It’s the Chinese new year and of course no new year celebration to welcome to Lunar new year is complete without the inclusion of food! And lots of them. This year’s celebrations was held at the Queens college junior combination room. I’ve never been to Queen’s JCR before, only their halls for formals and apartments of friends in the area. Apparently it’s situated right on top of a loft proving rather good views of the River Cam via Sliver street and the adjacent University center (where the gyms are). Despite it’s rather small size, the JCR was decked out with plenty of sofas and furniture, not to mention being able to accommodate an odd 30 over people who turned up for the gathering.

It was organized by mainly the second and third years of the CuMaS association, the Cambridge Malaysian society (why can’t the Singaporean cookouts be just as awesome?), with many new faces, namely several year ones where we spent most of the evening meeting and integrating into the group.

CNY Reunion!

Foodies!

Yu Sheng!

Huge servings of variety of local Malaysian and Singaporean delicacies such as noodles, (Mee goreng style), Curry chicken, omelettes and Bak kut teh just to name afew. The huge group turnout calls for at least 6 rice-cooker pots of home cooked chicken rice and a double tossing Yusheng at the end of the dinner session. It was quite a big feat to prepare all the food for so many people as well.

The Lunar new year is just like any other day here in the UK, a typical work day buzzing with people on the streets, with school still on and lectures to attend, with the exception of Chinese restaurants and takeaways all closed. Chinese new year for me this year was a rather simple and fat-free one too, considering I was more selective on the ones I am able to go this year given my leg injury. Also with most of the awesome seniors who graduated last year not around in Cambridge to organize their trademarked annual steamboat dinner, I am happy to say that the food standards had not dropped either. This new year mass pot luck is one which still lives up to the legacy set by the seniors of last year.

Having said that, in the light of the Chinese new year, wishing you good health and a prosperous Lunar new year of the dragon ahead!

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. It was the December holidays, stretching all the way to January at least before the start of the upcoming Lent university term. With Portal, Skyrim, and TF2 boring me out these days, why not get back onto some RPGs like World of Warcraft? Well as you should know, World of Warcraft (WoW), despite it’s launch since 2004 is still the most widely played massively multi-player RPG in the world (though some SWtoR fans would argue otherwise).

So it’s $15 a month to head back into Azeroth at least for the holidays, for a month. Paying to play a game, could be a turn off for many. I was initially skeptical of paying too. But later do I know paying does has it perks as it not only provides a much better mature gaming experience not only in support and game uptime, but sieves out casual trolls and kids you usually see on free-to-play games, not to mention flame-bait and trolls.

So what did I do within the period of a month? Leveled up 3 toons with a cumulative total of 200 levels, now that is quite alot of (anti-social) time. That also means exploring the worlds and various (and revamped) expansion zones I missed out over the years. I never quite got to the current level cap of 85, not seeing the need to level up so quickly, so technically I actually had not touched the Cataclysm zones as of yet, despite starting on it already on my ass-kickin’ Worgen Death Knight.

Dragons in Northend

Chilling out over Stormwind

Exalted in Orgrimmar

With the start of Lent around the corner in a few weeks time, it’s time to put all my toons into deep freeze till the upcoming summer holidays at least. Not to mention considering gearing up my characters for the new level-90 cap when blizzard releases the Kungfu- touting pandas on the new Azeroth southern continent in the upcoming “Mist of Pandaria”. But not of course till we get “Heart of the Swarm” or the long delayed Diablo III on the next Starcraft/Diablo franchise.

Surprising, with the exception of a number of local British students I know here in the university, no Singaporeans studying here plays WoW at at. Not only that, some do not even know about the game, let be any PC or Xbox game titles I know at the back of my head released within the last 5 years. So for WoW I usually end up playing with my friends in the States anyway, with almost all of my toons on US servers.

I know you must be screaming “NERD ALERT” right now, yea but it’s a “problem” either the poor Singaporean kids here, I hope this is not what you get with ultra nerdy students coming from top schools and Junior Colleges who “take pleasure by studying”. That is really sad, but the fact is this is the stereotypical image of various top Singaporean JCs, just study study study- Not even any extra-curricular activities or nothing about heading to a pub to chill for the night or a game of pool after a long day of work. Of course that is another huge area to debate about what I define as a “balanced and healthy” college life. I mean hey! college life is literally one of the best times of your entire life. I definitely wouldn’t like to look back at my college days and see myself remembering just only all the studying as a socially-inert study-bot.

That would be really, really sad.

Happy New 2012! A whole new year, a whole new area of possibilities! The fireworks at London was fantastic even when viewed on the TV as broadcasted by the BBC. The sparkles lasted just over 12 minutes right after the midnight chimes of the Big Ben. It was a grand display of over 12,000 fireworks, producing 50,000 projectiles, also welcoming the year where the Olympics will be held in the city itself.

I did the London Thames countdown to welcome 2010 in my first year of college. But personally I think the crowds and effort to crawl all the way there is not really worth the hassle, unless if you intend to make the countdown an whole day affair and literally camp the best firework spots since midday by the embankment. For most of us that year, it’s just a matter of “being in town”. And of course unless if you are planning to check out the awesome new year’s day parade running through the heart of London and the still ongoing boxing day sales (or in this case now, new year day sales) attending the countdown is a no-brainer.

