Window of the World: Full Version (Almost)
Let's start off with what happens when you combine Zorb, water and a Chinese mind?
You get human size water threading balloons of RMB20 per 5 mins.
It's a place where you put your kids so you have your 5 mins peace of mind while seeing them make a fool of themselves.
It's kinda fun before you run out of energy to stand up.
It's even more stupid when you see two kids going at each other in their respective balloons,
when all we see is two balloons rolling non stop against each other.
Here's a video of cute little kids running around aimless in balloons.
Okay, so that concludes the sort of activity entertainment you can find in the park of Window of the World. (Read Part 1 here)
I am going to show you how amazing Chinese are with their skill of "copy".
Brace yourself for this is going to be a long entry.
You have been warned.
Let's begin. We started off from the Asia region.
Here we have The Grand Palace of Thailand.
An exact 1:15 ratio copy of the real thing in Thailand.
How small? Here's me in the photo.
Then we head up north to the Kyongbokkung Palace in Korea.
By now I was utterly impressed, seeing how detailed these miniature constructions are.
How detailed? See it for yourself.
Next to was a famous gate named Bu Tung Mun gate in Korea.
Sounds like a direct translation from Chinese "Pu Tong Men".
Well, at least something never change in China. The amazing Chinese-English. I call it, Cenglish.
Small little gate.
The next one was rather impressive.
It's the Imperial Palace of Japan.
Also in 1:15 ratio to the real thing.
They even imitate an on going festival at the palace.
Where hundreds of little people join in the marching.
The palace was so real up to every detail including the river that surrounds the palace.
Mini bridge was simply adorable.
The next reproduction was even more impressive when they managed to reproduce the whole Burohudur Stupa in Indonesia.
Which looked like this.
Like wtf man, how the heck do you sculpt something like that?!
It wasn't until the next one when they completely threw me off course.
You've read it correctly. They just reproduced the entire Angkor Wat (the queen of Angkor temples). Yes, THE Angkor Wat, the one and only in Cambodia, the one which I played self timer in for an entire morning.
It's so real, even the front yard was an exact copy to copy.
Well except there were grass instead of tiny pebbles on the ground.
I guess it would looked more like tall weeds if they were to plant real grass on it.
But heck, even the east entrance (at the back) was detailed to speechlessness.
If not for the building in the far distant background, this could have been a spoof photo of the real thing.
Then there was the Wat Xiang Thong in Laos.
And the many many Stupas in South East Asia.
The Shwe Dagoon Pagoda in Burma.
The Ruwanwelisaya stupa in Sri Lanka.
The Swayambhunath stupa in Nepal.
Then there's the single column temple in Vietnam which I never heard before.
Don't know about you, but I find the mini lake just so cute! They just have to make the pond to increase the realistic level of the tiny sculpture.
Moving slightly toward the middle east, a place of which culture I'm unfamiliar with and very much would like to visit, you'll find the Great Mosque of Dalaban in Iran.
I'm surprised that it was so big, bigger than Angkor Wat, if not the same size, even at 1:15 ratio its miniature.
Now if you're thinking: "Ceh, only know how to copy all the architecture and produce them in small sizes, easy lar". Well think again.
Here was the Chaitya arch gate in Bhaja, Indi, in 1:2 ratio.
Which the park used it as an entrance to another section of the park. Brilliant wasn't it!
Or what about the Taj Mahal in India. Ah hah, don't think they forget that,
In 1:6 ratio.
I almost felt like I was visiting the actual Taj Mahal, as a giant.
And these people don't just reproduce the sculpture, they make it a point to create the entrance and its surroundings too.
Like the magnificent long fountain that leads to the Taj.
Let's move to the West region now, shall we?
If you've been to Spain, here is the Guell Park of Spain.
1:2 ratio.
They even made the mosaic tiled lizard in front!
Goodness, just look at the design. How alike it was.
Now here's a replica of the Obelisk in Italy, 1:3 ratio.
Or the Coliseum in Rome, Italy.
Which ratio I didn't manage to get.
Why not try The Acropolis of Athens, Greece.
