Almost done with Beijing! - Part 8

I'm about as done with writing about Beijing as I'm sure you are with reading it. Here's a mishmash of some pictures and videos from our last few days.

We managed to get a good deal from our Hostel and went to see an acrobatic performance one night. The seating set up was pretty weird, we got general admission tickets and had to push our way through the masses to get a decent view. The show itself was good but as they seemed to run shows back-to-back there was a little of the old razzle-dazzle missing from the performers. 

Nevertheless, they could do some amazing stuff. The contortionists were also masters at using devil sticks, the tumblers did something impressive with hats and I'm fairly certain the acrobalancer (it's a thing) below could juggle like a madman. My camera SUCKS at taking night pictures, below are the few that came out.

The closing act was easily the best part, a rendition of the Globe of Death. I think there's 5 motorcyles in the picture below but I had to count the streaks of light to figure that out.

Here's a video I took, apologies for the noise and my cruddy commentary! It starts with 5 bikes in the globe:



Earlier that evening we walked down to Tiananmen Square to watch the flag being lowered. Traffic halts on the 6-lane street between the Forbidden City and the Square so 70 soldiers can frog march across and collect the folded flag. The crowd around the gates was 10 deep by the time the ceremony began. I got my hair pulled and Lauren was accosted by a kid while we waited.

You can see the soldiers marching across the road in the video below. Watching their white gloves swing in perfect unison was mesmerising. The video is commentated in my usual scintillating style.



And finally, a few bits of Chinese randomness!

One of the Restaurants we went to had their china in this handy dandy shrinkwrapped set.

Wang Fu Jin Snack Street - these guys were hawking fried fruit kebabs

I tried dragon fruit for the first time! It was gross. Maybe I got a bad one?

Why are these children so happy?!! It's a skinned adorable cat! Sick.