Anyway regardless of how you welcome the new year, 2012 will come anyway, well… eventually. So what are you new year resolutions for the brand new year?

I don’t think that is too much to ask for. 2012 is also the year of the Dragon on the Chinese lunar calendar too, which in the case for my sister is a big year for her turning 24. I remembered the time when I was 24, made me realise how old I am, haha.

Nonetheless, hello 2012!

Fireworks photo credit: REUTERS/Andrew Winning

And so it’s December and time for a much needed blog post on the happenings so far here. Guess I was just too busy with stuff and the end of the that I had not found much time to share the happenings here as of date. The sad fact is that there is actually quite a lack of things happening here, with the exception of homework and loads of end of term pile ups and deadline reports to submit (and finally done with whew).

Having said that, Christmas here in the UK is also the time where almost everybody head back home and out of college for Christmas. Everywhere here in college seems pretty much like a dead town now in comparison to the term time buzz. The kitchens and halls get progressively quieter over the days as the holidays finally hit. The streets are all quiet, bare and empty with most stores all closed until next year. This is of course in stark contrast to the situation back home, particularly most shopping districts in Asian countries, like those in Japan, Seoul and Singapore, with the streets buzzing even with extended store opening hours till midnight.

Christmas here in the UK on the contrary is one for the family- Christmas tradition holds as a get together period for all family member and relatives alike. This means getting together back at home on Christmas day enjoying a scrumptious Christmas dinner (which also means the most expensive time of the year to travel too). This is my first year where I get to spend Christmas grounded in Cambridge due to a leg injury. Which kept me pretty much grounded here in college and made me very acquainted with Taxi drivers in getting around town as well as the hospital outpatient’s department. Due to the inconvenience of travel, I didn’t get to spent at my aunt Jenny’s place, though she never fails to always delight with her wonderful roast and Christmas cheesecake. Just a pity I can’t join her family this year.

Pre-Xmas dinner!

Roast!

Desserts!

Anyway, I won’t just stop there and call it quits. Christmas is a time of feasting and celebrations. So the least to do is to have few get people together, particularly those who remained in college during the period. There was a pre-Christmas day dinner at an upmarket restaurant in town as well as a wonderful Christmas lunch and dinner with university mates at a large rented out-of-college accommodation flat courtesy of an old friend of mine. The flat was big enough to house our Christmas day party of 25 and we had Turkey! Loads of it. Well too much turkey, 2 large birds in fact to the extent where leftovers the next few days were literally Turkey days as well.

Weather-wise this is my first winter here in Cambridge without snow. It seems this year the snow decided to head home too, it’s pretty much snow-less Christmas in Cambridge. Not to mention rather warm for winter now too. Surprisingly, there are still many trees out there with their leaves on and lush green patches of autumn grass dotted everywhere around town. Temperates here range from 5 to 11 degrees here at night which is nearly autumn weather in comparison to the sub freezing temperatures of last year and the year before.

In comparison, lets take alook at the snow that was in Cambridge the years before. Surprisingly this exact panorama taken 2 years ago by yours truly was used by my college as the official college Christmas card this year. I am honored!

Snow here in Cambridge is known to come in one big flop in December just before Christmas (well at least for the last 2 years I was here) and very much sits around slushy like a sore thumb throughout January at least. Commendably, the weather here in Cambridge is as good as it can get in the UK. Cambridge is pretty much sheltered from harsh storms and snow, given it’s location in land just north of London. So if the weather is bad here, chances it might even be worst else where.

So that’s for Christmas this year now, there was lots to eat and not as bad as I thought to be, despite being grounded. And oh thanks for the Christmas cards to those who sent yours, I had to find more wall space to pin all of them up this year.

In the meantime, Cheers and have a great Happy new year ahead!

And heyho! Summer break’s over, it’s the my third year in college and the start of Michaelmas now. A whole new world of exciting studying, homework-rejoicing and sociallife-killing fun awaits! Oh bummer.

Third year engineering here in Cambridge is where the specialization in your field actually starts, as you actually get to learn what you (or for most Singaporeans here, what your scholarship provider) want to study, with specific modules students get to choose beforehand. The case here is different to those in other UK universities, say Imperial college, where they are known for engineering themselves and where specialization of the course starts explicitly on day one (just like what they do in NUS and NTU too). The last 2 years beforehand here on the other hand were spent literally learning everything an engineer should know under the sun- electronics, thermodynamics, statics, dynamics, information, computing, mathematics, etc. That’s why my first 2 years (particularly the second) here are usually the toughest years for engineers in Cambridge university.

Looking back, as what my Directors of Studies like to say, it offers somewhat a more holistic learning viewpoint to engineering, the interesting stand here in Cambridge is that even if you intend to be an electrical engineer, you will have to understand at least civil, structure and mechanical engineering. So you won’t be a complete idiot in the other fields with at least tertiary understanding how buildings stand, mobile phones or turbine engines work. But of course at the expense of your sanity with the breakneck speeds they teach their courses here. I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world where you get to pack on so much to study in such short term time here.