1:6 ratio.
Damn, now I want to go to Greece more than ever.
I even visited the Egyptian Pyramids.
for those who read Chinese
By then we were quite honestly running out of time, so we quickly skimmed through a section here and skipped the rest and proceeded to the other parts of the world.
Wolfman
Pregnant woman
Sarcophagus
Hugging Sarcophagus
again for those who's able to read
More Sarcophagus
some Pharaoh's statue
After Egypt, we ended up in South America.
Brazil to be exact.
Where we found the Congress Building in 1:15 ratio in size.
Which was.. really... quite a plain and weird building.
Then there was the El Caslillo in Mexico. 1:15 ratio.
Globose from the same country.
Also, there're the statues of Easter Island in Chile.
1:2 ratio.
Some asses might now criticize: "ah.. it's still in smaller size, these people are so incompetent, only know how to copy things and make them smaller."
Why not try this on for size, wise guy.
The Modhere Well in India.
1:1 ratio.
I don't know how deep this reproduced well is and I don't want to find out
Observe the human in the distant sitting on the other end of the "well", and visually measure how big this well is.
Or the statues of warriors in Mexico.
Or the oh-so-too-famous maze you heard so much about in England, that everyone always gets lost inside.
o.. aunty got lost.
Well, now you shall find one an exactly the same here, 1:1 ratio.
Now you don't have to fly to England to try out the maze. There are TWO exact Maze in the world!
Seriously, I've studied in England, never visited the Maze, though always wanted to. Now having gone through an exact copy of the Maze and successfully came out from it, I'm not sure if I'll be bother to actually try out the real one anymore. It's going to be the same anyway.
Btw, about the maze (side track a bit), I read somewhere years ago that the one trick to get out of a maze was to put your left hand on the wall, and keep on walking without your left hand leaving the wall, and eventually, you will find the exit.
Guess what, it's true!
Here's a video of me and my brother having successfully exited the maze.
(back on track)
Or what about creating an entire Japanese garden,
put in a pond, with lots of koi fish (for better effect),
add some tang longs for beautification,
so to house a 1:1 ratio reproduction of Katsura Imperial Villa in Japan.
Everyone say "Ichiban!"
peace
Now some anal critical bastard would then say: "ai yo, can only copy that big only a... loser la these people".
Want to copy something big?
How big are we talking about here?
What about... Fuji Mountain big.
Oh yes, they did. They bloody reproduce the whole mountain, damn they're good!
Not big enough for you?
Okay, how's this then.
The GRAND CANYON.
Even the miniature of it was so big they made it into a water slide ride.
Want more?
Granted, I shall give you the Niagara falls.
Bloody hell, they made an artificial lake in the middle of the park for this reproduction.
I could even feel the water splashing toward me from where I was standing.
Hungry for a snack? Want some chapati from India? You can find them here in China. (oh that rhymes)
Break's over.
Now let's stop being so narrow minded and move on to something bigger, something more impressive.
What we've gone through were just puny stuff, pfft, small projects. Not even worth boasting.
We should think big.
Anyone has ever been to Venice - the romantic water city in Italy? (I have)
Why not... we take the whole St Mark's Square, concise that to 1:5 ratio, and reproduce that?
And so they did.
Down to every single window and tiles and brick stones and statues.
God, walking through here was like me walking through Venice years ago. Brought back memories it did.
Next project.
Been to the states? Seen amazing monuments before? Okay, now see the whole collection of every possible grand monument and memorial there and compile them here shall we?
And so they did, again.
Lincoln Memorial. 1:15 ratio.
Look inside you can even see a tiny Lincoln sitting on his marble throne.
Then there's Benjamin Franklin and his amazing memorial.
You know how Benjamin's memorial is located on an island of its own?
Well, they have the island, as well as the lake too.
Now anyone who has seen the Washington Monument knows that it's just a stick, and that it's f*cking big.
I never knew how big it was until I came here.
Even at 1:15 ratio, the thing looked humongous!
And who could forget the one and only White House.
Oh look! I stepped on the staircase of the White House!
