Pearl Land was an amusement park tailored to young children. I say "was" because it's really no place to bring a child at this point.
It is, sadly, just a little run down.
As we were driving past on our way to Chimelong I noticed the rather dilapidated sign and asked Euphy if, as the exterior implied, Pearl Land was an abandoned amusement park. To my surprise and delight she told me that we could go check it out.
Tickets anyone?
Wandering around the place it reminded me a lot of Storybook Gardens back in London, Ontario. For those not familiar, but curious, check the Wikipedia article.
I found this map to be extremely helpful.
Hooray?
Euphy actually was REALLY excited to be back here. Apparently it was a pretty happening place when she was a kid, a despite its current state it was bringing back a lot of great memories. It's bittersweet to see something that she loved so much still here to enjoy yet fallen into such disrepair, but it didn't seem to phase her at all. She was just happy to wander around with me as I snapped photos. For me it was just a surreal experience to be in the fading remains of a place that was obviously once so bright and cheerful.
I'd mentioned before that I didn't want to make a post until I could do this place justice with photos, so I'll largely let the photos (and brief captions) do the talking.
Maybe in need of a fresh coat of paint.
The bustling walkways of Pearl Land.
Vibrant and full of (plant) life.
What this building needs is more rust stains.
I love the painting of palm trees being reclaimed by actual jungle.
Nothing creepy at all about a baby bottle laying discarded on the ground.
Also nothing unsettling about these characters.
Or these ones.
Everywhere there are signs of plant life pushing their way in.
Yes, someone has come in here and hung their laundry up on the jungle gym. Also, the eagle-eyed among you will have notice that the laundry also includes a fish.
Not sure if this statue is dirty, or is depicting a crying prostitute's running mascara.
Oh, and chickens. No amusement park is complete without them.
So romantic.
Even the plastic flowers are wilting.
I'm sure this restaurant normally does a booming business.
Olympic rings.
This deer(?) has seen better days. I hope.
High hopes for the swimming pool?
Sorry.
I'm sure it's delicious.
If you can't see the smaller sign (you can click to expand these images) it says "The Dark Journey." Sounds fun.
I poked my head in and noticed the horizontal claw marks dragged across the wall. That's as far as I decided to go.
I don't know why, but the broken beach scene is one of my favourite pictures.
We continued to push our way through the crowds.
Pearl Land's High Street.
The Spinning Lotus. When I'm naming a children's ride I always go for something that sounds like it's straight out of the Kama Sutra.
I'm sure this carnival is absolutely delightful.
For the purpose of brevity I've just included this one shot of the arcade, but it was massive. Lots of classic games in there, none of which would fit in my luggage.
A bizarrely well-stocked claw game.
One of the few signs of life.
The packed parking lot.
I took a lot pictures around this place, but that's all I'll subject you to. Now for the fun part of this whole experience. I'm sure a lot of you were looking at the crumbling ruins of this place and wondering how I got in here in the first place. That's the really entertaining part; I paid the admission and went in the front gate! Yes, that's right, this is still an operational park. It cost roughly $10 Canadian to get in and there were actually a handful of other people wandering around. There was even someone there to turn on The Spinning Lotus for us so that we could go for a ride. That, I think, made the entire experience even more surreal.