But what doesn’t kill you does make you stronger. Having said that, you will get to some what specialize in your third year, choosing relevant modules in your chosen field of specialization. Each module has it’s own set of requirement like laboratory sessions, supervisions (often with TA, PhD students) and technical reports to write, which will be grade on positive credit.

In comparison, this is somewhat similar to the system in the States where you can jump all about different kinds of unrelated modules in your first 2 years, but not to the extent of completely going of engineering, say taking physiology, anthropology or arabic studies for instance. Only that the choices are more structured and related to engineering here. It’s somewhat a free, but not so what-free based engineering course in terms of the compulsory courses you have to go through in the first 2 years, namely called the part I and part II of the course.

Time do flies as a third year now, long are the excuses of being naive anymore, in no time I will be on my senior graduating year soon. So lets take on the new academic year in a positive light.

Hey hey, I am back in the United Kingdom just at the start of my third year in college. My 2nd year was fairly good given my various commitments during school term, but otherwise still mostly study study study. I guess my year 1 made me better prepared for year 2, not only in terms of the syllabus but in-sync with the pace of study which Cambridge is notorious for. On average, you cover like 3 year’s worth of poly knowledge in under 6 months here, it’s that fast. And the size of my annual lecture note binders don’t lie either!

This year too marks the final undergraduate year, with my 4th year being a Masters program. And what other better way to begin my trip back here than to queue up 2 full hours at the UK Immigration as Heathrow T3 upon my arrival (about 7pm London time) that too blessing me with the unexpected ability to miss not only one but two national express buses out of the airport in the row.It just can’t get any much better.

My time back in Singapore was short, but otherwise fruitful. It was nearly 2 months of relaxing and getting stuffed fat with home-cooked food prepared full of love. Had my annual dental checkup as well visiting my Grans quite regularly at AMK too. There were few nice food outlets I got to try this summer, namely a nice curry crab joint by the name of Mellben Seafood. Besides that, I was more or less pounding over 76,000 words on the computer day in-and-out for my trip blog posts. That includes my travel tours to the Middle East, Europe, the West and East coast of the United States.

H&M Craze in Singapore
Looking back at some of the musing when I was back in Singapore, the H&M craze was worth mentioning. Given the amount of hoo-ha the store received with shoppers even queuing up 12 hours beforehand to get into the store (and vouchers) on opening days. Humorously, sometimes I don’t understand the mentally of our fellow country men, particularly the Kiasu mentally which plagues every Singapore I see everywhere.

I do not know how my friends in the UK will think of us Singaporeans going all gaga over the launch of a clothing retailer which is almost like “This Fashion” back in the UK. No one batters an eyelid at H&M here and in Europe. I won’t be surprised if we become pretty much a laughing stock back here whenever I get to talk to my British friends about that. As a matter of fact, I personally think the less popular Uniqlo and New Look imports in Singapore tend to be more popular here, despite considering the clothing collections in Singapore not quite matching up to that at the stores in the UK.

The horror of Halloween Horrors
Then came the big news of the cancellation Night Safari Halloween horrors. It came pretty much of a shock to many after the installation of the Wildlife Reserves new chief executive. It won’t be surprising to see a new helmed CEO flexing the power of their new position by introducing drastic (and often controversial) changes to the organization. So why not start with the cancellation of the award winning Halloween horrors for starters? I bet no one expected and hilarious repercussions brought upon the Wildlife Reserves for those actions, particularly the large public outcry it caused and the stir it had with the president of Singapore, all made worse with seemingly sweeping and unjustifiable reasons for the cancellation. Inevitably, more damage was created than it was intended to avoid. Not a good start for the new Chief Executive I reckon.

Halloween is a huge event out of the shores of Singapore notably in the US and UK. It’s personally one which I look forward to every year and the idea of dressing up in unique costumes every year keeps your creative juices following, particularly if you make your own. The streets on Halloween are packed with party goers, theme parks all transformed into fright night specials with tons of special new rides and theming to go with the festivities. Halloween is undoubtedly one of the most recognized annual events internationally and usually feature the most fun parties of the year everyone looks, unlike Deepavali.

Undeniably, Deepavali is a big event in Singapore, but having that in place of Halloween is unjustifiable, unless the lack of a global focus is what the Wildlife Reserves is gunning for now. No offense, but as much as we love Deepavali here in Singapore, believe or not, the event is completely unheard off in the western world. Focusing on the more “Family theme” for Halloween just loses the essence, it’s like having the mid-autumn festival without mooncakes. But isn’t death and scares the basic making of a Halloween theme?

So do you think the lack of external exposure for our Singaporean kids leads to the fear of Halloween itself? I think so. This too, considering that death is still largely perceived to be taboo in Asian communities. We are a by-product stereotypical mindsets crafted by the expectations of society, with no leeway to think out of the box or self-exploration, fueled by the endless noisy flinging of Angry Birds on iPads and iPhones on every bus and train throughout the country.

That is my Singapore.

Tryouts were on tonight at the Hilton Singapore for a media showcase of Activision’s newest cross platform action-fantasy adventure game- Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure. As with all adventure games, gameplay involves controlling your character through a full 3D universe, with various baddies to beat and areas to explore. The game takes a different path of the Spyro franchise and somewhat into as a spin-off series into the first of the Skylanders series.

