The Factory Team tours all of China in one day

Today the Hobie® 16 World Championships Factory Team boarded a minibus and headed into Shenzhen the major city of the region, approximately 1.5hrs from the event resort.

Their first eye opener was travelling through the newly built metropolis with its towering buildings and modern infrastructure.

Jacques Bernier from the Hobie Cat Company in the USA commented, “I was really so pleasantly surprised as we drove through the vibrant city, its vegetation and pretty flowers under a canopy of huge skyscrapers just awed my senses. I was taking all of these wonderfully, lovely photos of this magnificent monolith of a building that reached for the heavens. I had thought it to be the second tallest building in the world and praised its magnificence to everyone on board. Suddenly, some Aussie on the bus cried out, “Jacque! Jacque! Look ahead, mate.” And there it was! This monster of a tower soared into the hazy, Asian sky. I was devastated, heart broken really, having taken shot after shot of a building half its size and then raving to all on the bus about the grandeur of the wrong building. I really didn’t mind the sniggering and giggles at my expense, but what a delightfully, lovely day it turned out to be. It made me proud to be American.”

The team ventured on to experience the wonders of Splendid China and the Folk Village. It was their chance to explore the multiple ethnic cultures and ancient sites of China in one place, in just one day.

“We stepped out of our air conditioned bus into the hot muggy weather and into a chorus of voices from hundreds of Chinese children who wanted to say hello to us in English. We got to walk through all of these amazing miniature buildings and scaled city and village areas. I went into one cool wooden temple filled with really old, ornate furniture that was really beautiful. There were really interesting houses of all kinds and shapes with open courtyards and very small rooms compared to what we live in back home. It was amazing how diverse the traditional costumes, architecture and customs are depending on where you are in China. I had never realized that before,” said an enthusiastic Tate Miller from California in the USA.

The cultural theme park was divided into two sections, the first “Splendid China” being the world’s largest and most comprehensive miniature park. It had reproductions of nearly 100 famous China attractions including the Great Wall of China and Tiananmen Square. There were 80 other incredibly authentic locations all reproduced at a scale of 1:15. In the manicured gardens sat over 50,000 tiny clay human and animal figures, bringing to each scaled attraction a real sense of life from a bygone era.

The largest ethnic group in China is the Hans, but there are 55 other ethnic minorities spread throughout the country. In the second section of the complex 25 of these 56 ethnic groups are represented with full size, unique village buildings where traditionally dressed villagers cook, sing and dance. The colour and variety of the people and architecture enthralled the Hobie Factory Team members as they wandered from one culture and onto the next.

Linda Mills from the Central Coast in New South Wales, Australia said, “The miniature world was amazing for me, the Great Wall of China was incredible. No matter where you looked in that miniature world the Great Wall was everywhere. When I took a panoramic view of the Great Wall, I noticed the Imperial Palace of Beijing in the Forbidden City. It was built in 1420 in the Ming Dynasty, what a sight, and the greenery of the sculptured gardens was stunning.”

Mark Garthon who works for Hobie Cat Australasia said, “Looking at the old buildings, the internal rooms such as the bedrooms and kitchens was really different for me. I haven’t been to an Asian country before and the different type of buildings and how they are constructed was really good to see. I was amazed about how much corn there was laying about most of the houses though.”

Most of the team were lucky enough to experience the “Dynasty is at War”, a spectacular equestrian show with a cast of equestrian stunt actors who reproduced a battle scene from the late Ming Dynasty.

“We saw this horse battle display with guys swings swords and battling each other and that was pretty cool,” said Tate Miller.

Tate’s dad, Matt Miller from the Hobie Cat Company in California reflected on his day, “The drive over here was cool. We saw one of the tallest buildings in the world. That was exciting. We got out and crossed over a gigantic bridge and went to an ATM and pulled money out, a first for me in China. That was really exciting too. When we got to the park it was amazing, there were miniature structures everywhere. We walked along the Great Wall of China and it took us an entire 5 minutes. How exciting was that! We saw horse back riding, sword fighting and trick riding, little villages with people in them playing music. I got excited about that too. We went into a Tibetan house and explored a Buddhist temple and so much more, but you know what, I really thought the ATM thing was really good.”

The team travelled back to the event resort in Dapeng, enthused, culturally enriched and ready for another hard day of work starting early in the morning.

All the way back, through the city Jacque looked skyward, continually muttering “Someone show me, where’s that building again?”