If you have either young kids below 10 years of age or pre-teens who are into the cute figurines that Pop Mart is known for, then Pop Land’s newly opened theme park in Chaoyang Park is a must-visit for you. The 40,000-square-meter theme park opened shortly before Golden Week and offers a theme park-lite experience right in the heart of the city. Watch the video below to check it out!
First things first, though directions on map apps may tell you to enter Chaoyang Park through its main South Gate to get to Pop Land, we discovered that there is a smaller but dedicated entrance near the west gate of Chaoyang Park, right by the subway. There is also parking available at this entrance and it’s closer to Solana Mall – yay!
Upon entering the theme park, it’s clear that Pop Land is largely designed to serve as a colorful backdrop for fans of Pop Mart’s popular characters (such as Molly, Dimoo and the Monsters) to snap great pictures. But luckily, there are many fun activities suitable for young children. Be sure to pick up a passport at the first cart once you enter; you can collect stamps at various check points throughout the park by finding the matching graphic on the passport page. There isn’t a prize for completion but it’s a fun activity to keep kids moving through the park when they get stuck in one spot and don’t want to leave.
The passport also contains a nifty map to help you identify the different zones of the park. There’s the Mysterious Fishing Village, Tribe of Warriors, The Monsters’ Treehouse, a mini maze, and last but not least Molly’s Castle. The whole park will take you at least two hours to cover, not including time to eat and indulge in play, so you can easily spend half a day there.
An entrance ticket comes with one voucher that can be exchanged for one free game at any of the game kiosks, which otherwise cost RMB 30 per game. Not to fret, though, as there are some free games as well! Near the Tribe of Warriors zone, you’ll find a man-sized slingshot game and a pull-up bar perseverance game – which you can play as many times as you want for free! There’s also a slide-for-life that’s free to play, and only one activity had a height requirement of 1.4m.
You’ll also come across a beautiful outdoor playground – aptly termed “Unpowered Amusement” – featuring the usual suspects: slides, mini climbing walls, rope swings and those massive air-filled trampolines that are so popular these days. The playground is set against the backdrop of a tranquil lake, where there is also a fun boat-themed eatery, The Yum Explorer, for a quick bite and a drink. Their signature drink is named after Pop Mart character Dimoo and contains a cloud-shaped marshmallow (because the character’s hair is cloud-shaped).
Inside Molly’s Palace is shopping galore for Pop Mart fans. The entire first floor is dedicated to merchandise. There’s a proper sit-down restaurant on the second and third floor, as well as Pucky and Sweet Bean’s Fun House – a rather smallish indoor kids room with a carousel and other amusements – which requires an additional charge. But the real fun at Molly’s Palace lies in the basement, which you can only get to from outside of the palace itself. The immersive and sometimes interactive storytelling experience, titled “Molly’s Gift,” requires little Chinese understanding to capture young audiences’ attention and is definitely worth your time.
PRO TIP: There’s a QR code you can scan to download a free Pop Land app that provides an augmented reality experience that can be pretty fun if you’re willing to hand your mobile phone over to the kids to go traipsing through the park searching for digital characters and treasures. It is entirely in Chinese but is pretty intuitive to figure out if you have some basics in the language.
Tickets to Pop Land are RMB 150 for adults and RMB 130 for kids on the weekdays, and RMB 180 for adults and RMB 150 for kids on the weekends. Kids below 1m enter for free! The park is open from 10am to 8pm every day and last entry is at 7pm.
Images: Vivienne Tseng-Rush, Shu Qi