You assume the role as the portal master, being in control of 32 different characters, including our beloved and favorite fire-breathing dragon, Spyro. You choose your in-game character through placing highly-collectible action figures, (which are too, the focal point of the game) onto a portal device connected to your console, PC or handheld. It literally adds a whole dimension to choosing your character and beats having a generic character selection screen seen on most games in this genre, not to mention scoring many points with kids alike. The portal base device itself is a battery operated peripheral which comes with the game on all platforms and dependent on your setup will be recognized as an additional wireless controller or USB interface device.

Gotta collect them all!

Available on all platforms!

Demo by Activision crew

The action figures themselves appear to be rather well crafted and painted, which interfaces with the portal base via Near field communication (like RFIDs). Besides doubling up as a rather nice desk figure, it also stores all saved games, level-ups, equipment loadouts and stats of your character in the figurine itself, allowing you to deploy your character on your friend’s consoles too. Storage is non-volatile so no power is required on it to retain any data. This hardware platform is somewhat proprietary and is required by all players to access the Skylanders universe.

The game and toys were developed by Toys for Bob. With your character chosen, it sits on the portal all lit with a nice glowing effect, courtesy of RGB LEDs in the device itself. Players here can embark on a fantastical journey into an amazing world, where you can explore mysterious, mythical lands, unlocked by the unique abilities of your elemental characters themselves. Need to swim through a water course? Switch to a water element character. Need to thread fire? Select a fire elemental character instead. The seamless switching of characters allow you to choose on-the-go the right characters to solve puzzles, battle menacing outlandish creatures or employing their unique abilities to explore the far reaches of the game collecting gold, treasures or just for that 100% completion.

spy-ro a demo with my evil eye!

Wut cheat codes?

Spyro in-world

The game itself is playable in campaign and battle (PvP0 modes, with the first offering both single-player and cooperative multi-player, bringing you through this segment of the Skylanders storyline on a quest to save their world from Kaos, an evil Portal Master.

Playable characters become unlocked upon purchasing their corresponding action figures, which can be customised with an array of equipment, gear and hats, which seemed to spark an uncanny obsession of hats, which we can evidently see too in Valve’s Team Fortress 2. The role-playing aspect of the game allows you to gain experience points by defeating monsters and leveling up for upgrades. Next comes the competitive player versus player mode which is standalone and separate form the campaign. Here, you can pit your campaign characters through arena-style fight it out slug-fests, complete with cage-style jump pads, death spikes and traps. All characters in the Skylanders series are balanced, so expect all the other characters to stand a fair fighting chance even against the favorite Spyro, all to balance out the PvP gameplay.

Impressively, the game comes with a rather star studded production cast as well, with game’s character design by Tom Hester (who did Shrek) a storyline script penned by the writers of Disney-Pixar’s original Toy Story film (Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow), sound effects by Skywalker sound and a music score composed by the all popular Hans Zimmer.

Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure is published by Activision worldwide and by Square Enix in Japan. It was originally revealed to be exclusive for the Nintendo Wii and 3DS, with the support for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows announced only early this year. Is expected to be released on October 12-13rd 2011 in Asia, 14th Oct in Europe and 16th Oct in North America. The starter pack itself retails at about $70 USD for all 4 console platforms including PC and comes bundled with the portal base and 3 actions figures (Spyro, Gill Grunt and Trigger Happy), with all the remaining 29 characters available by year end.

Many thanks to Activision for the presentation and happy3media for the media invite.

Cedar Point, the name synonymous with almost any theme park goer or thriller seeker around the world. With more than 17 major roller coasters located in the theme park, it is literally America’s roller coaster capital, spotting the world record for the most number of roller coasters in one park itself. Notable high profile coasters here will include Millennium force, Top thrill Dragster, Raptor and Maverick just to name afew. Moreover, the amusement park located in Sandusky was named the “Best Amusement Park in the World” for the 14th consecutive year by The Golden Ticket Awards, which is an independent amusement park body who rates all theme parks in the region and presents the award annually too in the Amusement Today newspaper.

Cedar Point!

America’s Coaster Nation!

Awesome B&M goodness

Our journey begins there with about an hour’s drive from Cleveland Ohio, taking the interstate and exiting the I-80 on the Ohio Turnpike right into Sandusky and to Cleveland road. The area is rather isolated to begin with, but is otherwise largely habited by homes and small business along the road to the park. The road passes through several shrub areas before shortly coming back into civilization again. Here, several small diners, hotels and eating places can be found here, presumably riding on the visitorship of the major theme park. It’s a short turn thereafter past the Castaway Bay Indoor Resort and Quality Inn & Suites Water Park into the Cedar Point causeway park.

