A wonderful 2 day camping experience for over 75 campers took place last weekend. The Camp Quality group set off early on the Saturday morning from the China Hong Kong City Terminal to Shekou.

After disembarking from Shekou Pier, we chartered four busloads of exciting campers to experience the thrills and spill of what the four theme parks in the “Overseas Chinese Town”, Shenzhen had to offer us.

Our first stop was Splendid China, spreading over an area of 30 hectares; this is the largest miniature park in the world with replicas of typical Chinese ancient buildings, natural landscapes and folk dwellings that have been constructed on a scale of 1:15. After a quick briefing by our local guides, we strolled around the park and then moved on to Splendid China’s sister park, the China Folk Culture villages, and another large cultural attraction where you could view different costumes and architectural styles from over 56 different ethnic groups in China. We will then treated to a grand horse battle show, which initiated a couple of bewildered and excited faces especially amongst the boys!

In the evening, after another early dinner, we were all mesmerized into a fantasy world with the awesome and breathtaking performance at the grand theatre of the China Folk Culture Village. We were treating to an hour of spectacular performance whereby over 500 talented ethnic performers give an outstanding show of acrobatics, music, dance, and all kinds of special stage effects of light, sound, and laser settings. You could see everyone’s excitement crescendo as they watched some of the special effects on stage. It was certainly an unforgettable performance and you could see everyone’s faces light up and the excitement in their voice as they shouted "WOHaah!!"

On Sunday morning after breakfast, we stopped at the Lotus Hill Park for an hour of outdoor recreational activities such as kite flying before moving on to the Happy Valley theme park where the adventurous types were certainly not disappointed! The Park consisted of eight major themed areas; Adventure Mountain, Goldmine Town, Maya Water Park, Happy Island, Shangri-la Woods, Typhoon Bay, Cartoon Town and Happy Plaza.

The highest point in the Happy Valley theme Park is Adventure Mountain, it’s here you will find the stomach-turning Space shot, which propels you 100ft into midair and then lets you plummet back to earth! If that was a bit too much on your stomach, there was also an Old Gold Mine River Rapids ride at the bottom. At Happy Valley, thrills definitely come by the minute but unfortunately due to the big crowds on a Sunday, we did have to queue a longer time for each rides to the disappointment of kids who wanted to ride on a few more!

The Park’s 3D/4D FX theatre provided another opportunity for us to have more fun and experience an exciting variety of in- theatre “4D” special effects such as air, water, and audio effects which are built into a custom 4D theatre seat and are then synchronized with the on screen 3D film.

Cartoon Town was a favorite amongst our younger campers; this area provided a fun environment but more family style thrills to suit younger ages!

Soon, all the fun and excitement had to come to an end and for many, it was too soon to say the least, but unfortunately we did have a ferry to catch and it was time to return back to Hong Kong.