We Saw the World in a Day

I first heard of Window of the World (世界之窗, shìjiè zhī chuāng)theme park when researching China before we ever moved to ShenZhen, and when I heard of it, I knew that we had to go sometime. The concept of the park was one I found highly amusing: they took just about every landmark you could possibly think of from all over the world and recreated them in the miniature.

Attending this park reminded me a bit of my visit to Epcot in January, only I wouldn't say that attention to detail was quite on the Disney-level (i.e. all the food served in the park is Chinese food, nearly all of the performers are Chinese), but who would expect that? Disney is quite unique.

Still, we had a grand time. The concept of making an amusement park based on the idea of collecting famous sights from all over the world and putting them in one place caused me to be overcome with giggles from time to time, but it was an awesome day, giggles and all. The park also boasts a couple of rides for which you need extra tickets (we were at the park for about 6 hours, and that was going at high speed to see everything, not stopping for food or extra ticketed rides). They have "cultural shows" in different regions of the world. We went to a "cultural show" that took place in a European church, as you'll see below.

Quite frequently, this park reminded me how very much not a traveler I actually am, because I've seen a grand total of 1 of the sights in the park in real life. However, many sights reminded me of friends and family who have been to the real places. Let me know in the comments which of these real places you've been too!

 The Pyramid from the Louvre was the exit from the metro. My family was there last year.

 I'll be honest, I had no idea what this was, and there was no sign, but I was very intrigued so I googled "ancient blue brick wall" and discovered that this is the Ishtar Gate.

 My family was here, too, a year ago. And Joslin, what do you think of our Eiffel Tower selfie?

 I love being the master of the map.

 I still haven't figured out what this is. I Googled "fancy Chinese gate" but apparently that's too vague a description. Does this look familiar to anyone?

 Angkor Wat, another adventure my family went on without me...

 It's Mini-Stonehenge!

 Niagara Falls.

 This was the one sight I've seen in real life, Mt. Rushmore. Amanda just went there, by the way.

 Angel hadn't been to Mt. Rushmore, but he had been to New York, so we've each racked up a total of 1 famous landmark a piece. Note that their New York is pre-2001.

 I was yelling, "Abraham Lincoln is so tiny!" and Angel said "He's even tinier on the penny." 

True.

 Yep, it's leaning.

The Washington Monument made me think of Sam!

 This was the one "cultural show" that we made sure to get to--a 15 minute "Christian wedding ceremony". The choir sang several hymns in Mandarin, including one that I recognized as "Holy, Holy, Holy." The priest/man in the hat said a short message about marriage in Christ (in Mandarin, of course), and the very non-enthusiastic bride and groom bowed to each other after exchanging rings. It was extremely intriguing to see this interpretation of something that's part of my own Western Christian culture (although I believe this is intended to be a Catholic wedding, or else liturgical Protestant--in any case, it didn't really resemble weddings I've actually been to, was slightly depressing due to lack of enthusiasm on the part of the actors, but was extremely interesting).

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Windows of the World didn't have every cool sight of the world, though they had a large number (around 130 is what they advertise) of them. Given my biases, I thought that they should have had Devil's Tower, the Petronas Towers and maybe a few landmarks of Israel, and more from the continent of Africa, which was largely ignored except for the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Which of these landmarks from around the world have you seen in real life? And what do you think would be most cool to see in miniature?