It’s not long where you will be greeted by the Snoppy themed Cedar Point gateway and the park’s huge outdoor parking area. Cedar point first opened it’s doors as a theme park in 1870 and is located on a beach island, shaped like a narrow peninsula jutting into Lake Erie. It currently operates annually 10am to 10pm from mid May to end October, usually ending the operating season with the Halloween spook fest parties just before it starts to get cold in winter. The park entrance fees will set you back $50 for an adult and half price for children and seniors, which is very affordable and one of the lowest I’ve seen too for a world class theme park. Greeting you at the entrance as you enter the park past the gantries is the oldest existing ride in the park, the Midway Carousel.

many inversions!

air time rocks

looks rather RCT

Main Midway
The entrance follows up to a long Main Midway with game stores and restaurants lined by the sides. The center of the pavilion sits a large flower bed, which looks like a scene off the roller coaster tycoon. To your left is a rather awesome B&M inverted roller coaster- Raptor which is widely known worldwide for it’s myriad of inversions and ride smoothness. It’s an extended inverted coaster with several inversion elements such as loops, barrel rolls and boomerangs. The helix at the end does pull out some great lateral G-forces too. Just off and behind Raptor is Blue Streak, a woodie out-and-back wooden roller coaster spotting some rather excellent airtime on the bunny hills. It opened to the public on May 23, 1964 and is the oldest operating roller coaster at Cedar Point.

Wicked Twister!

Disaster Transport

a dark bobsled!

Moving on east near the front of the park is the Ocean themed area and home to the resident pirate ship Ocean Motion as well as several great midway and carnival games stalls, basketball hoop shooters and the park’s main games Arcade building. Cedar point is somewhat the mascot theme park for the comic Peanuts, which I previously thought was Knotts Berry Farm, until I recalled they are now also operating under Cedar Fair. The kiddie ride section of the park here is extensively themed to Peanuts in general with several snoopy and friends rides including a mini safari trail and river rapids, it’s like a self contained miniaturized version of all the bigger rides you see in the park, tamed for kids!

Twister Midway
Moving on past the Peanuts Playground towards the beach line area on the east will bring you to another coaster by the bay and the park’s recording breaking impulse coaster, the Wicked Twister. Wicked twister is a 2nd Generation steel inverted impulse roller, manufactured by Intamin. The difference this coaster has among all other impulse coaster is the presence of 2 twisted spikes on both ends (with the tallest and fastest reverse spike), allowing riders on both ends of the coaster train to experience the wicked twists as you are propelled up the towers at 116kmph courtesy of a station trackload of linear induction motors.

Still on coasters here, Disaster Transport (Dispatch Master Transport) is an indoor dark bobsled ride, which is totally awesome in it’s own unpredictable way as the coaster trains does not actually go on rails. It makes you feel pretty much like a bobsled rider in the winter Olympics, only that the ride speed along the turns here are all much slower for safety. Having said that,, the simple ride’s queue line theming may need abit of work too.

WindSeeker’s new

maXair

Sky Ride

The eastern beachline area here at the Twister Midway also offers you views of the Sandusky Bay, which can be made even more awesome by a slow ride on the Giant ferris wheel. Topping up the line of observation type rides here includes the generic Gyro Tower, which was not operational on my visit. But who needs that with the Windseeker tower in operation, which is new to the park. In a nutshell, Windseeker is a roundabout flat ride and gyro tower all rolled into one and is essentially a free hanging suspended skyride, providing a whole unique viewing experience of a scenic tower ride. It’s location by the beach side just beside the Wicked Twister offers the same scenic views of the windy eastern bay and Lake Erie.

Right in front of the Giant Wheel sits one of my favorite flat rides in the park, the MaXair, it’s an upsized Huss giant Frisbee with an extended swing angle over 300 degrees, all while having it’s main gondola rotating in a continuous 360 degrees fashion, it simply just makes most pirate ship rides look tame in comparison. And just when you though you had seen much of the park, that’s is not even half of it, let be even half the number of rides here in Cedar point. Taking the Sky Ride just off the a short walk from the entrance brings you right into the heart of the park and the start of the “coaster circle”, which I would like to call it given it’s looping circle layout passing through all of the park’s northern attractions.

into the heart of the park

Corkscrew, a classic!

Arrow Dynamics goodness!

The Skyride, in my opinion is another scenic ride moving along the Midway Trail overlooking Raptor and can be substituted with a short 10 minute walk into the coaster circle, where the remaining 14 coasters of the park reside. The Skyride travel from the entrance brings you right into the circle’s fork in front of the Iron Dragon and the classic Corkscrew coaster. Here you can start your loop on the western or eastern side, and this is where your adventure here really begins. Cedar point prides itself as a coaster enthusiast park and for down and dirty thrill seekers who want their adrenaline raws without the fat offered by most tourist parks, such as Disneyland. It is surprisingly not very touristy and often mostly frequented by the locals, which is rather good. Everyone you see here is a thrill seeker or sort and not having to put up with ugly rowdy tourists and the tourist traps which comes with it is a bonus.

Gemini Midway
The Arrow Corkscrew here is an all time classic, complete with it’s trademarked full vertical loop after the first drop and the double corkscrews which follows. It is notable that all variants of the corkscrew coasters I’ve ridden around the world by Arrow Dynamics and Vekoma all somewhat follow a rather similar track layout.

prepare for launch

Top Thrill Dragster tower

Magnum XL

Here at the Gemini Midway, Top Thrill Dragster is one of my favorite launched continuous circuit coasters. It accelerates from 0 to 190 kmph in under four seconds, throwing riders up into a vertical tower cresting at the top and spiraling vertically down the tower thereafter for the brake run back into the station. It broke coaster speed records on it’s opening day as well as being the first “Strata Coaster” topping over 120m in height. Trains here are themed after a Top fuel dragster and are catapult launched via a hydraulic cable pulley system which anchors underneath each train prior to be launched. The ride computer here then calculates the amount of force required by the catapult to launch each train over the crest of the hill with the minimal speed required. This is so reduce any dangerous airtime while clearing the top of the tower and prolonging the life of the trains.

