Splendid China is another of Shenzhen’s tourist attractions. It’s all about the different Chinese cultures and their traditions. It’s supposed to showcase the variety of Chinese people and cultures. And it’s only a metro stop away from Happy Valley and Window of the World.
They are also doing a bunch of haunted houses for Halloween. My friends decided to visit this one the day after we all went to Happy Valley. (Don’t want to miss the haunted houses! We’re not sure when these end).
Getting In
I got there a bit early and had a chance for a bit of a walk around. I got to watch them set up some inflatable decorations. I don’t think they were set up correctly as they were happier bent over or on the ground than upright, but the decorations were trying.
This time, we couldn’t use a QR code to get in without some help. Luckily, there was still a person in the ticket booth and one of my friends can speak some Chinese.
We did have to scan a different code and hand over our phones so the nice lady in the booth could change some things on the form. Then we had to pay her and not pay through the app, but we got our (paper!) tickets and were allowed in.
Waiting Around
For some horrible reason, the haunted houses didn’t start till 7! We had planned to meet up at the same time as yesterday, 6 pm, when Happy Valley’s Halloween started. We were all greatly disappointed that we had to kill nearly an hour before we could see if they could scare us.
We spent a little time walking around the entrance area, looking at the various amusements to see if they were with the time and yuan. They had a few VR things, probably games, but some looked more like videos. One even looked like a locked room challenge, but with VR.
We chose none of them. We instead ran across a theater in the middle of everything with a show. After sitting in the chairs for a while, we realized we had made a grave mistake. The show was incredibly boring!
Normally, some acrobats, contortionists, and a whole lot of dancers would be entertaining, granted no one would be rushing to give them their own show, but they weren’t horrible, but not tonight. Tonight, we were only interested in terror.
Acrobats that really liked standing on each other 
Plate spinners and vase catcher 
Fighting bulls (I think?) 
A small number of the dancers we watched
We spent most of the show either trying to figure out how they did something (there was a guy throwing a giant vase up and catching it all with his head), or to figure out which parts in the show we could do (we settled on holding lanterns and the occasional background dancer).
Eventually, the show ended. It was just before 7. Probably because the dancers and acrobats had to go out on their scary makeup and find their place in the haunted houses or wandering around.
Haunted Houses
We gave them a few minutes to get the haunted houses ready for scaring. My friend didn’t want to be first through the house in case they were still setting up. But, when we started hearing screams, we figured they were ready for visitors.
The first haunted house was just walking in a straight line in a pitch-black room with things hanging down, people jumping out and grabbing you, air blowing on you from various directions, and things on the floor. It was everything you could want in a haunted house and nothing I got from the ones in Happy Valley. It was truly scary. I was very happy.
The second one was quite good as well. This one was in one of the houses that you could walk through to see the different styles of houses present in China. It had more of the haunted house feel than the first one as it was in an actual house with twists and turns and had scary decorations that you could actually see, unlike the first one.
The third one I spent a good bit of in the air. Just inside, there was a skeleton on some kind of track that I was trying to figure out, when, all of a sudden, someone reached out and touched me. They grabbed my leg! I figured jumping was the appropriate response since running was out as I was holding a friend’s hand. She had a death grip.
The fourth one of the evening was definitely the best one. It was a wonderful combination of all of the best parts of the other haunted houses. It had creepy decorations, lots of people hiding in dark corners, things hanging down, and something jumping out around every turn.
Some Walking
But, that was all the haunted houses over here. When we came into the park, we had the option to go right or left, we chose right. So, we had a whole other area of the park to go explore, hoping there would be some haunted houses to be found.
It would also give my heart a chance to stop trying to fly out of my chest and my nerves to settle, at least a little, before the next person popped up and I jumped in terror, again.
We stopped to watch a weird performance right by the entrance/exit. It was very weird. There was someone that, I’m assuming, was carried in by her collection of servants. They didn’t get along with a few people in leather jackets. They were dance fighting. People dropping to the ground dramatically all over. Then the lady got back in her ride.
I really had no idea what was happening. But there was a large crowd, so someone must have understood it. If you’ve seen this show and know what was happening, please let me know.
We went wandering around the other side to see if we could find any more haunted houses.
We basically just followed the lights. They had a few things lit up nicely. But there weren’t any people around, so I wasn’t holding out too much hope on there being much to see.
Then there were some white sheets draped over the path that we had to walk through. I kept waiting for someone to jump out (every other dark corner had someone waiting to terrify me, why not here?), but no one was there. Again.
A ridiculously tall bridge for crossing such a short distance 
Hanging sheets with nothing jumping out
On the other side, there were a few costumed people, but they were more waiting for something. One did come by to scare my friend and tell her to pull up her mask, but nothing was really over there.
We walked around the other side of this little lake they had, mostly because we didn’t want to walk over the bridge with a scary number of stairs again.
We had a ghostly escort for most of the trip, but it was more like we were both going in the same direction at the same time than they were actually leading us anywhere.
We did make the choice to continue following them after they turned to go up some stairs and not go straight into the dark, dark path ahead.
Overall
It was amazing and frightening! I know what I’m doing for Halloween next year, assuming, of course, that I’m not in some other country.
Everything was just better at Splendid China.
The wandering scary people were scarier and more active. Their costumes were more creative and showcased a lot of different ways to scare people.
The people in the haunted houses were really good at blending into the shadows and jumping out when people aren’t looking. They had pots and pans to drop and bang against things. It was definitely more dramatic and scarier than the rubber hands and feet.
Why are there galaxies on the ground? 
Creepiest thing I’ve ever seen
It was also a bit cheaper than Happy Valley’s ticket at ¥85, instead of ¥100.
We only had 4 haunted houses, instead of 10, but these were worth the money. I would have happily given them 100 for each haunted house!
We still didn’t have full access to the whole park. But, unlike Happy Valley, I actually want to go back to this one in the daylight. There was more to see and do.
My TEFL Adventure 
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