Last full day in Chengdu

This was the day we were supposed to be flying back from Jiuzhaiguo national park to Chengdu and since we were then supposed to fly out to Yunnan the next day I had booked us a room at the Holiday Inn express by the Chengdu airport. So instead we packed up at the Ren He hotel and took a cab ride out to the Holiday Inn and checked in.  Then we were left with a big chunk of the day left and not sure what to do. Margaret had heard about a water park in Chengdu that was supposedly the biggest indoor one in the world or in the biggest building in the world or something like that so we looked it up and headed that way.

Its in the New Century Global Center which is listed as the largest building in the world in terms of usable floor space. It supposedly has 18 million square feet. As we got closer it reminded me of those science fiction stories where there is an entire city in one building. This really looked like a building that could hold an entire city. You can learn more about it here-New Century Wikipedia  It sounds like the place was supposed to house offices, apartments, a mall(of course), skating rink, Intercontinental Hotel, water park, and god only knows what else. Based on what we saw it probably has all that but also has a lot of empty and derelict space. The cab dropped us off at one turned out to be the least used back side of the building and the side of the building we were facing had 4 enormous entrances big enough to drive a blimp through. With multiple other entrances of varying sizes scattered between them. The other three sides are similar. We went looking for a human sized entrance that was actually open with people who could direct us first to a bathroom and then to the water park. Eventually we found a moderate sized entrance that was open and led to a big nearly deserted atrium. I say deserted because some people had decided to set up a badminton game in the atrium. They told us to go down several more doors and go up to the 4th floor to find a bathroom. After a few false starts we did find a bathroom on the 4th floor in another section of the building which looked mostly empty except for one restaurant which seemed to be all alone what otherwise might have been a 4th floor designed for maybe offices or other restaurants. We then got directions from a security guard for the waterpark and dove into another entrance. This led to an area with broken down escalators and even a whole huge section of the building that was still unfinished concrete.

Eventually though we found the back entrance to the water park. One or maybe both ends of it are taken up with a big Intercontinental Hotel. The water park itself isn't so huge. 10 or slides, a couple of raft slides, kids play area with the usual giant bucket that dumps every so often, a lazy river that you ride in a 2 man rubber raft with life jackets, and a few other things. There is also a ropes course, rock climbing, and a hot springs section.  The food offerings though were pretty extensive with tons of restaurants offering all sorts of asian and western food. The wave pool though was nuts. Probably the biggest wave pool I've ever seen.  Everyone in it though was wearing the required life jacket. Above the wave pool was a truly humongous giant TV screen that live feeds of the people in the pool alternated with ads for other Intercontinental hotels, and underwater scenes.  Behind the wave pool is a huge stage that is at least 5 meters above the water. On the opposite side of the wave pool is a set of giant stadium seats that would easily fit several thousand people should they decide they want to watch a wave pool. The waves kick in every 30 minutes or so and when they do everyone from all over the park comes running to watch the waves. Along with that dancers come out on the stage above the water and do hip hop dance routines which are broadcast on the giant screen intercut with live feeds of people getting wiped out by the waves in the pool. Its all kind of nuts.

The Wave Pool dancers. They are also up on the stage behind the pool but too small to really see.

I've mentioned more than once the giant infrastructure projects we seen in China that are deserted or partially deserted. We've seen shopping malls and apartments and office buildings that are all deserted. When riding the high speed trains you sometimes pass dozens of 30+ story apartment buildings all of which look newly built and unoccupied. There are supposed to be whole cities which are nearly empty. So seeing this mega building with whole sections unused wasn't such a surprise.