Before each ride, riders will be treated with the simulated deep rumble of Top Fuel Dragster ready for launch with the starting christmas tree lights slowly turning green for the eventual launch. Occasionally, due to an uneven weight distribution and bad weather, trains may not make the crest of the 61m vertical tower, with hilarious rollbacks which always send everybody screaming backwards onto the launch strip. That’s where the brake fins (which automatically pop up after every launch) comes into play in stopping these rollbacks into the station.

Magnum XL-200 is Cedar Point’s first mega coaster. The non-inverting speed coaster opened in 1989 and was the first to exceed 200 feet in height and speeds over 110 kmph breaking several world height and speed records again in the process. The ride was rather bumpy and rough for a steel coaster which was surprising. Most of the ride is actually situated out of the main park boundaries and overlooks the Soak City and Challenge City areas of the park. It is listed as an American Coaster Enthusiast landmark.

Gemini

dueling woodie!

huge!

Gemini is a favorite old-time wooden coaster here. At it’s opening in 1978, the Arrow dynamics coaster was the highest, fastest and steepest roller coaster in the world. The ride itself does not qualify as a full wooden (or we riders call woodie in coaster slang) given it’s composition as hybrid wooden-steel roller coaster, offering the best of a woodie roller with the speeds and ease of maintenance of employing tubular steel rails for tracks, thus the term “semi-woodie”. Gemini, like in astrology comprises of 2 identical coasters which departs together in a dual station and duels with each other throughout the most of the ride’s course, including the hill-lift (rider high-five) portions of the ride. Both coasters will snake together through various bunny hops and turns together at times overtaking each other on the insides. These adds to the cheer and the “racing factor” of the ride between riders which is only unique between dueling coasters.

The nearby Jr Gemini is a small kiddy coaster named after it’s big brother Gemini. Built in 1979, it features several short dips and helixes. It is the first roller coaster manufacturer by Intamin.

Frontiertown
Tucked in the northern corner of the park just before Frontier land and the yummy Sagebrush Sue’s Frontier Food Company hotdog stand is the park’s giant woodie. So just when you thought the Blue Streak is a big woodie, meet it’s much bigger southern yellow pine brother, The Mean Streak. The coaster itself rides just under 3 minutes long and is one of the fastest, longest and tallest woodie coasters in the world on it’s opening in 1991. Manufactured by Dinn corporation costing 7.7 million USD, the huge wooden behemoth coaster adopts a twister track layout which snakes it’s way all around the northern areas of the park. The coaster itself is so large, it’s super wooden structure itself can be seen from miles away. Cedar point even have their own dedicated carpentry staff just to maintain the attraction.

Meanest Streak in the park!

authentic steam engines

Antique cars!

Frontiertown is everything all old school and old western, a Camper Village resides here as well as old wild wild west rides which fits the theme, such as the Intamin AG Antique Cars family ride. It’s a slow car driving ride which goes with the old wild west theme here and is suitable for all ages. The start of the entrance into Frontier Town is the second station of the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad (CP&LE Railroad). These are authentic old school steam engined transportation locomotive trains. Boarding the train at this station will take you back to the Wildcat Midway Funway Station.

This part of the park resides the wet sector also themed after a wild west atmosphere and decked out lots of water rides which WILL get you really wet. The Snake River Falls ride just behind the S&S Swing Skyhawk is literally an automated park guest soaking device. It’s a looping river boat flume ride made by Arrow Dynamics and on it’s opening in 1993 was the tallest and steepest water ride in the world. And just when you thought the underwear-soaking first drop of the ride is enough, even the exit area of the ride requires you to cross over a bridge right above the ride’s splash zone.

completely WET!

Various wet rides

Log Flumes

But you are most probably wet anyway so getting wet another time on the crossing doesn’t seem make too much of a difference, much to many guests delight who have nothing else to do but catching the impending splashes from each plunging boat. Shoot the Rapids is an Intamin 4-in-line log flume ride new for the 2010 season with 2 drop splashes complete with waterfalls and several water bomb elements. Classic rides here includes the Wave Swinger Swing Carousel.

Despite having their own wild west Town Hall, the Frontier trail is home to various food stores themed to the old western look, such as the Toot Sweets Candy Factory. You can get delicious ice cream, wonderful cookies, and fresh fudge at the Grist Mill Refreshments Trail. The last and definitely wettest water ride here have to be the Thunder Canyon. It is an Intamin wild river rapids ride, with lots of water elements guaranteed to get you soaking wet. It will be a feat trying to be dry even before getting onto the ride. If you are still dry after making through the queue lines (with several signs warning you get of the impending wetness), then the ride loading will more of less guarantee wet underwear when you go splotch on the already water filled bowl seats in the rapids boat. Ponchos are available for sale on the queue lines, if you think they are of any help, which may keep the dampess out by alittle, but not much.

