In the words of venerable modern philosopher Ice Cube, ‘it’s on like Donkey Kong’ – literally – at Berlin’s Mount Center climbing park, which features elevated platforms that look an awful lot like those seen in the classic video game. Located in Mitte, the city’s hip central borough, the park offers a massive parkour course that takes visitors higher and higher up into the sky, amidst suspended vehicles and other recycled objects.

The park opened back in 2010, and features six different courses of varying levels of difficulty that may also remind some people of the courses on the reality television competition American Ninja Warrior. If you’re not exactly a parkour master, you can take a short training class before they use throw you out onto this open-air system of ropes, barrels, tires, platforms and bridges.

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At 50 feet high, its pinnacle also gives you pretty great views of a lovely green area of Berlin:

h/t Inhabitat; photos via BerlinSidewalk.com and MountMitte.de

If you’re afraid of heights, a mere glance at these photos taken by Russian daredevil photographer Angela Nikolau might be enough to give you the heebie-jeebies. The 23-year-old scales some of the tallest skyscrapers in Russia and Asia, either using a selfie stick, a drone, or bringing her boyfriend Ivan Kuzenetsov along to take the photos. And as if perching on the edges of structures at such extreme heights isn’t enough, she often does yoga poses or wears stilettos while doing so.

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The self-taught climber is not too concerned about bypassing security and breaking trespassing laws to capture these incredible images, and virtually no building is too tall. Angela and Ivan climbed all 2,000 feet of the Golden Finance 117 building in Tianjin, China last fall.

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Other illegal conquests include the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the Shanghai Tower in China, the Tsing Ma bridge in Hong Kong and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Unsurprisingly, many of the photos have to be taken late at night to avoid being caught.

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Angela’s casual poses might be the most disconcerting aspect of the photos, especially for those of us who imagine death-gripping the edge if we managed to make it up that high. She’s often lounging dangerously close to certain death, holding on to a ladder with just one hand or hanging barefoot off cranes. In some images, she’s held aloft by her boyfriend, dangling hundreds of feet off the ground.

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Check out all of Angela’s images at her Instagram, @angela_nikolau.

Parkour isn’t quite the sensation it used to be, but there are plenty of urban athletes all over the world still exploring cities by free running, jumping, flipping and climbing. One of England’s parkour champs is a talented expert who films thrilling point-of-view (or POV) videos of his parkour adventures.

Just in case his incredible videos entice any amateurs to try his death-defying style, we’ll just put this cliche saying out there: if you don’t have proper training, don’t try this at home. Or anywhere else. You can get most of the same thrill by watching Kingston’s heart-stopping POV adventures.

Wearing a helmet camera, Kingston takes his viewers on thrilling rides through rooftops, neighborhoods, and beautiful locations. Although he’s been criticized for glamorizing this dangerous sport, Kingston has also received accolades from people who aren’t able to try it out on their own. He gives his viewers a way to fly through the air and perform daring tricks without ever stepping foot away from their computers.

Parkour and free-running are fine for athletic types, while planking and the lying-down game are great for lazies, but suspended somewhere in between we find the leisure dive.

Blending the action-packed art of diving and cavalier nonchalance of sipping a cocktail, the actual site (Leisure Dive) started as a Facebook phenomena with a few pictures and spiraled out of control from there.

Variants include: hopping off a bike in mid-jump, or holding something other than a drink. Other details aside, though, appearance is critical – the less you look like someone prepared to splash into a pool (or other body of water, or hard-packed dirt) a few moments after your photograph is snapped, the more convincing the effect.

For those wishing to get in on the game, the instructions are as follows: (1) Grab some friends, a decent camera, and head somewhere chill near a body of water. A swimming pool works. A lake will do. A river? You crazy. (2) Put on a bathing suit. Or a linen suit. Or a koala suit. Anything leisurely. (3) Grab something that says you are just a chilled out individual. A piña colada. A pitching wedge. A harpsichord. Whatever. We all unwind differently. (4) Find a nice perch from which to jump. Make sure you have a leisurely backdrop and a safe landing. (5)Now jump in, and embrace the leisure. Tip your glass. Pop your elbow. And most importantly, look at the camera with a face that says, “Does this suit make me look awesome?” The answer is yes. And, SNAP.

It’s happening all around the world: people are taking pictures of their friends awkwardly lying face-down in all sorts of unlikely places. On top of statues, in the middle of roads, in front of famous landmarks – absolutely anywhere you can conceivably fit a horizontal human body, you’ll find someone playing the bizarre game. The weirder the place and the more people looking on, the better. You may ask why, but the people behind The Lying Down Game would rather ask “Why not?”

Lying Down Game creators Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon describe their creation as “Parkour…for those who can’t be arsed.” In other words, this is the lazy person’s urban navigation sport. There’s no dangerous jumping or athletic climbing required; just the ability to lie down and stop moving for a moment along with the bravery to tolerate people staring at you as if you are crazy.

Feel brave enough to participate? The rules are simple, according to the creators: “1) The more public the better.  2) The more people involved the better. Please be aware that the palms of your hands must be flat against your side and the tips of your toes pointing at the ground. Just as if you were standing, but vertically challenged. FACE DOWN!“

The game has been around as a Facebook group since 2006, but the meme really reached its peak in the summer of 2009. Mainstream media picked up on the story and the game was featured by news outlets around the world. After the attention, participation soared and the submitted pictures grew more and more outrageous. The game was at the center of a few controversies as people were caught lying down at work and in some rather unwise places, but lying down enthusiasts continued to play.

Aside from being a silly thing to do to amuse yourself, the Lying Down Game strikes us as a brilliant public art project. Seen separately, these photos suggest thousands of weird people all willing to do something a little crazy. But taken together, the photos of people all around the world lying face down in odd locations looks a lot like collective performance art. It helps that they all seem to be having fun while lying down.

The Facebook page for the group is still going strong after all this time, and it has now reached well over 100,000 members. Want to play? Be prepared for some stares and the occasional “Are you alright?” – and don’t forget to bring a friend with a camera to capture the ridiculous places you find to lie down in.