I went to Guangzhou for work this week, so I could not miss this opportunity to visit a very well-known derelict theme park about… Interstellar space!

The park « Space Wonders » opened in 1997, following the general wave of theme parks aiming at pleasing the generation of « post-80 » children in China.

The investment was very important, 25 million yuans, but soon, the park got in financial trouble and could not afford the cost of maintenance. It closed down in 2011. Theme parks like this one not only show the early stage of a Chinese market economy of leisure, they also reflects the country’s ambitions and in this case, ambitions towards the conquest of space!

Once I got inside the park (not as easy as one would think because many people still use former facilities in the parc!), I immediately got attracted by the UFO on top of the hill. It was not possible to get into the capsule though, how sad!

Then, there are also some replicas of rockets and space shuttles. Their size is quite huge.

There is also a very high flying machine with eagles.

The park also has other more « common attractions » everywhere, but I did not have the chance to take all the picture of them as my camera was soon out of battery.

To end this post, I will just show you what I found the most interesting about this place: the view on another abandoned theme park… about the world! How rare is that? I did not have time to visit that one, since it had much more security guards there and I had to rush back for my work meeting but… I’ll definitely be back!

Let’s hope it stays this way for a while. Until I bring you more pictures (I hope to come back someday for the sunset!), here is a last vision of the UFO.

If you liked this post about a derelict theme park from the 1990s in China, you can read about Shanghai’s American Dream Park or Chengdu’s « The World » theme park.

References

« 从门票看主题乐园的消逝, » 羊城晚报, 2 May 2018, http://www.xinhuanet.com/fashion/2018-05/02/c_1122759496.htm (accessed on 16 October 2019).