Deranged Photography Contest - Giants, Ziplines and the Oldest Chinatown in Europe
The Royal de Luxe theatre troupe bring their giants to Liverpool, parading passed my old apartment :)
The Giantess wasn't all alone though, she had her trusty puppy companion with her... only 8 foot tall ;-)
I decided to pop down to get a closer view, partly because I wanted a break from my writing deadline, but also because the silver fiesta you can see in the pics was mine and people kept sitting and standing on it :)
The Giantess and her Faithful Dog
French street-theatre company ‘Royal de Luxe’ has presented outdoor performances featuring their giant marionettes for millions of people around the world. And we're privileged to have had them visit us in Liverpool twice in the last 10 years.
As I was living on Canning Street at the time I heard them coming as I was working on a magazine article for a paying client... but the French accents bellowing through loudspeakers piqued my interest so I opened my kitchen window which led to a small balcony where I used to occasionally eat breakfast, British weather allowing.
What to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a twenty-foot wooden girl thronged by wanderers
a seven-foot dog that barked when I cocked an ear,
and French guys making her move like red-coated conjurors.
Sorry, I have been reading out a lot of my poetry recently at local poetry slams
and it seems to have caused the ultimate crime of finding myself writing in rhyme.
But enough of that nonsense, as you can above it was a well-attended event, pre-covid times and there was also a giant grandmother that I missed as I had to return to my writing and looming deadline. The Royal de Luxe made another appearance on May 9th, 2012, when a giant deep sea diver puppet walked through the streets of Liverpool as part of a Royal de Luxe's street theatre production entitled "Sea Odyssey".
I have to admit to being gutted missing this one as I am obsessed with scuba diving and would have loved to march beside that massive diver and get some more pictures. Oh well, you live and learn. To see pictures of the giant diver please do click the link above or this one about Royal de Luxe which also shows a massive mechanised elephant they paraded through the streets of London.
The Church Street Zipline & The Chinese Arch
Ziplining over Church Street is not for the faint-hearted. Church Street is the main shopping street in Liverpool and as you can see from the pictures you can see a lot of the famous sites of Liverpool like the Liver Building with the iconic Liver Bird perched atop this Grade I listed building.
One of the things I love about my city is that Liverpudlians have a great sense of pride, and they're not easily fooled or manipulated by idiotic government ideas and attempts to sell their heritage. There has been a huge amount of development in the dockland area of Liverpool, but the Liver Building has been left alone, I think because if the council tried anything there would be a riot!
The zipline was truly exhilarating, and I have to admit to screaming like a 6-year-old girl 😂
On my way back home the rain started and I took some time to take a picture of the Chinese arch that guards the entrance to Europe's oldest Chinese community. I also stopped to eat at an amazing place called The Bagelry where they serve 4-5 different flavours of bagels and very nice coffee... and the best part is if like me you can't get enough bagels, you can buy a bag of assorted (and even multi-coloured) bagels to take home after scoffing one of their classics in house.
Sorry, due to the wind and rain at this point I forgot to take a picture of The Bagelry but if you check that link to trip advisor, you'll see all you need including decor and menu.
Thanks for reading 🌿
Photos by @raj808 - All Rights Reserved.
Competition tier entry: Amateur
Camera used: Samsung S7 Edge Smart Phone
For the best experience view this post on Liketu
Click banner to visit the community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.
Interested in trading, buying or selling crypto?
Sign up to Bittrex: https://bittrex.com/account/register?referralCode=3X3-FEG-WJE
Sign up to Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/join/joyce_pa
Sign up to Swissborg app to instantly buy crypto: https://join.swissborg.com/r/rowanKC4M
Use my referral link to sign up for Crypto.com and we both get $25 USD: https://crypto.com/app/vk6qzgsu98
If You Have Found Value From this Post and Want to tip extra, Crypto Donations Are Welcomed:
►Donate Ether and ERC20 Tokens: 0x32321615174AF3Da6074Cf79DED8269cA7a8eB24
►Donate Bitcoin: bc1q8wutj8u6ush7s8mucphfxf7gzrexeywmuqm8g3
►Donate Bitcoin Cash: qzt7c0czw0q988h93jvcz2rq5gy0s3h9pg2pk700ev
►Donate Litecoin: Lfsnz3pbT5V9N6WWGRaBsgKs9EvFeqzcPm
►Donate BNB: bnb1xeu94exteel9w3g8g44e6g595kvrqlgzm0crq4
►Donate Monero: 49PovXGcM9Y7JYeRJ35W9xZGrdivvLaMbVtGc3WDv6amCm5wqA854SvJNWxaEqjTz18K5YVPj5D6619C3bvNHsrG7oD1whb
►Donate Tezos: tz1SJUkpeznKE6bEhbX81YFdUQS5BprA4ot8
►Donate XRP: r35quYTThThN7yNvkJxyhLFAPyju3tsT35
Hi @raj808,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
That's amazing !💙
It is awesome right? I love stuff like this when it happens. I am blessed to live in truly one of the best sites in the UK.
A pretty miserable country in a lot of ways, but I have to thank my lucky stars that I'm in one of the best places in the UK. We got beaches, a river and crazy amounts of artistic things like this that happen on the regular... oh yeah and we're tied for having the most parks and green spaces with another city, I can't remember exactly... it might be Edinburgh in Scotland.