Rapids!

Wet wet wet!

Maverick!

You get strapped in and before you know it, be sent splashing through the water canyon through various water elements along the ride. The wetness of ride is kinda based purely on luck as the boat rotates randomly through various wet elements, soaking each part of the boat as you pass through them. You get an occasional large waterfall here and there, laughing at the people on the boat who eventually get soaked by it, but the finale of the ride will be sure to get everyone on board totally wet as it passes through 4 consecutive waterfalls on both ends of the boat, and you will have nowhere to run!

As a consolation to your newly acquired “wetness”, several coin-operated air dryer points outside the ride are open for multiple park guests to use at a go, as well as lockers to stash you belongings. Frontiertown is the only portion of the park where you are allowed to go in bikinis or bare chested for guys to dry off in the sun from the various water rides here. So it’s not surprisingly that this area is the “bare all” part of the park. Personally, drying off is best done with high speed winds and what other better way to do so yourself than go on a high speed roller coaster?

Marverick is an awesome Intamin high speed roller coater set in the western theme here and is easily one of the greater favorite coasters in the park itself. made by Intamin too, you can almost call it the little rebellious juvenile brother of the Millennium force, as shown on the ride POV’s and showcase I’ve compiled as follows:

Maverick itself is an awesome western style roller featuring a dual ride launch system with the first phase propelling you up the chain-less hill lift incline right into the first greater than vertical (95 degrees) drop sending you flying through various high speed banks, corners, bunny hops and corkscrew-like heartline rolls. You pause into an enclosed shed to catch your breath before being shot right out of it into the ride’s high speed lagoon section with several more twists and turns before eventually hitting the brake run back into the station. The ride has a good mix of excitement and intense elements making it surprisingly enjoyable, not to mention offering a good feel of speed as the coaster hugs very closely to the ground and just barely sweeping past the various rock faces at a blurring 110 kmph.

twisty

S&S Swing Skyhawk

nicely themed minetrain

Frontier trail
The queues for Maverick will set you back roughly an hour or so too. Topping up the Frontier town area just be the entrance of the Snake river falls will be another flat ride by S&S Power called the Skyhawk, it’s essentially a Screamin’ Swing tower.

Tucked in the Frontier trail Cedar creek area is the park’s resident mine train coaster. Just like Gemini, the ride is an Arrow Dynamics hybrid steel and wooden runaway mine train built with steel tubular tracks on wooden supports. The ride is seemingly mostly made out of wood including the whole queue and ride station, not to mention all the supports of the ride itself which twines around through various forest and water elements in the Cedar creek portion of the park where the ride reside. This portion of the creek is also home to the duck and fish feeding sections of the park too. The 4 decade old mine ride spots a rather nice worn out look and wood theming, which seems to go very well with the old mine setting. The coaster track element spots 2 hill lifts, which provides enough potential for the mine trains to reach a top speed of 68kmph together with many short drops and several twists and helixes native to a typical wild mine train coaster.

Best steel coaster evar!

2 coasters one shot!

AWESOME!

Moving along Frontier Trail will bring to the last but definitely the most major attraction in here in Cedar Point, the Millennium force coaster. Millennium force is personally one of the best roller coasters I’ve rode here in the park and let be globally. The Intamin coaster easily ranks high up as the top 5 roller coasters I’ve been on in the world. It is an excellent high speed giga coaster topping over 150 kmph with over 2km of ride length. It broke thirteen world records, including that for highest and fastest roller coaster on it’s opening day. The giga roller coaster is also the first in the world to utilize a cable lift system, rather than a traditional looping chain lift, given the weight issues the hill lift tower will have to endure having to deal with over 10 tons of chain just to pull the train up if chains were used. In place, a 800-horsepower cable lift driven by 600 kW motor pulls the train up quickly up the 310 ft tower by an efficient pulley and weight system, just like a lift-hook system found on an elevator.

Have a go on board the last row seats of Millennium force with this video I’ve recorded off it.

The coaster employs and out and back circuit layout which starts off the bay side marina section of the western part of the park, looping into the center of the Cedar Creek and back out crossing over the Frontier trail at two points of the ride. The coaster is an extremely smooth one, native to most Intamin high-speed coasters with very minimal rolling resistance through the deployment of very large nlyon/polyurethane wheels found on Intamin’s line of modern high speed giga coasters. These allows for extremely fast speeds through the course comprising of three trademarked overbanked turns, two tunnels and four bunny (airtime) hills

Wildcat Midway and other park sections
It’s not long where we are back out on the Wildcat Midway. The Wildcat in question here is the carnival style wild mouse roller coaster which resides here as well as the all smackingly-fun old school Dogdems. Wildcat is a tame coaster in comparison to the larger brothers all around it. No cat and mouse games here, but the wild mouse here is manufactured by the German company Anton schwarzkopf (Schwarzkopf Industries). Topping up the remainder of the tamer coasters here also includes the Woodstock express, which is a junior steel coaster made by Vekoma located back in camp snoopy.

