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Published: September 5th 2014
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After all the shenanigans of the previous evening I was dog tired. I woke up before the boys so left them to sleep and headed outside to sit in the court yard where we had eaten dinner the previous evening.
The mini bus driver had been to pick up everyone else left on the wall who had hiked down after seeing the sun rise and walking along the old wall for a while. They were all shocked at how bad Stuarts nose looked. We all piled back in the minibus and took a 30 minute drive to a tourist part of the wall. I thought we would be going on the wall but we just looked at it from over the road and had to cross the road to get a photo opportunity with us in the wall. Then it was back on the mini bus back to Beijing and the hostel which was a couple of hours ride away, during this time most of us fell asleep.
Back at the hostel we had breakfast and were allowed to get into the form rooms and shower. Stuart had to go to the hospital for an
X-ray. We were to regroup at 1.30pm to visit the forbidden city and Tiananmen Square. However I was so tired from lack of sleep that I decided not to go and to try to catch up on my sleep as I wanted to be awake to go and see the acrobats later. The feedback from those that went was that it was ok, the history was interesting but the buildings were a bit samey and boring. Also in the square you are not allowed to take in liquids even water into the square as in the past monks have set light to themselves there. Again the view was that it was just a big square nothing too exciting but they were glad they had seen it. However in some ways I wish I had gone as I'm not sure if I will make it back to Beijing and there were other things I haven't got to see for one reason or another that I would like to come back and do it all again properly.
I only managed to get a couple of hours sleep before I woke up and found that Stuart was sleeping in my
dorm room, oh joy :-(
I just chilled in the bar, did some admin stuff and sorted out my blogs and photos. We reconvened at 7pm to go to the acrobatic show. It was about a 15 minute walk or so to the venue in the rain but it wasn't too bad, not like it had been earlier on when the group was coming back from the forbidden city.
We just made it to the performance in time for the start. There was a introduction but as it was in Chinese we obviously couldn't understand. The opening act was a guy balancing on chairs and he put more chairs on and got higher and higher. Then we were astounded by the flexibility of 1 lady in particular of a group of 3. She could bend herself double backwards Nd had the most flexible hip joints I have ever seen. She must have had pipe bike cleaners for bones as no ones body should be able to do what she did!
Then we had guys balancing on pieces of wood flicking bowls in the air and catching them on their heads. This
was followed by a similar trick performed by one guy balancing on another guy.
There was a group of ladies on bicycles performing various balancing tricks including all of them on one bicycle. A guy dressed like an emperor changing the masks on his face quickly before our eyes. There was a group of 3 guys with clay pots medium and the big heavy kind you get at garden centres. I said I would have to practice in the garden when I get back to the UK lol.
The finale consisted of a huge metal mesh ball being rolled out on to the stage. We watched as a motorcyclist entered and rode round and round and even upside down. Then a second bike entered, did some tricks and then a third! We were in disbelief and we sat there hearts in our mouths, gasps of shock and wonderment and shouts of no way, and Oh my god! Etc, but then just as we thought it couldn't get any more exciting a 4th motorcycle joined in! I have never seen anything like it and may never again. All the acrobats are very talented and I
ended up buying a DVD to show the folks back home.
After the show we headed back to the hostel, by this time it had stopped raining but there were still plenty of puddles around and parts of the pavement were still flooded. We had the rest of the evening free so we planned what we were going to do the next day and how to get from A to B and back before having an early night.
Xxx
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