And you're aint talking about states if there's no Statue of Liberty.
And again on its very own mini island too!
Ok, stop fooling around. All these are simply petty projects.
Honestly, do you really think that any of these is impressive?
You want size? I give you size.
You want scale? I give you that too.
You want grand-ness? Fine.
Ready?
...
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I give you....
New York City!
1:100 ratio.
or rather, Downtown Manhattan in 1:100 ratio.
If you looked closely enough, there's something in the city that doesn't belong there anymore.
Yep, the World Trade Centre.
Which was ironic, because not too far from the "city", up in the sky, stood the Jesus statue of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
And coincidentally enough, it's looking directly at and over the said World Trade Centre.
Maybe that's why the World Trade Centre in Window of the World is still standing.
(ok, lame joke, ignore me)
The whole park was simply breathtaking. As much and as fast as I ran that day, from one monument to the next palace, I still wasn't able to cover half the park.
Each country around the world took years or even decades to build any of the above architecture and has awed millions around the world, flying there purposely just to see such amazing grand scale of art work,
and the Chinese took ALL of those amazing grand scale breathtaking awe-striking work, copy them and combine them into Window of the World.
It's so amazing, it made reproduction like this humorous.
Piss fountain in Belgium, 1:1 ratio.
But it just shows how detailed the park was designed and laid out.
After all that have been included and crafted out,
guess what Malaysia's iconic attraction was in the eyes of the Chinese?
The Monastery in Penang?! Are you f**king kidding me?!
First you left Peninsular Malaysia out of your global map!
Now of all things amazing in Malaysia to be included,
all you can think of that's iconic in Malaysia is a tiny can die Monastery?!!!
*show middle finger*
18 kissed Nicole
Nicole, this was an amazing post. Really informative and great pictures!
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that was the first time I heard you speaking anything besides English :)
Very powderful indeed. Keep up the good work. M with u wherever u go.
ReplyDeleteChina made is very very good lerr!!!!
ReplyDeleteHihihi... Interesting!!
Very interesting & nice,
ReplyDeletesee the world from a window,
=)
Do keep up your excellent photography!
By the way,
one of your photos had a mix-up.
the Congress Building, Brazil.
Double picture of the signboard,
& none of the mini model itself. (",)
cool detailed entry. :P
ReplyDeletei visited one similar lilliput kingdom in taiwan.
me pushing the pisa tower
me kissing a.lincoln on his nose
Impressive! But they should have included at least the Petronas Twin Towers.
ReplyDeleteAround the world in 1 day??!!!
ReplyDeleteAhhahahahahaha...Maybe M'sia is not that significant to them...Sigh~
ReplyDeleteThe Vietnam piece is actually the "One Pillar Pagoda" (this is actually the 1st time I've seen it written as "Single Pillar Pagoda" ... well, China's version of English is always 'unique'). It's in Hanoi, shares the same compound as Uncle Ho's mausoleum and his wooden stilt house. It's part of most Hanoi city tour itineraries.
ReplyDeleteKek Lok Si! Penang rocks!
ReplyDeleteNow i noticed you has a cute voice when you speak in Mandarin :)
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the pics!
ReplyDeleteEsp the jap garden.
Thks
So, this is the freaking long post that you wrote until you slept only a 4am lah.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome! I guess a whole day in the park wouldn't be enough??
ReplyDeletejust two questions... how long did u spend in there to get each and every monument's photo taken?! and, why did u think kek lok si's not supposed to be there?!? it's the largest buddhist temple in southeast asia!! btw, ya, i am from penang... ;p
ReplyDeleteWow..... i also wanna know how long u spent there?? feel like days...
ReplyDeleteAnd great post and pictures...
nice photos nicole.. very cool fierce and fresh dragon candy ! first time i seen this :)
ReplyDeleteHi Nicole
ReplyDeleteMy name is Kieron I also visited Window of the World recently - What an amazing place!
It looks like you captured many things I didn't (LOL my batteries ran out!)
And I perhaps caught a few things you didn't either.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/95157806@N05/8677131914/in/photostream