The Cedar Point point island is also home to various other mini parks situated on the north east park of the main park which are also open on Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day. The ones in question is the Soak City Waterpark and Challenge City. Soak City positions itself as a getaway waterpark comprising of 18 acres of wet and wild family fun and segmented into sectors namely the Splash Zone (areas for the toddlers and the massive Eerie Falls slide complex) and Breakers Bay allowing guests to take a break from the main park’s 75 rides and coasters. Soak City itself is home to more than a dozen water slides, two inner tube rivers, a 500,000-gallon wave pool, the giant Zoom Flume family raft ride makes up some of the wettest fun around.

Challenge City is a pay-to-ride portion of the park, accessible via a tunnel near Magnum XL. It comprises of Challenge Racing (go kart track setting you back $5 a trip through the Grand Prix kart circuit) and Challenge Golf at about $6 for 18 regular holes. Other thrill rides here includes the SkyScraper- a rotating propeller tower ride and RipCord- a gliding Skycoaster attraction allowing you to soar through through the sky suspended at speeds over 80 kmph.

Iron Dragon!

zoom!

bumping some Dodgem cars

Back on the Midway, Iron Dragon is one of the few tamer coasters without any inversions despite the coaster itself spotting over shoulder restrains. Iron Dragon is an Arrow Dynamics suspended roller coaster which sits off the mid portion of the coaster circle just off the exit of the Sky ride in the Wildcat Midway sector of the park. Just when you thought the ride was a bore on the first stage, the ride goes up on a second stage hill lift and plunges you right into sudden steep drops and rapid corners which will send you swinging like crazy. The ride gets bit more intense from here, moving really fast and swingy on the end with a helix rush through the park creek lake complete with ultra cool smoke effects, just before hitting the arupt exit to the brake run back towards the station.

Mantis!

Stand-up coaster!

Lights!

The last of the coasters here on my Cedar Point coaster tour will be Mantis. Mantis is a Bolliger & Mabillard stand-up roller coaster featuring 6 inversions comprising of a vertical loop, diving loop, inclined loop and corkscrews over the park’s lagoon section right beside Iron Dragon, topping max speeds of 97kmph. Stand up coasters, like flying coasters are notorious for their downtimes given their more complex operating nature- Mantis was down earlier in the day with a technical problem, it’s not long after where the engineers got the ride problem fixed just before closing. They needed some test dummies after their trail runs we all dummies there naturally stepped up for it without a doubt.

Behold the Standup POV on Mantis, rear row seats for the win!

And man was the ride awesome, that and without the need of having to go on a ride queue. As said, it is a standup coaster, so the whole ride is done in an upright position. Prior to loading on the ride, you have to prop yourself onto spring loaded saddle seats which are like bouncy bicycle seats. These goes between your legs so you don’t go all over the place on the corkscrews. The over-shoulder restraints are much longer too, going over your shoulders and covering much of your front torso as compared to the seated B&M coaster trains. Though you ride the coaster through all the inversions in this standing position, much of your weight can actually be placed on the saddle itself, so you can call it a saddle coaster or sort, just avoid sitting on it while hitting a brake run, as it is not exact very guy friendly.

No trip to a theme park is complete without with sky shot up into oblivion. The Power Tower here is no exception either with 4 full towers which makes up the skyshot thrill ride here. The queue line to the world’s only 4 tower skyshot ride was pretty good under 20 minutes in my opinion. You get a choice of 2 different ride styles including being shot up into the air from the bottom of the tower or climb up and get shot down faster than the acceleration of free fall from the tower top, both modes are unique in each way, bringing a whole degree of re-ridability for the tower attraction itself.

back on Max Air”

Look fireworks!

Farewell Cedar Point, it was a blast!

It was more rides back out to the Midway Trail with MaXair as night falls towards the park’s 10pm closing time. It’s here at night where you can catch most of the rides all properly lit up in their colourful neon glory at night. Even the Top Thrill Dragster tower has the starting lights extended throughout the tower itself. Compared to various flat rides, other rides, such as Raptor and Blue Streak (mainly coasters) are dark in comparison due to the lack of on-ride lighting. The Midway section of the park here is decently decorated for the night too, with several larger than normal stuffed toys available for the win. Even the Midway carousel here is nicely all decked out in golden lights for the night portions. And what other better way to signal the park’s closing time, than with a continuous lineup of fireworks all over the park.

Compilation of my time in Cedar point:

To sum it all up, Cedar point was awesome, the park is truly a world class theme park. One full day (12noon to 10pm) is just barely enough to cover a park so huge and all it’s 17 major coasters as part of the Cedar Point coaster world tour, and the 17 coasters here does not even include the smaller family coasters. And what other better way to end the night with a late night dinner at Lugi’s in Ohio for a late night pub dine-in with caesar cheese salads, and a large cheese and mushroom pizza to top it all up with their trademarked triple flavoured pistachio ice cream.

Visiting Cedar Point is largely a no brainier if you happen to be in the Eastern Ohio region of the US, you won’t regret the visit there as a roller coaster thrill seeker or just simply being young at heart. There is no single Disneyland or Universal theme park around the world which even come close to half the number of coasters here, let be even spotting extremely reasonable priced tickets at half the entry fee to the said Disney and Universal parks. The quality of thrill rides and roller coasters here too also far exceeds my expectation and the park gets my high recommendation as a coaster freak paradise.