It's been so long since I last visited an amusement park. My first amusement park experience was in Hong Kong back in 1997; then it was the only time that I went to Rainbows End with my intemediate school (like 2001??). Jordan done some research about Happy Valley and started telling us all his tips with amusement parks. Apparently one of the rides in Happy Valley is listed as the top in Asia few years ago. It's been a very popular place in Beijing. Fingers crossed that this ride won't be closed today. There is a big Christmas tree in Happy Valley and we immediately got really excited about the upcoming Christmas. Really wish we can have a white Christmas this year =)
We finally got into Happy Valley, and obviously, PHOTO TIME! To memorate our first group tour together =) There were only about 20-30 visitors with us when we got our tickets, so looks to be a quiet day today. The theme figure posing for Happy Valley are a bunch of ants, so throughout the day, we see ants cartoon figures everywhere on the map, as well as human fitted into ant costumes (very ugly ones) and dancing around in the Happy Valley. There are 6 major parks opened already in Happy Valley and the 7th one is under construction. The parks include the Wild Fjord, Alantis, Aegean Harbour, Lost Maya, Shangri-La and Ant Kingdom (for kids). There are stories behind each of these parks and associated rides and decorations. But since all the scary rides won't open until at least 12pm we decided to go for the easier ones first: bumper cars (called Treasure Troops) and Big Straw Hats. Treasure Troops (bumper cars)were so fun!!! The weirdest thing though, was the two 'guys' (like 30-ish??) in front of us which we were then competing against in the field. They are really weird, like in a way of mentally weird? They're at least aged over 30, but they run and scream like children; then they were sooooo wild on the field and crazy in trying to hit us as hard as they can. I really don't understand why are Bumper Cars so exciting that they have to scream like a little girl????????? The Big Straw Hats are really just like the tea-cup twirls in the Disneyland, something like that. That we sit inside mexican straw hats looking things and it'll start spinning and we'll 'scream' like we're scared and having fun. Lol. A good preparation for the real screams on the rides later though =P
After the bumper car and the strawhat rides we walked through the Ant Kingdom. This is a theme park designed for children but was unfortunately closed in the winter. Gerard and I saw these massive ants in the park and we started posing like them. There were a lot more further down into the park where Josi and Gerard also posed for. Haha, I guess funny photos will replace our dissappointment in the lack of facilities opening in Happy Valley =( 
Energy Collector was one of the first facilities to open. It is the highest and largest platform, so called 'flight island', for sightseeing purposes in Asia. Visitors 'board' onto the Energy Collector driven by 'our pilot' and 'co-pilot' who were making jokes all the way on the ride. When the platform arose high in the air we can see all the different parks clearly and still right in front of us. This gives us a better idea of what's in Happy Valley. We even saw the construction sites of the 7th theme park. Due to the dull winter season and the high volume of dust in Beijing, Happy Valley looks very grey and dark and unlively, very much UNLIKE the description and drawing on the map =( 
Our first exciting ride was the 'Energy Storm' inside Alantis park. This ride basically is by strong acceleration and rotation effects that brings to the passengers a feelings of being sucked into an energy storm, visually and physically. It's very attractive in Happy Valley and often became the first choice of many visitors before going onto the other rides. We sat into the double-seated branches off coming from a crane, locked up into our seats, then the cockpits will drive upper and lower turnovers to give us the storm effect, then with incredibly fast speed and double rotation trying to 'spin' us off. This is really fun! I love the super acceleration and the vertical and inverted rotations! Very stimulating =) But while we were being spinned around and turned upside down in mid-air, we saw some stuff dropping out from other passengers and hitting hard on the ground. When we finish, Josi suddenly ran to one of the staff who picked up those things from the ground and came back to us with a sad face. It was her camera that fell out from her pocket and smashed onto the ground. There are cracks on the side of the camera and is no longer responding. Feel really sorry for Josi =( But guess what?! Now you have a REAL excuse to buy a new camera, hehe. 
Jungle Racing was the first small roller coaster ride we took in Happy Valley (sorry didn't take any photos, so had to use a pic from the happy valley website). I love roller coasters and I think this mini one is great appetizers for us. The ups and downs during the ride, the constant swings between two sides of the ride, a sudden fall after going against gravity and the little screams every now and then between falls made this little ride a little bit more exciting. The swings on the track were actually quite significant, for a few times Jordan and Gerard thought they'll hit their hand on the side walls (maybe just because you guys have long arms????). 
