Qingpu Oriental Land Park (1/20/2013)

Still Sunday, January 20, 2013
After visiting Qushui Garden, we went to the Oriental Land Park, also known as Oriental Green Boat Resort. Writer Bob Henneman said, "Think of it as a cross between summer camp, a school field trip, and a communist EPCOT Center."
We were dropped off at Earth Square in front of a gigantic waterfall:

Just inside the entrance we encountered a sculpture group of ancient Western notables; Colin gets his ear cleaned by Alexander the Great:

And a sculpture group of ancient Eastern notables:

A glimpse of the aircraft carrier:

Looking down Wisdom Avenue:

KSS

KSS

Wisdom Avenue is lined with perhaps 160 statues of the world's famous thinkers and doers:

KSS

Zhang Qian, 1st century BCE diplomat who traveled the Silk Road:

Not sure of the significance of the soup spoon:

Schoolboys fooling around:

Bi Sheng invented movable clay type printing in the 2nd century:

KSS

Michelangelo works on a giant David:

Behind him is some European explorer.
Galileo shows a telescope to a schoolgirl:

KSS

Zheng He, navigator of the turn of the 15th century, sailed seven times east to the Atlantic Ocean:

KSS

A view of the "Canadian Red Bridge" that does not look like the iconic railroad bridge over the Saskatchewan River:

Isaac Newton figured out gravity in the late 17th century:

KSS

Dmitri Mendeleev first developed the periodic table of elements in the late 19th century:

KSS

Kent sits with writers Jules Verne, Honore Balzac, and Charles Dickens:

This is wild! The Wright Brothers:

The "Wings of Dreams" at the end of Wisdom Avenue:

Ernest Rutherford, by splitting the atom, discovered its nucleus:

I don't think he was completely naked when he did that in the early 20th century.
A mobile phone user and Alexander Graham Bell across the sound waves:

KSS

Deng Xiaoping seems to have a place of honor at the top of Wisdom Avenue:

View of Wisdom Avenue from up on Wings of Dreams:

View of the aircraft carrier:

View of the trimmed hedge design in front of a theater:

KSS

A better copy of a bridge, the Chinese Zhaozhou Bridge:

The world's oldest open-spandrel stone segmental arch bridge.
Picnicking:

In a section of the resort called Oriental Land Villa, there were various over-sized houses in different architectural styles, having guestrooms, conference rooms, and restaurants.
Hmm, a Queen Anne Victorian?

A giant chess board:

Hmm, a Russian dacha?

This bridge is called the "Red Brick Bridge:"

Tree pruners at work:

Now we have come to the highlight of the resort, the National Security/Defense Education Gallery:

Here is a 7/8 scale of a US Navy Nimitz Class CVN aircraft carrier:

Legend has it that when seen on aerial photographs, rumors abounded that China was constructing a nuclear aircraft carrier. Upon closer inspection, however, it was seen that the ship was sitting in a man-made lake:

It is an award-winning design for the Security Education Center. In other words, it is a building in the shape of an aircraft carrier. We have seen the aircraft carrier in clips of Shanghai highlights on the Metro TV, along with the waterfall.
The area is surrounded with vintage military planes and anti-aircraft guns under cover:

There is also a submarine (real?):

This facility gave us many additions to the Chinglish blog:

Inside the aircraft carrier, a display on the history of national defense:

Including a catapult:

All the way up to the latest defense weapons, including tanks:

Fighter jets on the flight deck:

Lots of space to take off:

Kent stands at the end of the runway:

View from the flight deck:

KSS

Colin signals launch of a fighter jet, a position now called "shootering:"

A Chinese helicopter:

Kent props a prop:

We were picked up by Tony to return to the city, and had lunch at the Hongmei Laowai Lu/Foreigner Street.
Many thanks to Colin and Sharon, and Tony!