On a sunny Sunday when the air was great. My husband, daughter, and I ventured out to investigate the snow park at workers stadium. I was warned the payment information would all be in Chinese so I was prepared to not understand a thing. We would just pay and see where it would lead us.
It was quite a spectacle by the ticket booth with a grandfather screaming and some parents pushing. But I got to the front and got my hand on an information pamphlet written in both English and Chinese. My daughter is four years old so was admitted for free, the adults paid RMB 50 each, and RMB 50 to rent a donut sleigh. We got a card and had to top it up with a deposit of RMB 300. Any money remaining in the card when we were finished we would get back at the end of our snow day. Descending down the stairs, our daughter saw the greatest amount of snow she has seen yet. She felt like Elsa from Frozen.
We took the donut sleigh down the slope and at first I thought we could only go down once since it was stated on the informational sheet. It must have been a translation mistake though since nobody scanned our card and the three of us went down the slope plenty of times.
Exploring the vast snow area we found at a smaller sleigh hill, different sections with activities you have to pay for, like snow scooters to ride on, and blow up balls you can walk in. There are booths with typical Chinese street food and drinks. We took our own drinks and snacks, wishing we had taken some plastic bags to sit on so we could have avoided getting our butts wet during snack time.
The snow is getting pretty hard in some areas so I had to be careful not to slip and slide too much. I also wished we had brought a rain suit or a water proof snow suit for our daughter to wear over her outfit since her pants got pretty wet from rolling around in the snow. We spend a great 3 hours at the snow park, the sun keeping us warm and energized.
When we left we returned the card and received RMB 150 back from the ticket booth, meaning we had spent a total of RMB 150 for a afternoon in the snow park. An icy good deal.
Skiing World Worker’s Stadium South Gate, Chaoyang District
Pauline van Hasselt has been working for beijingkids since October 2016. Born in Wassenaar, The Netherlands, she moved with her husband and her 3 year-old daughter to Beijing in June of 2016. Prior she lived in the Netherlands, Belgium, Paraguay, Texas, and London, studying and working as a chef. Pauline enjoys biking around Beijing, finding markets and new restaurants, reading crime and fantasy books in bed, and most importantly, turning her house into a home for her family.
