Joyland took copyright infringement to a whole new level of art form. Notorious as the “Warcraft & Starcraft lookalike theme park” when it opened in 2011, I was there a month after opening to document this strange theme park when it was still new. And, in keeping with the tradition of this site’s name, I share a few thoughts about the philosophical concept of “newness” as well…
Oct. 11 – Another double update. Two parks from Suzhou, China. Two Vekoma coasters. All now extinct.
First up, Suzhou Amusement Land had a few coasters in a beautiful location, but it was the Creepy Small World knock-off that really won the day.
Secondly, Giant Wheel Park of Suzhou was an unique concept for a lakeside “boutique-style” amusement park featuring a 400-foot tall Giant Wheel, a one-of-a-kind Vekoma flying coaster, and… not much else. Dive into the unique attractions and the reasons why a park like this was likely to fail.
Oct. 5 – I worked hard this weekend to get a double update featuring two parks out of Shanghai.
First up, with at least three or four world-class coasters, Happy Valley Shanghai is the largest park in the Happy Valley chain, although not necessarily the most enjoyable to experience.
Second, with a history dating back to the 1980’s, Jin Jiang Action Park is the oldest permanent amusement park in mainland China and the archetype of much that we love and hate about Chinese ride parks.
Sep. 28 – For the full month of June 2011, I undertook the most ambitious travel experience I’ve ever attempted. That journey started in Shanghai. Today, over nine years later, I finally begin to tell that story. Enjoy!
Sep. 19 – 2020 continues to be a nightmare, so let’s turn the clock back just over a year to a less terrible time when we had one of the best new tubular steel coasters in the world opening at one of the best traditional amusement parks for the first time. Steel Curtain and Kennywood are both amazing, but how well do they fit one another? I explore questions of scale, perspective, and elegance in my first full length analysis in nearly two years, dedicated to the best new ride of 2019.
Today’s update also concludes my month-long detour from the Asia 2011 series. Next week’s update will return to China and Shanghai, a full five years before Shanghai Disneyland was ever a thing.
Sep. 6 – What’s the difference between a theme park and an amusement park? I wasn’t satisfied with most of the answers to that question, so I did my own analysis of the genealogy and categories of location-based entertainment in this, what is now by a fair margin the longest written article on this website.
The writing however is I adapted from an older project I started a several years ago that never got much traction. I’m not 100% sure I still stand by some of the points within this analysis, which is why I didn’t continue pushing for the original form this project was going to take, but I still think there’s the framework of a few very good ideas that are better worth sharing than keeping locked on a hard drive forever. Settle in and get comfortable before trying to read this all in one sitting.
Aug. 30 – Once upon a time for a couple of months I used to post movie reviews on this website. That concluded over a decade ago when I published my list of the 21-ish best films from 2000 to 2009. I intended to create today’s update several months ago but finally got around to it now, featuring rankings and reviews of my choice of best films from the following decade, 2010 to 2019. If you’ve been following my Twitter you may have already seen these posted over the last week and a half, but now it’s all in one place, plus a bonus review!
(Fun fact: This list’s average score on IMDb is only 7.2. The highest scoring is the genocide documentary.)
Aug. 23 – And here’s part two of two completing last week’s format test, this time including a more in-depth analysis of one particular attraction (edited from some detailed notes I took shortly after the time I rode it in 2016). Nickelodeon Universe at the Mall of America was, until recently, the largest indoor amusement park in the United States. Or is it a theme park? Read on for my interpretation of the proper label for this place.
Aug. 16 – Continuing on the valley theme, today I present reviews and photos from Valleyfair in Minnesota… which I visited ‘only’ four years ago in 2016. Why Valleyfair, and why now? The park itself wasn’t particularly important to me, but what was important was I wanted to test out yet another new review format, and my brief excursion to Minnesota a few years ago seemed like an ideal candidate for such a test. This one is sort of a hybrid of the capsule review approach I tried back in 2012 (minus the controversial ratings) integrated with a more streamlined approach to the photo galleries. Because it’s more focused on analysis of the attractions than the storytelling of the journey itself, I’m not going to apply this new format to the rest of the Asia 2011 series, but looking beyond this gives me an idea of how I could continue to write about and document more recent and future theme park trips on this site in a more economical fashion. I think the result is fairly successful.
Aug. 10 – Knight Valley is a unique “Eco Theme Park” famed for its record-breaking wooden terrain coaster (named “Wood Coaster”). However, once at the park, finding attractions that were all three of A: open, B: noteworthy, and C: something I wanted to ride, proved more difficult than expected.
Today’s update actually concludes the 2011 reports from the time I was based in Hong Kong. However, there’s still a lot left to cover from my final backpack tour through Shanghai, South Korea, and Japan, which lasted nearly a month and was by far the most ambitious travel plan I’ve ever attempted. I’m going to take a quick break from the series before starting the final stretch, not to pause the weekly updates, but to do a couple of other, ever-so-slightly more timely (but still quite backlogged) reports and ideas I’ve wanted to share.
Aug. 3 – This updates takes us to Window of the World, one of the genre of “international miniature replica” theme parks that caters to an audience that can’t or won’t see the real things for themselves. (Or maybe not.)
Jul. 27 – Shenzhen was the birthplace of the modern Chinese theme park, and this update takes us to its most noteworthy achievement: Happy Valley Shenzhen, the original Happy Valley theme park! Original doesn’t necessarily mean best, but it does mean it does a few things different… and also set the rubric for every other Chinese theme park to copy.
