Taichung, Part I: For Your Amusement

Just twenty minutes from the city center of Taichung, lies the fun-filled, adventure crazed land of Houli, where two of Taiwan’s biggest amusement parks are located.

Dropping off from the cab, we were expecting the entire area to be jam packed with people, but to our amusement, we were greeted by an empty carpark and vacant ticket queues. It was a Saturday, but the entire park seemed to be deserted.

 We started off at the water park to cool down first, for it was a hot day. According to their website, the Mala Bay Water Park is arguably the largest water theme park on the island. I wouldn’t argue with that after going through with it. The irritating thing you’ll have to note is that everything in this park seemed to cost us money. It was like one elaborate ploy to suck out our tourist dollars. The lockers will cost about 50NT and it is compulsory to wear swim caps, which no one in their right mind would think of bringing, so that was another 120NT down the drain. The lifejacket rental costs money too so if you’re not afraid of drowning, please don’t waste your money.

Us in the ridiculous swimming caps that we were forced to buy. We were very cross.

Other than the minor inconveniences, the water park here is admittedly larger scale than Wild Wild Wet or Adventure Cove back in Singapore. It features a huge wave pool, a crazy children’s play area and a whole lot of slides.

This is about the biggest artificial wave pool I’ve ever been to.

Notable attractions would be the wave generator that sort of simulates surfing. The one at Wavehouse in Sentosa is better in terms of variety, but just for novelty sake, the one at this park is a pretty good start. There was also the huge U-slide where you and a friend sit on facing each other and slide down and up about 3-4 stories, wishing you had bought more reliable travel insurance.

They even had a Filipino band performing at the water park!

A fun place to be for sure, and if you’re tired at the end of it, you can do yourself a favour, and float around at the lazy pool. It was a good end to our positive water park experience.

Chilling…

After a quick shower and the horrific realisation that I didn’t bring my hair wax, it was time for the actual theme park just a minute walk away. Lihpao Land (麗寶樂園) was one huge amusement park that should have been filled to the brim on a Saturday afternoon—but was surprisingly deserted.

 There aren’t many reasons for this place to be empty. The rides are pretty intense. There was the world’s first roller coaster that features an initial 90-degree drop, and this water ride that drops you from a considerable height into a ferocious spray of cold water. There were rides that turned you 360 without hesitation yet there was also a ferris wheel that took 15 minutes to go one cycle. There was quite a variety of things to do, so there was really no good reason for this place to be so empty.

We had the staff take this picture for us because we were the ONLY three people on this ride.

The roller coaster would stop at the edge of the track, and the track will tilt upon a fulcrum, all the way to vertical, where it will meet with the other track waiting below. It was a truly terrifying experience I would not want to repeat again.

The terrifying plunge.

A plausible theory would be the lack of decorations. A lot of popular theme parks feature a lot of seemingly redundant decorations and embellishments, like figurines standing around, antique vehicles just left there or buildings deliberately decorated to mimic a certain theme. Here at Lihpao Land, there is no pretentiousness, only genuine fun and amusement. For that you may lose some of the Hollywood feel and you could even go as far to say it is a tier below Ocean Park in Hong Kong. But hey, if you’re just here for that stomach twisting, gut wrenching feeling of falling from a ten story height, then you have more than enough reasons to come to this place.

Ballers will be ballers.

Being tall may give you a higher chance of passing a job interview, but it did not qualify Clement for this ride.

The most well decorated portion of the Park looks like this!

So there we have it, in this obscure corner of Taichung, is an amazing place that is Taiwan’s own Universal Studios and Adventure Cove, just that there is firstly, no queuing, and secondly, more variety of rides, and thirdly, can be procured at a much lower price.

Hello from the top of the Ferris Wheel!

Totally worth the visit.