Liverpool Transition Ceremony

I went for the closing ceremony of Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008. The next two European Capital of Cultures are Linz in Austria and Vilnius in Lithuania.

The event took part at Pier Head, where the Mersey Ferries are. They lighted up the Liver Building in different colours making the night scene so lively.

A short clip of the event

What celebration without fireworks?

It never stops to amaze me how beautiful fireworks can be

M told me that the Chinese invented the fireworks. One of the story was that a Chinese cook accidentally mixed a few ingredients around the kitchen and found that it exploded when lighted up. Maybe from that point in time, firecrackers and fireworks could be heard at big celebrations. It was interesting to know that the 4 major inventions by ancient China are paper, gunpowder, compass, and printing. How very significant are they!

I saw some really interesting shapes that night. Too bad I only managed to capture the heart shaped ones. There was another with a red star surrounded by a yellow circle, but blame my camera with the slow shutter speed for not capturing it.

It was truly a big event. Saw this Arriva open-top bus used by BBC reporters to report the event throughout the night. There were people being interviewed as well after the event.

The 45-minute event was seriously too short, it seemed like I was just starting to enjoy myself when it ended. Who knows they did cut down on the fireworks display due to the credit crunch.

I was taken by surprised when I saw these 3 cyclist cycling through the crowd after the ceremony ended:

A clown covered in lights

A lost leprechaun searching the rainbow and his pot of gold

And some extras only covered in blue lights which might have been bought wrongly but still appeared so that it didn't go to waste.

It was cold and windy, but the fireworks, songs, projected movie, and beautifully lighted buildings were all worth it. Does that mean that Liverpool will just be a boring place after this?