This was an all-in adventure! We went to the 'Water Cube' water park on a HOT HOT Sunday. (Incidentally this happened to be the same day that every other Beijinger with kids decided to hit the park)
It was over-the-top craycray. Lots of confusion about how to buy tickets and where and from who. There is amazingly very little signage in English and very few people speak it enough to answer questions. The tickets were pretty pricey, about $50 each. But, this was our big Elsa splurge and a quintessential China experience that we were determined to have. Once our tickets were secured we made our way inside to yet more confusion. A lot happens on trust here - trust that folks understand our pantomime and are directing us to the right place, the right line, the right ticket counter. And, amazingly it always seems to work out. We were funneled into the 'wet-money' line which enabled us to get a wristband with a sensor on it that opened a locker and provided an account for food. I was feeling pretty wasted since I had a bad head/chest cold exacerbated by the smog, heat and humidity of the past few days so I squeezed through the potted fern barrier and found a seat while Ted and Elsa waited for their wet-money. Of course it wasn't obvious how to open the locker with the sensor but we managed to figure it out - type the number into a keypad, then as soon as the light started blinking we ran to the locker and touched our sensor to the locker screen and Pop! Open! It was a miniscule space but we managed to shove all our stuff in there. Then, clad only in our suits we paraded through a shower and waded through a foot-bath and into the melee.
Words cannot really explain this place! And, we didn't have the requisite plastic neckwear that enabled us to bring in phones/cameras, hence no pictures of the interior. But here's one image I found online that pretty much captures the scene!
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| The blue slide is the one that Ted and Elsa went on a couple of times — 40 minutes of waiting for 30 seconds of thrill! |
Anyhow, we spent lots of time in the middle pool -- wall-to-wall humans. The pool was a beach entry type, with the far end a slice of 8' depth. We would go right for that slice and float around in our own space. Everyone else was in the lower depth areas so that they could watch the mammoth TV screen! It was showing Kungfu Panda and Nemo and IceAge in rotation. So loud and raucous in there! Then every 90 minutes or so, there was a show on a stage - scantily clad twerking girls, girl in a white tutu blowing smoke bubbles out of a giant bamboo pipe, creepy clowns making balloon sculptures, sexy girls doing soap bubble blows. And in case you couldn't see it well enough, the action was displayed on the giant screen as well! And to add to the drama, the pool got waves during the shows so we all bobbed around in the swells in time to the beat of the music. OVER THE TOP! And we loved it!
After about 5 hours (yes, seriously), we braved the changing room - also a free-for-all. Lots of nakedness, no modesty, no privacy and wall-to-wall bodies. Elsa was a trooper and we just shoved our way into the showers. Toilets here are mostly the squatty potties. (Reminder: bring your own tp and soap!)
Sufficiently cooled off, we wandered around the Olympic Park, to the Bird's Next Stadium and then to the road to get a cab. It is an unbelievably massive area! Giant squares of concrete and grassy areas, roads built only for the Olympic village, now only used as pedestrian walkways. Due to the heat and our exhaustion from the day, we didn't explore it as much as we might have. Another day!
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| Water Cube and Bird's Nest in the far background. Oh - and a random lady with a pink innertube. |
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