Riverside Park

Riverside park is a sizeable recreational park located on the bank of the Haihe River which runs through Tianjin to the sea. Like Shanghai, the city has a designated Bund district with entertainment, eating places and the like all in one place. Unlike Shanghai, this isn't so accessible being a good 30 minute drive out of the city.

In researching the area I noticed this park that had no obvious coasters from the imagery but did contain a decent selection of rides and so we decided to add it to the day, remembering of course it was a contingency day.

As with most parks in China you could probably guess the rides that are present, and you could probably guess the state there'd be in, usually poor. Perhaps this park was a bit of an exception in that the rides looked to be in really good condition.

If you've ever had the yearning to sit in a watermelon then you know where to come.

In fact fruit seemed to be a common theme in the park.

It's those dodgems with the hammers that we enjoyed in Qingshuishan park right back at the start of the Chinese leg. That seemed so long ago.

A ride where you get to shoot at defenceless animals that don't get the chance to shoot back.

These tables and chairs were pretty cool. Look closely and you'll see they run on wheels in a half pipe motion so that the whole thing rocks back and forth. Just in case these get added to coaster-count we sat in every single one of them. A great way to boost your count...actually we didn't but we must have been getting so desperate to ride a coaster today that we were looking for anything close to enjoy.

There is nature for those that don't want to do rides. The whole place was really nice, but that is something you can say about any Chinese parks. By all means discredit their rides, and powered dragons and spinning mice, but you can't fault the beauty in their parks.

Now this character I recognise from somewhere. I guess Dreamworks did a good job with this character if the Chinese have taken to him. It's just a shame that the character is a rip-off from Sly Raccoon

So 4 parks today and still no coasters. With just one park left to visit today would we get lucky? (If you count those half-pipe shuttles there are 4 further along the river to the east of this park under the huge white sculptural building.

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