The happiest place on earth?

On Saturday, Ben, Derek, Josh, Katy and I went to the circus. Bishkek has a rather awesome looking circus facility - a weird 60s era "futuristic" construction, located in the center of town - although it does not have its own circus. The circus building is used for concerts and comedy shows although it occasionally fulfills its true purpose when the circus comes to town. Signs plastered all over the city claimed that The Moscow Circus was coming. Now, I've seen the Moscow Circus, and they are flawless professionals (albeit with drugged bears). If what we saw was actually affiliated with the Moscow Circus in any way, they were definitely 10th string. But it was amusing (although the drugged bears and the drugged kangaroo were depressing - except for when one of the bears attacked its handler, which sadly, I did not get on camera).

We arrived at the circus to learn that tickets were a little more than we wanted to spend... then some sketchy middle-aged Kyrgyz woman offered to sell us scalped tickets for a fraction of the price. Of course we agreed, and of course they were fake. Well, not so much fake as for the 12:00 show when we were there to see the 4:00 show. We didn't notice this until we were already inside... and the three or four different people who checked our tickets never noticed. Woohoo! Anyway, we were seated far from the action - not good for photography - but I did take several short videos so you can see the true absurdity of this spectacle. Enjoy!