2005-03-07 - 11:04 p.m.

Circuses used to make me sad. I couldn’t handle all the animals being paraded and made to do demeaning tricks. So when Mike and I got tickets to the Chinese circus, I was a little nervous that animals were involved. The tickets had a tiger on the front, so we assumed there were creatures of some sort. Surprisingly, the only animal we saw all day was this friendly cow
standing in front of a wedding planning place. I bet marketing executives everywhere are scratching their heads, wondering why they didn’t think of that first. Maybe he was a wandering cow and wandered from the store he was actually advertising for. Anyway, back to the Chinese circus story. We had time to kill so we did a few things around town-
1.

We marveled at the bamboo construction sites. These talented people build skyscrapers and use bamboo scaffolding. My mind cannot begin to understand how this process works.
2.
We went to one of the tallest buildings in China. ( or maybe it’s THE tallest, I can’t remember) Jin Mao tower. There’s a bar on the 87th floor called Cloud 9, another ingenious marketing ploy. How cute is that. We drank Bloody Marys and talked about how many heart attacks in rapid succession we would have if we were forced to jump out the window. Mike would have 7, I would have 507.
(view from top)
Then it was time for the circus. It was all Chinese acrobats. I was so happy! The announcement before the show said “No pictures. It’s against the copyright laws of China.” I giggled at that one. Every article of clothing, every DVD, and every CD in China violates a copyright of some sort. So, to make the circus people happy, I pretended not to take pictures. My camera flashed once, and the place was dark. I was so busted. I thought for sure I would be dragged away, begging to see the finale. I was sure it had something to do with the huge Jiffy-Pop looking aluminum foil covered ball in the ring. I was really hoping that these people had somehow seen that movie “Real Genius” and were going to recreate the popcorn explosion scene (if you haven’t seen you are missing out –rent it!) I couldn’t wait to rush into the ring and swim in a sea of popcorn with the acrobats. I was wrong on both counts. Nobody seemed to care that I was taking pictures, and I did NOT get to swim in Jiffy-Pop. (False advertising in my opinion) It was such an exciting circus. Girls threw big spools high in the air, did a bunch of gymnastics on the ground, and then caught the spools just in time. They juggled 5 hats at time, climbed all over each other and bent their bodies into crazy positions. They did flips from those see-saw looking contraptions that people jump on one end to send somebody flying through the air. They hung from silk sheets suspended way up in the air and did lots more bizarre things. It was so exciting. I can’t really describe it very well. My vocabulary seems to be shrinking by the minute. Here are a few pictures. Enjoy! Xoxo, Julie

PS- 7 people on motorcycles squeezed into that cage, went super-fast in circles, and crossed their fingers that no body parts were ripped off. I’m happy to report that they weren’t!!!!

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