Check out these Wooderful life Marble Labyrinths

March 15, 2024

I have written before how I enjoyed trying to solve marble mazes as a kid in a previous post:

Here is one as an example of a marble maze that I found during that post to refresh your memory:

STERLING Games Large Wooden Labyrinth 13.5" x 13"

Available on AMZN and at Walmart. Appears to be the best selling (or possibly most advertised) wooden marble maze in the market. It also looks difficult !

And that is a standard format for the marble mazes I knew and could never solve. You tilt the maze and try to navigate the pathways without letting the ball fall down into one of the many holes.

Then I lived in Taipei and during a sightseeing excursion to Huashan 1914 Creative Park, which is a mixture of shops featuring local art and some cool restaurants I found something worth sharing here! During my visit corporations/large brands had rented exhibit space in the park to showcase their brands (like a Stranger Things exhibit, a Peanuts one, and some cartoons I did not know from Asia). The park is very industrial looking and a great place to take some photos. Here are 2 photos to give you an idea what it looks like:

Huashan 1914 Creative Park

Huashan 1914 Creative Park building

And it had this store, Wooderful life, where I found something worth mentioning on this site.

A set of 3 wooden marble labyrinths (easy, medium and hard levels) with similar game play. For these the playing surface is 3D and you must maneuver the marble through the track without it falling off the track. Seems easy, but there are hills (downhill and uphill) and turns and notches from loops and the marble barely fits into the pathway.

(excuse the photo lighting - they were not to be touched)

Easy wooden maze

medium wooden maze

hard wooden maze

And the information block showing the prices, how to play, and what it helps kids develop.

Here is a link to their online shop for the hard version. Very cool version of the marble maze game I’m glad I found.

If you like eco-friendly wooden toys this is a great store. They have licensed product also, with brands like Disney, Winnie the Pooh, Toy Story, Hello Kitty and more to choose from. Overall worth a visit if you are in Taipei !

And if you are in Taipei you should check out:

Visiting a Garden Maze in Taipei

Visiting a Garden Maze in Taipei

March 14, 2024

I spent over a month living in Taipei recently to learn about the culture and experience what life was like. This followed some time in Singapore and Thailand. During each trip I spent some time visiting labyrinths. Here are the first 2 trips:

Visiting a Labyrinth and some Mazes in Singapore

Visiting Labyrinths in Chiang Mai, Thailand

And so during my stay Taipei trip I took a mini trip to the Zhongshan District of the city to visit a garden maze ! Let’s see what I found.

The Trip - Garden Maze in the Xinsheng Park Area of Taipei Expo Park

Location:

No. 105號, Section 3, Xinsheng N Rd, Zhongshan District, Taipei City, 10491

How to get there: Take the metro, either the red or yellow, but I prefer the red line to the Yuanshan station. (yellow would be the Zhongshan Elementary School station). Both require a 16-18 minute walk but from Yuanshan station you get to walk through the Yuanshan Park next to the Expo Dome and I think that is worth it rather than walking thru the city the whole way from the other stop.

When you arrive at the SW corner of main park you will walk into a large Rose Garden full of places to visit and relax and many wonderful flowers. Here is the map you will see as you enter. Lots of green space and places to sit and relax, or get some exercise.

Make your way to the end of the garden before turning right to visit the Garden Maze. You could cut over earlier and see the side of the maze, but there is no entrance on that side and you’ll miss all the wonderful flowers. You’ll find a series of signs along the way - the first tells you are on the right path, the second gives information about the maze, and the third is of a map of the maze just before you enter.

Maze Garden Sign

Maze Garden Information Sign

Maze Garden Sign - Map

The informational sign could use but cleaning but reads:

The garden maze is actually comprised of 5 mazes that together form the Chinese Eight Trigrams. The taller outer maze, for adults, has hedges with weeping figs; the shorter inner maze, for children, has hedges or orchid trees. Each maze poses it’s own challenge; make your way to the center and you will find totems of cities, flowers. birds, beasts and ants!

Cool, so what are the Chinese Eight Trigrams you might be asking ? Well, I’ll let you read that on your own.

And now the maze. Entrances/Exits to the outside portions of the maze feature large hedge doors and are easy to spot even while inside the maze. Pathways are made of gravel and the hedges are a medium width apart. There are large stones scattered in dead ends with inscriptions (some very worn and faded) in Chinese. And the destinations of the outside mazes feature a mosaic in the center (2 shown below). Nothing complicated here as far as getting lost. The center kids maze looks great and the low hedges make it very simple.

Maze entrance

Center kids maze

view of maze up close

Large rocks with inscriptions in maze

Maze mosaic

Overall it was a nice trip. The maze is a quick visit, but the surrounding park and rose garden make it worth a visit. Oh, and it is next to the downtown airport so at some point you will have a huge plane flying overhead lower than you expect it !!

I suggest you combine this with a trip to one of the nearby museums/attractions.

Taipei Fine Arts Museum

Lin An Tai Historical House and Museum

Dalongdong Baoan Temple

Maze Comic Book Cover #11 - Paddy O'Green The Leprechaun Detective

March 12, 2024

Issue #11 in my comic book cover series celebrates St Patrick’s Day. I gave our Leprechaun a name and a job. Wouldn’t it be interesting to have a detective that was a Leprechaun. Find all of the comic book cover mazes on the collections homepage.