I woke up early Tuesday morning and it was pouring, so I was pretty sure our plans to go the Leofoo amusement park would have to be canceled. I was gutted! But by 10am the sky started to clear, the sun came out and Nareesa and I jumped on the high speed rail to Hsinchu- about 90KM south of Taipei. When we got to Hsinchu we took an expensive taxi ($550NT!) to the amusement park, past a long strip of betel nut stores and desolate-looking slums. I've read that Hsinchu has the wealthiest population of any city in Taiwan, so we must not have been driving through the main part of the city because it was a pretty sorry sight. I'm sure we'll be back to Hsinchu, though, because en route to Leofoo we saw a road sign for the "Little Ding Dong Science Pakr". Sounds amazing!
When we got to Leofoo the first thing I noticed was that every single ticket booth was closed and no one was around. After wandering around a bit we found a worker at the second set of gates who pointed us towards a guest services office to purchase our tickets. At $890NT ($27CAN) the admission wasn't toooooo expensive but it was pricey for Taiwan, and when we approached our first ride- a very cool looking roller coaster called the "Screaming Condor"- and a sign said it would be closed all day we started to question the value of the admission price. Over the course of the day we found 3 different big rides were closed, among other things that weren't operating. The park wasn't very busy, so I wonder if they just don't run the big rides on weekdays as a way to save money?
A sign in the "Wild West" area of the park, which also featured a merged Halloween/Christmas theme. For example, there were snowmen with pumpkin faces... joint-holidays were possibly another money-saving concept.
The first ride we went on was this lazy river-type ride which, according to the signage, featured "fluent water". Before we got on the ride we were given a poncho that someone had left behind and we tried to cover ourselves up with it, but we still got soaked! This was a fun ride.
As soon as you leave the ride there's a store selling dry jeans and other clothes. We tried drying ourselves off with coin-operated hair dryers, but if you like there is also coin "laungy" available on-site.
Budweiser-sponsored tilt-a-whirl!!
The next ride we went on was the "Pagoda" which takes you to the top of the ride and then suddenly releases you and you drop quickly to the bottom. Try not to scream on this thing, I dare you! Even though they were only operating 1 of the 4 carts on the ride there was still no line, so they let us go twice.
Looking up!
The "Lost World" ride and the Flume in the background. Flume was open, Lost World was not!
Our next stop was the Arabian Kingdom, probably the most impressively landscaped section of the park. There were some rip offs of Disney's blue genie, a carousel, and the "Ring of Fire" which you can see above. It was kind of like a roller coaster that just looped around in circles... I refused to ride it, but Nareesa enjoyed it.
We went on a ride where we sat in a jeep and got jerked around on a track full of cheap left-over haunted house props. I got to drive the jeep- I knew my license would come in handy! Also, while we were waiting in line we made friends with some smart ass kids who pointed at my "big bird" and asked Nareesa if she was from Africa. We were the only non-Asians at the park and we turned a lot of heads. I don't think Hsinchu-folk are as used to seeing foreigners as Taipei-folk. It felt kind of weird because people in Taipei don't generally pay us too much attention. Nareesa spent most of the day getting pointed at and overhearing "hei se de" (black color). So wrong!
Mmmmm.... turkey ice cream.
Speaking of obnoxious kids, while we were waiting in line to get on a ride these two brats butted in front of us and laughed so hard at their accomplishment. It was a ride where you pedaled yourself around a track above some monkey exhibits. We were given the bike behind the bratty kids, and we pedaled super fast and bumped them good! I promise they were having fun with it too- they kept looking back to see how close we were getting and laughing. Unfortunately for them, they didn't realize that they were messing with petty foreigners!
Next, we took a choo choo train through a "safari". The most interesting thing about this safari was that, although all the other animals we caged, the ostriches were free to roam around the grounds. Ostriches aren't that friendly so the majority of them stood next to the train hissing at the people as they passed. One bunch of bratty kids jumped around and hissed back at an ostrich and I was pretty sure they were going to get pecked in the head, but unfortunately that didn't happen.
Giraffes!
A white tiger!
Outside of the safari, there were signs advertising camel rides for $50NT. How awesome- I wanna ride a camel. So, I went to pay my $50NT and GUESS WHAT- the camel ride was closed. Even though I could see the camels right there, just begging to get ridden. So, we walked back through the park and spotted a big plastic camel for me to hop on instead. As I was climbing on this plastic camel I realized that it was a coin-operated ride and -GUESS WHAT- it was out of order.
The "Dynamic Motion Theater", where us and 4 other people walked into a dimly-lit room and the crappiest, dirtiest stuffed tiger animatronic dropped from the ceiling and began giving a speech in Chinese. We laughed and then walked out. There was only an hour left and there were some rides we still wanted to try.
After 4pm, the park got quite awesome. The kids that had been there all day left (they were all from the same school field trip) and there was no one else around. We walked onto any ride we wanted and we rode it as many times as we liked. First we went on the above horsey ride, which went around a lame track incredibly slowly.
Then we went on the flume, which they had to turn back on just for us. It was a really good flume ride! After this, we went on the Pagoda (the ride that drops you from a tall height) twice, then we went on the "Undersea Adventure" which violently spins you upside down while they play "The Tide Is High" over and over again, then we went on a roller coaster twice and then another roller coaster (which had seats which spin 360 degrees as you go around the track). We went on that one three times. By then, it was time to leave the park and get a taxi back to the train station.
Shortly after getting in the cab I started to feel the effects of riding all those roller coasters in such a short period of time! As soon as we got to the train station I had to run to the bathroom, and I'll spare you the details of what transpired, but let's just say I didn't reappear for another 20 minutes. I spent the next half hour sipping ginger ale and eating plain crackers. I'm so old.
Springer's final thought:
Leofoo Village amusement park was fun, but really only because we made it fun. The number of rides that were closed was unacceptable, especially since they still charged the full admission price. Would I recommend spending a day there? Sure! I would imagine that on most weekdays there is no one there and you'd get the park to yourself. It was fun, but I'd probably only go if I were already in the Hsinchu area. And if you're over the age of 12, I recommend bringing a few Gravol tablets with you :)
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