Jul. 19 – After a much needed short break from my usual weekly quarantine rituals, during which I escaped for the outer wilds of Yosemite National Park, I’m back at this week kicking off another short travelogue to Shenzhen, China. While every trip I took within Asia 2011 was a magical journey of cultural and personal discovery, this particular trip was easily the… worst. But there were still a couple of coasters to be had.
Jun. 30 – And with Janfusun Fancyworld, my reports from Taiwan are officially complete! This is the only park in Taiwan that’s home to not one, but two B&M coasters. And my opinion on one of them will probably make fans of Alton Towers very angry at me.
When I finally started writing this Asian report series about a year ago, my intent was to use the “photo journal” format to help expedite the process and let the pictures tell most of the story. It hasn’t really panned out that way; if anything, these updates take even more effort to make than my older essay format because I’m having to sift through every photo and go back and forth between writing and editing modes.
However I can’t really go back to writing on a blank page, because my memories are too distant that I need the process of going through the pictures for the story I wanted to tell about them to come back to me. I’m quite surprised by some of the details I rediscover, and am appreciative of this process in what’s otherwise a very turbulent time in the world.
The good news is, I’m not taking shortcuts and am still telling all the stories I originally wanted to, I’m just approaching it from a slightly different way. This marks about the halfway point of the entire 2011 Asia chronicle, so we’ll see where else this journey takes me. However much or little you’ve read, thank you for making at least part of this journey with me.
Jun. 22 – Just about wrapping up with the Taiwan series, this week’s update takes me back to a discovery I made: the worst major theme park in Taiwan has the best single attraction in Taiwan. But I spent the day mostly just being wet.
Jun. 14 – One positive aspect of quarantine is it’s really helpful in keeping a regular schedule of weekly updates. Continuing the trend this week with a tour of Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village. Part anthropological living museum and part technicolor thrill ride phantasmagoria, this park is at least 100% unlike any other theme park outside of Taiwan. Plus I visited on a Friday the 13th, which was apparently manifested by me getting hopelessly lost and confused while trying to accomplish a couple of stupidly simple tasks.
Jun. 7 – The world may be more divided than ever right now, but hopefully we can all come together in agreement that E-DA Theme Park is a weird-ass theme park. Taiwan’s best-worst Greek themed park led by a happy blue rhinoceros forced to fight in his own personal never-ending battle, E-DA is evidence that even if you can’t always win in quality, it’s sometimes still better to fail interestingly.
May 31 – Look. This is not a good time for the world. It’s probably not a good time to be writing about travel that happened over nine years ago when there’s more pressing issues happening right now. But I still find something calming and reassuring about going through these old memories and finally giving them the documentation I always intended them to have. Hopefully there’s still a couple of people out there who also appreciate the brief escape to another time and place, and remind them that there’s still good things to see and explore in this world once all of this is over. Today’s update is about one of the more beautiful natural locations within Taiwan. Also, that time I tried Stinky Tofu. Enjoy, and stay safe.
May 23 – Farglory Ocean Park is a little heard-of yet surprisingly unique marine theme park on the remote eastern coast of Taiwan. While I didn’t get the credit, there were still other interesting things to discover. Be sure to stick around to the end of the review for one of my more unusual stories from the Asia trip.
May 17 – Double update for today, both relatively short reads. Although both explore some of the natural treasures around Taipei, they could hardly be more different. Yehliu Geopark is one of Taiwan’s most popular (and unusual) tourist destinations, while my trip to Wulai literally involved crossing “no trespassing” signs.
May 11 – The Taiwan journey continues into the island’s largest city, Taipei. While plenty of cultural artifacts and monuments abound, from jade cabbages to not-quite-Lincoln-Memorials, as well as the second-to-last record holder for World’s Tallest Skyscaper (until someone beats Dubai), it was the city’s deliciously varied night markets that made this city especially memorable.
May 3 – Today’s update represents part two of my first day touring Taiwan in 2011. Leofoo Village Theme Park is a very good theme park that should be the premiere attraction in Taiwan… if only it could realize its full ambitions. Regardless, it’s still a fascinating park full of some unique themed rides that few theme park or coaster fans have heard of. I was certainly in for a few surprises myself.
Apr. 26 – Kicking off the first chapter of an eleven part, ten day trip to Taiwan from 2011 by looking back at this island’s unique political relationship to the mainland through the perspective of the Window on China Theme Park, located just outside of Taipei. More to come soon…
Apr. 13 – One of the lesser known yet more extraordinary chapters of my Asia tour took me to Jiuzhaigou Valley, near the Tibetan plateau in Sichuan. Snowy forests, crystal technicolor lakes, surreal waterfalls, and rambling backwoods trails. I enjoyed writing this photographic recollection very much, not least because it’s a reminder of what it’s like to be outdoors.
Apr. 5 – Exactly nine years after I visited Happy Valley Chengdu, I’m finally posting an update about my time in that park. I remember nine years ago when I was finishing with writing about my European travels that I suspected it would take me some time extra to get around to publishing all of my Asian experiences… but I never would have guessed the time frame would be this long. But I’m still committed to getting it all done before the 10 year anniversary rolls around. While unfortantely this was well before any GCI wood coasters or B&M dive machines would appear at this park, there was still my first Intamin Mega Lite to analyze. One more update from Sichuan province after then, then I’m on to somewhere new and different.
Mar. 29 – 2019 was a pretty eventful year for me, with travel to Oregon, New England, Western Pennsylvania, Spain & Portugal, and Atlanta & Nashville. I barely had time to update this site! 2020 so far is shaping up to be… quite the opposite. Now that we’re all stuck inside for the foreseeable future, I’m hoping to keep the updates flowing on a more regular interval, starting from where I left off in the 2011 Asia travelogue venturing into the interior of China to Chengdu in Sichuan province. It’s a spicy one!
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