The Apollo Wheel is the next and one of the best rides in Happy Valley (when a lot of other rides are closed). It is actually one of the more popular and famous rides in China theme parks as well as all over the world. It's built on the lake inside Happy Valley, and during winter the surface of the lake is completely frozen (couldn't take a far enough photo so took one from the happy valley website, which is a photo taken in the summer). This is the largest pendulum in Asia and is one of the five latest and best amusements by the 2004 American "Entertainment" magazine remark. This is a massive, MASSIVE monster. It gives off these giant rotate and spins off in a 15-storey height mid-air. The rotation plus the speed gives me this biggest butterfly in my tummy and it's like free falling whenever we come down from the highest point!!! Just by looking at it makes some people sick and scared. Josi didn't really want to ride for the first time and kept on resisting to come on board with us. Eventually we convinced her that it's a team experience, lol, and here we go!!! We were yelling soooooo loud and high and bad when we were swung between two sides of the pendulum!!! But it is sooooo much fun!!!! I love it~! If we have free time this afternoon I want to ride it again!!!!After Apollo Wheel, we decided to take a break and have lunch (and wait for the real rides to open). There are not too many options available in Happy Valley and every available food 'place' seems to be quite empty and offering similar food (doesn't look tasty at all). Eventually we decided to go to the 'biggest restaurant' in Happy Valley, which is really just some stalls selling food with customers sitting in the open space. I ordered a beef noodle soup, which surprisingly, with hand-made fresh noodles made right in front of me. The soup was really just bland with one slim slice of beef, but I like the hand-made fresh noodles very much! We each got a corn as well, and to our dissappointment, it's not like the juicy sweet corns we have in New Zealand, but rather it's the chewy, dry, tasteless Chinese corn =( I know Chinese like these type of corns, but maybe it's a bit too tastless for us =( The restaurant is right at the bottom of Apollo Wheel, so throughout our lunch we can hear people screaming and yelling like they're being slaughtered or something. I couldn't stop thinking, 'omg, did I sound like this too?'. Really isn't the best background music for eating=P
The afternoon is where most of our fun happens and OMG!!! I love these rides. We first went onto the Crystal Wing in Alantis(waited in lines for like 15-20 minutes?). Crystal Wing is the only flying-coaster in Asia, and it's the largest amusement facility in China. THe uniqueness of this ride is that we are being hung onto the seats, like flying through the air, rather than sitting on our seats and riding on the tracks. We read about this ride, that so far there are only five roller coasters such as this in the world (being hung rather than sitting down) and Crystal Wing won the European and American track amusement championship for two consecutive years in 2003 and 2004. Imagine this, we were hung in mid-air, with our body facing down, facing the earth, with a thought in our minds 'what if the seat belt broke, then we'll hit the ground with our face first'. This is not the end of the uniqueness!!! Crystal Wing's tracks swings inside out and upside down, with 360 degrees rotation, as well as flying backwards and many more! We were really really really going against nature and gravity. It's soooo cool!!! I really really love this ride! We were screaming sooooo loud and making EB roll calls during our ride!!! EBs Hot to GO!!!!!!!! Wooooohooo~~ (such an awesome stree relief, hehe).
Most of the other parks and rides were closed due to the cold winter. Especially the Aegean Harbour!! We really wanted to ride this roller coaster that will smash into the water at the end, but because all the water are now frozen into ice, so the rides were all closed =( Aegean Habour have the best archiecture styles, in my opinion. It used a lot of the style and ideas from the Aegean Harbour, like its name suggests, with a lot of Greek style buildings and scenary. 
But nonetheless, we really had so much fun just walking around and taking random photos, meaningful photos, pretty and funny photos, scary photos and many more! (like me standing on a frozen river) It's enough just being able to be together and really spend a quality day together. Me love~ The four of us went back and took another ride on the Apollo Wheel after going through a not-scary-at-all ghost house. Although it's not scary, but it did manage to make me scream like, once, haha, because the ghost-pretender suddenly hit the drum when I walked pass. LOL. Apollo Wheel is definitely recommended~ I really like it! It's much colder in the afternoon when the sun is setting so our second ride was so much colder. Jordan and Josi decided not to go onto the Crystal Wing again but Gerard and I are still really really keen! We went back again and ended our Happy Valley tour by taking the last Crystal Wing ride. 4pm is when the rides stopped and let's go home =)
Tonight we decided to stay home, make some nice warm home food and relax with a movie =) Such a nice feeling to just be with friends and relax at home~~ <3
We spent the whole afternoon in the zoo until it closes at 5pm. We walked through several different parks and gardens inside the zoo. We saw wolves, foxes, and all sorts of canines. In the 'Big Cats' section we saw tigers and lions, also cheeters, leopards, etc. 
Before coming to Nanluoguxiang, I did a little bit of research on Baidu (equivalent to Google in China). There are few very unique and interesting restaurants and bars in Nanluoguxiang. The first one we saw when we got there was Pass By Cafe. That's it, that's the one we picked on. The owners and creator of Pass By Cafe are a couple, and they were inspired by Tibet culture and food when they travelled there. They incorporated a lot of new ideas into some traditional food, western and eastern. The most famous dishes in Pass By Cafe are their Lamb Skewer Pizza and Gong Bao Chicken Pizza, both very typical Chinese-style dish but on a pizza; and also the wheatmeal milk tea (inspired by a drink the owners had in Tibet). I read online that sometimes the owners will bike to Tibet (for holiday etc) and sometimes will gather some loyal customers to go with them. How interesting? 
Jian left to Canada last year for his study exchange, then he stayed there a bit longer for his job. Now he's back with us in New Zealand, and going to start his graduate job at Westpac NZ from February 2010. Everytime we meet and catchup, we always choose cafe. Jian likes long black, I like latte. He drinks slowly, one sip every now and then. He sits there quietly, listen to all my rant. He laughs with me loudly, with all those jokes and random comments. He's always there, supporting me. 
As soon as we walked into the National Opera House, we were amazed at the amount of people (well, of course). What I love the most is the interior design. Extremely dome shaped tall ceilings made of glass, side walls made of red wood, marble floor, what more can I say? This is GRAND. This is breathtaking. 
