Friday Night in Shanghai
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2005
1
18
20
Trip End
Jan 15, 2006
Shanghai,
China
Friday, January 13, 2006
Friday Night
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We went for a quick dinner at Taco Bell Grande. I think this was the only Mexican food place in Shanghai. I didn't care for it but Samir wanted Mexican. I think it is affiliated with Taco Bell but I'm not sure. Regardless it was quite a bit different from Taco Bell at home. First, it was a sit down and order type of place. Second the menu was more upscale (understandable because it's a sit-down place).I guess a good analogy would be that the restaurant was a hybrid of Taco Bell and El Torito. It was definitely interesting (When's the last time you got a side of fried rice with your Mexican food?). The taste was adjusted to the local palate and you can taste the influence of soy and teriyaki in the meats.
After dinner we went to Block 60. This was the newly opened lounge on Tongren road. It was basically a Japanese inspired techno club. The music was decent but unfortunately it was also small and rather empty.
Side Note: Obnoxious Brits
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What's w/these obnoxious British Travelers? They can be such assholes when they treat the locals really bad. I saw 3 old fat Brits pushing around the staff at Block 60 and randomly grabbing girls. I bet these assholes don't do this kind of stuff back at home. What's up with this superiority complex? Americans in general are much more respectful to the locals. I've heard stories about how many places hate British travelers and from what I've seen in both India and China their reputations are much deserved.
Club Babyface
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After Block 60 we went to Club Babyface on the recommendation of the People 7 bartender last week. He was right. WHAT AN AMAZING CLUB! Blows away anything in SF. Apparently it is the place where all the top Euro DJ's go to in Shanghai (Seb Fontaine, etc.). The club played awesome progressive house. Beautiful people. Hot, hot 20 somethings everywhere partying it up. Amazing decor. The whole thing reminded me of something out of a vampire movie: Lush, Loud, and Crazy.
Within a few minutes I got picked up by this chick. We basically hung out with her and her friends all night. Drink of choice was Chivas and green tea. It tasted pretty good but you get trashed fast. You don't buy 1 drink at a time, you buy a bottle of Chivas, a pitcher and bottles of green tea and you mix it up. By US standards it was pretty reasonably priced. 1 bottle of Chivas was about $50.
Anyways, this girl was from a neighboring city (Wuxi I think). She was in town on vacation and asked if I wanted to go visit her tomorrow as she was going back. Since we were headed to Beijing, I had to decline the offer. She also asked if I was married. I wasn't but I didn't think that would have stopped her if I actually was.
The night was also difficult for me as well as Samir had zero language skills. Consequently I had to be the translator and could not venture off too far. It was kind of funny to translate at first but after an hour it got tiresome. We got back at 4:30am and crashed.
