Beijing’s most popular government-run indoor play area just got a tad more expensive for a three-hour romp. The price of admission at Fundazzle, long held at RMB 50 per child, has been raised to RMB 65. Although we hoped that this meant the employees are being paid more and would no longer look at Fundazzlers like prisoners in a maximum-security facility, sadly that was not the case. The added cost seems to have gone into renovating the toddler play area and re-carpeting the entire facility. In any event, our test subjects found the new digs thoroughly enjoyable and they were peeved when we forced them to leave for lunch.
Our test family detected no signs of changes to the massive ball pit and the huge three-story play structure for children over 110cm. Note, it is still ill-advised for parents to enter the play structure as it is unkind to adult-sized people. Especially if said adult has a sore lower back.
It appeared that work might have also been done on the bathroom plumbing as it was reported that the toilets didn’t stink. For now, this remains unsubstantiated as it is possible that our test parent was suffering from a head cold and therefore failed to detect the otherwise omnipresent smell of stale urine.
Alas, there is still no wifi or a nearby Starbucks.
Photos: Christopher Lay
