THE ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARK OF TERROR!!!™

CM – In honor of the recent UN Global Road Safety Week, Ulaanbaatar banned automobiles on a stretch of its two most-traveled roads Sunday. These roads travel right through the center of town and one is pretty close to us, so Jessica and I decided to take the opportunity to walk down the middle of the road. We were joined by a gaggle of people who looked like they were up to nothing much, some kids playing soccer, and a surprising number of roller bladers. The lack of any well paved roads and sidewalks would lead one to believe that all potential roller bladers would already have met their demise. Not so.

So, after watching a less-than-interesting bicycle race begin (which chased us from the road), we left the beaten path for a while, lured by a Buddhist monastery we had often passed, but never approached. We looked at the monastery and took some pictures, but were too shy to go in. Oh well. This shyness led us to the real find…

THE ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARK OF TERROR!!!™ Well, more like the abandoned amusement park of feces and dumb graffiti. After talking with our friend, we found that the amusement park is not so much abandoned as off-season. Could have fooled me. They apparently open the park up in the summer, which is surprising from the looks of it. Also, why can people just walk through it during the off-season if they intend to use it again? They are just begging people to poop in it! (There are as many public toilets as public trash cans – meaning none. This doesn’t mix well with the population of homeless folks).

Anyway, here are some of our pictures from The ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARK OF TERROR!!!™ Enjoy:

As we walked into the park grounds, we saw this building proclaiming the park’s misleading name (more aptly, “Tetanus Land” or “World of Critical Injuries”).



Across the beautifully kept grounds you can see the three-headed slide of horror. This slide features some beautiful urban artwork, as well as a lot of rust, and watch those sharp edges! You can ask Jessica about the experience of sliding down it. She tangled with the beast, and lives to tell the tale…



And be sure to try the rides when you visit. While Jessica likes the caveman gravitron (sorry, picture not included), I personally prefer the disappoint-o-coaster (I almost made this thing fall off of its pedestal, with me in it).



Maybe catch a performance by your favorite band, possibly Foreigner or Molly Hatchet (a side note: don’t go backstage – there is a serious amount of human waste back there. Don’t ask me how I know).



Unfortunately, our trip to the amusement park was left incomplete. Due to the temperature, we missed our chance to catch the beaver fever in the water park/waste treatment plant for kids. Darn. Maybe next time.