Introduction

In the Summer of 2010 I was kindly invited to accompany some friends for a 2-week tour of China. The route would take us around Beijing in week 1 and Shanghai in week 2.

The Beijing leg would also have us heading out to Tianjin and Qinghuangdao

The Shanghai leg would take in Suzhou, Nanjing & Wuhu

The intent, along with the usual tourist stuff (Great Wall, Tiannamen Square etc) was to visit Chinese Theme Parks. The country has always had a large number of small city parks with rollercoasters within them but since the Olympics they'd also seen an influx of Western style theme parks with larger rides. With the Chinese economy in a healthier state than the UK's and America's investment here was also much higher...Basically right now, China is the place to visit for the new rides. The Olympics had also offered another benefit in that it was now easier to get about, but we still arranged for a guide to accompany the group to deal with the more difficult issues such as language :)

The flight wasn't too bad. I caught two movies then attempted to sleep, failing miserably. Shutter Island was better than I though, a shame as I wanted to call it Shitter Island. Losers looked like someone trying to steal The A-Team's thunder and failing.

Those of us from the UK and Denmark were arriving a day early so the plan was to mop up some last minute coasters that I'd found in the week leading up to the trip before meeting the group proper.