Leofoo Village Amusement Park in Taiwan

I'm down to my last three Taiwan posts, finally. For just one week of travel, I sure did a lot!

As far as amusement parks go in Taiwan, the best ones seem to be located far away from Taipei. Like, seriously far away. But given Taiwan's small size, they are all accessible as day trips if you so choose.

The best park near Taipei is Leofoo Village, a 90 minute bus ride from the airport (buses are also available from a couple MRT stations). I arrived in the late afternoon literally just as the rain was stopping.

 While there were clouds in the sky and water on the ground, my umbrella wasn't needed as I entered the park.

 Leofoo is divided into four themed areas. The first one I came to was the "American West". There is a main street with western buildings and plastic animals to take pictures on.

 Like American parks, the buildings held stores and restaurants.

 I also saw a couple rides tucked away inside some buildings.

 The first coaster you come to (if you start with this side of the park) is the Little Rattler.

 It's a family coaster but was decent. There is a U-shaped coaster in this section of the park but it was closed, and due to the clouds and angles I wasn't able to get a good photograph. The English website calls this the Screaming Corridor.

 Nearby the Rattler is an inverting ride, which is one of my favorite types of rides. It's listed on the interactive map as Old Oil Well. After making my way around the park I settled on this ride for most of the rest of the night.

 The theming in South Pacific was very mountainous. There is a flume ride which I didn't go on, but you could walk inside some of the rockwork...

 That area was called Lost World. As you may guess from the name and sign...

 There are dinosaurs lurking here.

 You walk around inside caves going up the mountain and see a few dinos along the way. You can also see the flume ride a bit. Again, due to the weather and lighting, I didn't get many pictures.

 Hmm, is that an Arabian Village? We'll come back to that later.

 First, walk around the mountain and you can see a Rockin' Tug.

 And here is the flume ride. It looked really fun!

 There is a drop ride in this part of the park which takes you up into a giant helmet thing before dropping.

 And like every other park, a swinging pirate ship.

 Okay, now let's go to the Arabian Kingdom. My first stop was a Ring Of Fire ride. The ride was fairly tame but still enjoyable.

 Ahh, would you like your fortune told? There is an attraction called Sultan's Adventure, which is similar to the Indy Jones rides at Disney parks, in this section of the park.

 Sahara Twister is the coaster in the African Safari portion of the park. It has seats that spin freely as the coaster travels around the track.

From here, you can get a nice view of the Arabian Kingdom from across the lake.

There are animals in the African Safari portion of the park, but due to the time (the sun was setting) and the weather, I wasn't able to see any of them. Leofoo Village is a park I will definitely revisit should I find myself back in Taiwan, if only for the U-shaped coaster - Leofoo claims it's the only one in Asia, and that there are only two in the entire world.

Leofoo is open from 9-5 or later, though the Safari closes at 4 or 6:30 depending on the time of year. The park has a really good English website though the pictures in the Attractions section don't seem to be working. You can check there for prices - NT$999 for adults, though they have an NT$1299 "Ambitious" ticket too which might include the water park.