The British countryside is some of the best in the world. I come from the south-east coast and I really miss the windy cliffs, rolling hills, and pub walks !
Liverpool is an amazing place and wish to visit there someday
Hehe, you guys are lucky to experience such events or parades, 2 times in 10 years mean like once in a 5 year - that's sound interesting TBH.
Haha for real.? Was that screaming in excitement or in fear. Hehe.
I'm glad such cities where people ain't get fooled by gov still exist! Long live!
Wish you happy day ahead!
A bit of both if I am honest @idksamad78699 it was OK once I'd got going but the initial jump was scary.
Yeah, me too. Thanks for checking out my blog. I hope you get to visit Liverpool one day and take a ferry ride on the river Mersey, that's a fun thing to do that isn't too expensive.
That really looks awesome!
They are such artists!
Did you write they kept sitting and standing on your car though?
I'd go bananas haha..
!CTP
Yes, those marionette puppets were something out of this world 🙂
Yes, if you look at the 3rd picture down from the top you can see a rather shabby-looking silver fiesta with some people standing around it. They were fine, but about 3 minutes later some drunk dickhead climbed on the roof of my car to take a picture and his mate sat on the hood of my car. I shouted at them from my balcony to get off or I'd come down and kick him off. His response "You and who's army."
Well, my friend Tom (who is bigger and scarier than me) was having a pint in the house with me and watching it all out the window rather than from the balcony with me. So we ran downstairs and bodily lifted this guy off, wrestled him over to the police and they delt with him.
It was no biggie, to be honest, it's just that I stayed downstairs from them on until the parade had passed 😂
Hello. I can tell you had fun:
The parade looks really nice. I love the Giantess. I can see why it took heavy equipment to assist her movement. The organizers of this event did well.
Thanks for sharing.
Take care.
Read from LN
!LUV
!LADY
View or trade
LOHtokens.@justclickindiva, you successfully shared 0.1000 LOH with @raj808 and you earned 0.1000 LOH as tips. (1/9 calls)
Use !LADY command to share LOH! More details available in this post.
@justclickindiva(1/5) gave you LUV.
tools | wallet | discord | community | <><
HiveBuzz.me NFT for Peace
Yeah, it was one hell of a spectacle, and I was so lucky it passed my apartment like that so I got a birds-eye view 😃
I never thought that there can be the marionette performance in such a huge scale. It must be marvellous and exciting.
At the same time I feel so familiar when I see the photo of the Chinese arch with the striking Chinese characters 中国城. I can't help checking more information about it.
The data shows that Liverpool trading with China can be traced back as early as in Qing dynasty. And
It reminds me of my experience in Xinjiang. You can see the different races in the same street, the local minorities speaking their own languages(although most of them can speak Chinese mandarin, some can only speak their own). Maybe those Chinese born in Liverpool can still speak their own language--Chinese like the minorities in Xinjiang whose language I guess should be Kazakh language. When they talk among themselves, I can't understand at all. On top of that, their appearances are not the same as Chinese. It always makes me feel as if I just entered a foreign country without going abroad.
I guess it is the same subtle feeling when you enter Chinatown in Liverpool.
It really is amazing @kaixin and I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it. I didn't even know that parade was happening until I heard the music and stuck my head out the window and it was at the bottom of my street.
I called my friend who lived round the corner at the time on the phone and said "get over here m8, I've got some beers in the fridge and there is a giant twenty-foot wooden girl walking down the street." 😂
This is really interesting, as the Chinese community in Liverpool's China town have been here three generations or more, all the Chinese guys I knew in school spoke in a scouse accent and I didn't know if they had any mandarin. I don't think they did because I never heard them speak it, but perhaps at home with mum, dad and grandparents etc. In China Town I don't feel the cultural difference strongly, I am aware of it, but as there is an amazing Chinese new year celebration every year, with very high quality, and authentic dragon dancing from the Liverpool Hung Gar Kung Fu club I've grown up with it as my mum used to always take me.
This website has a great selection of images and descriptions of how inclusive and part of Liverpool's heritage the Chinese new year celebrations have become:
https://www.cultureliverpool.co.uk/hung-gar-kung-fu/
Also, this Youtube video shows a great clip from 2019, a celebration I was at somewhere in that crowd.
That's not something you get to see every day and that's shown by the crowd present there as well.
You also have to admire their love for the local football team, the real supporters and their chants are well known all over the world.
Voted on ListNerds!
Yes, it was a magical moment of serendipity, and I wouldn't have believed it until I saw it. I didn't even know that parade was happening until I heard the music and stuck my head out the window and it was at the bottom of my street 😂
That thing is creepy and awesome
You got on to it as well @derangedvisions
In the first picture (the one I used for the title pic), the guys operating it noticed me taking the picture and they made the giant marionette puppet look right at me. It freaked me out a little, to be honest 😂
Good catch Raj!
They were some great pics and an awesome experience, especially the giantess marionette puppet.
I didn't even know that parade was happening until I heard the music and stuck my head out the window and it was at the bottom of my street. I called my friend who lived round the corner at the time on the phone and said "get over here m8, I've got some beers in the fridge and there is a giant twenty-foot wooden girl walking down the street. He called me a lier but said he'd come over to drink my beer 😂
The look on his face was funny when I saw him walk round the corner from my perch on the balcony.
😆😂😂🤣