After a relatively sober three months, last night Ric and I went out to experience some drinking and clubbing, Beijing style, with our new Liverpudlian friend who lives in Shanghai.
I was limping after I managed to get speared by a meat skewer that was lying on the ground that morning. Don't ask me how it happened but it went in at an almost perfect vertical angle! Felt odd pulling an inch of stick out of my foot. Was it a freak accident or a 'tourist trap'?
First we went to a very fancy, luxuriously decorated cocktail bar located within a swanky shopping plaza (not uncommon in Asia) which had surrealist paintings hung on the ceilings, glass cabinets full of random items including jars, model hands, fake jewellery etc. a soul singer and the mot exquisite loos I think I have ever used. People were queuing just to have a look at them. Even the Queen doesn't have facilities like these. Fact. The service was dire with inexperienced and stressed staff who didn't have a clue about working in a bar, but that in itself was entertaining.
I wish I'd had a decent frock to wear. My cheap Thailand halterneck beach dresses didn't really seem appropriate. Still, once I'd slapped on a bit of eye liner and thrown a shawl over my shoulders I was ushered in despite my shorts.
What rather surprised us was that roughly 80 per cent of the people in there were gay expats from all over the world, and my goodness was there a lot of love (an lust) in the room! Perhaps I'm just really out of the drinking scene but I felt quite overwhelmed by the loud, bright, smokey atmosphere and the swooning, overtly demonstrative body language on display around me. There were a lot of cravats, square framed specs, tight jeans and pointy shoes and not many girls!
Afterwards, we headed off to a dark little club called White Rabbit on Lucky Street, a very cheesy strip of themed bars and restaurants. Again, we were completely outnumbered by schmoozing gay blokes of all shapes, sizes and races. Ric quickly changed his mind about dancing after someone made a pass at him. I would have have had a boogie had my foot not been so swollen up after the skewering incident earlier. Made a good horror story though.
Instead we talked loudly over mediocre techno music, watched the crowds trickling in, and drank a lot of neat spirits (a very Chinese thing) until the early hours. It was good to let our hair down after so long.
We have tried to get up close to the Olympic Stadium which is rumoured to be surrounded by rocket launchers half covered by camouflage netting. For what purpose you may well ask?!
We got to within 50 metres of the giant angular structure which was close enough for us. We're quite glad to be away from here by the time the Games start on a few weeks although there are far fewer people here than we expected there to be by now.
It required quite a lot of time, effort, our friend Rod who speaks Chinese and some luck to find the place. I wonder how on earth spectators are going to manage when the signage is so poor and so few people speak English. Taxi drivers tend to overlook foreigners too of they think they wont be able to communicate!
It's fun to be here but to be honest, all I can really think about now is Australia and seeing my dad again. I can't believe I'll be there just a two days!
What on earth are we going to do with ourselves when we get there?
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