Window on the World

Window on the World park was the closest to our hotel in Shenzhen but not one in our itinerary. However with time in the evenings to head over we decided to head over. The park is home to one indoor coaster, which is a good reason to include it. The park was also running a beer festival, which was an even better reason to go.

This is the metro exit, which I think has a Vegas Louvre look to it. We however didn't take the subway instead choosing to play Frogger with the traffic.

Michaelangelos David, Venus di Milo, and the Eiffel Tower making it obvious that the theme of this park is to copy famous thugs from around the world and gather them in one place.

Ok, so it was late and dark so here's a picture of the legs of the Horse of Troy. If this really carried an army they must have been midgets.

Interesting choice of lighting set up on Dave.

Having figured out the entry fee was about £5 (reduced after 6 pm) and fielding a stupid question from a stupid person who had attached themselves to our group ("is that for the group?") we made our way inside and were greeted with lots of replica artefacts. Indy Jones needn't have travelled the world - he could just have robbed his place.

There are some attractions in the park including this ice rink, it offered an escape from the humidity.

Replica Italian street.

The attention to detail in the replicas was pretty good. The Dave wasn't too bad outside, but this Kyoto Migashiri Hare inside the park was superb!

Egypt looked great at night.

Mt. Rushmore looked like it had been taken over by Stalin.

Manhattan still had its Twin Towers.

In the back corner of the park there's a Weigand ride, which I believed o be a toboggan but subsequently discovered is a bobkart. Regardless of the fact, it was closed so we didn't get to ride it.

We did spend quite a bit of time trying to find the coaster. Those that were leading didn't know where they were going despite having ridden it before. We later found out that the ride was not only closed like the bobkart but had been for some time for extended maintenance. Knowing that we weren't going to find it running we headed to the beer festival.

Finding a table we were instantly surrounded by reps from a number of beer stands wanting us to buy their beer, a little more swarming than we were prepared for. We eventually chose a nearby stand and stuck with them for the night.

The entertainment consisted of a number of musical acts. This band were not too bad although one singer sung with a lisp (weird in Chinese) and another just stood there for ages and whee did get to sing, did so with an incredibly odd deep voice.

Dancers, western, came out and danced to Gangnam Style. This track really is globally huge.

More of the very talented dancers.

As the night went land the beer flowed, we moved on from ordering the glass to the pitcher then onto the barrel, and the night became more and more fun.

The magic show wasn't too bad with no unique tricks but those that were done were done well. I liked that the roles were swapped with the woman doing more of the tricks than the guy.

The South American drummers shouted as much as they banged.

Us at the peak of our alcohol consumption and probably my favourite photo of the holiday.

Female (questionable) singer came out and had quite a long set and, rather strangely, drank quite a lot of beer handed to her by stooges so perhaps it was water. We realised the whole event was to generate beer sales, and as we were on our second barrel by this point, didn't mind.

We left the entertainment at this point, some strange milk the cow game.

A little bit of Vienna on the way out. I know its Strauss but don't know his sounds so this means nothing to me.

Having had a great night there we decide to head back for more later a few days later.

This time we went straight for the barrels.

The second night was busier but having formed a good friendship with our server on the first night we were able to get her to negotiate us access to one of the VIP tables at the front. Nice!

I need to check if the acts were famous in Chinaor not. These two, went not on stage, were sat on the tale next to us.

The show was exactly the same as before, same acts, same lisp singing, same beer drinking (with the same stooges). The only difference was that we stayed to the end this time.

And I'm glad we did as this trio were amazing. It was great to see some proper Chinese circus acts.

Their finale was amazing as the little girl was spun by her neck above our heads.

These two were lost on us as their comedy act was all in Chinese. They did start with her kicking him all over the stage, I suspect due to comments made about her size. By the end of the act they had made up though.

Some shots of the group and our amazing server.

We didn't spend all of our deposit on beer and the server wouldn't take it as a tip (a "no no" in China) so it was nice of her to spend it on more beer for us to take away.

We've made it to thee doggie show, and had another great night.

And in under a minute of the conclusion the place had totally cleared out.

Ok, so we didn't get the coaster and due to the lack of light didn't get to see much of the park, but it didn't matter and the nights we spent at the beer festival were some of the best of the trip.

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