Richard Bannister

A second day of small parks in the Shanghai area began with one that I'd been to on my previous trip three years ago. I didn't notice any changes in Gongqing Forest Park, with the Inertia Roller Coaster, the Loop And Spiral Coaster, the Bobkart, and the Golden Dragon Roller Coaster riding exactly as I remembered them.

We found the smallest coaster of the trip so far at Heping Park. The brakes on Outer Space Flying Car (#1831) couldn't stop the train properly with a full load of adults, causing the front car to get stranded on the lift hill after each ride, much to the amusement of all watching. After ticking off the credit, a few of us also took the time to try a haunted house style dark ride; unfortunately, I'm not able to remember anything about it as I write this a few hours later, which shows just how much of an impression it made on me!

Our third stop of the day was a large municipal park with a ride area at one end. Our coach driver was unaware of this, and as a result the group was dropped off at the wrong side of the ground a little over ten minutes walk from our target. In due course we'd found Gliding Dragon, which stood next to a small variety of flat rides aimed firmly at those under eight years of age.

Park four wasn't a new one for me, and I'd ridden its Gliding Dragon previously. However, it would have been rude of me not to ride it again.

Rotating Pulley was having a bad day for our visit to Century Park Shanghai, with some nasty bumps in the track and no spinning to speak of. Rather more amusing was the failure of the train straightening device at the end of the course, which caused two cars, including mine, to get stuck after the brake run. The following picture speaks for itself!