sushipanda

After my and Clint’s very conspicuous entrance at the VIP Room on Wednesday night as the only costumed attendees to what we thought was a massive Halloween party, I was wary about donning my second costume (gay leather-clad biker) and decided to be an aloof bystander at what promised to be a very raucous Halloween weekend in Shanghai. Indeed it was, but not exactly because the ghouls and ghastlies were loose about town. In fact, it could have been any other weekend if not for the over-abundance of super hot women in pussy cat outfits running about shaking everything they had going for them at Guandii.

I will now pause and remember that image some more.

On Friday, with Karen still in town from Beijing and looking for a decent send-off, I decided to make it an Intel night-on-the-town and invited a fairly large crowd of co-workers for a rare taste of Eric in my true environment. After they stormed off when I unveiled the sperm cup, I decided I should just take them out drinking instead. One of the IEs (Industrial Engineer) was a visiting Californian who was also looking for a good time on his last night in Shanghai. Unfortunately for him, I had met him a week prior at Cash Box and developed a considerable distaste for him, as his theatrics with a microphone indicated to me that he was trying a little too hard to be the center of attention in a room full of girls. Only I can play the role of obnoxious show-off, so the alpha male in me decided that I would take him and the other Intel folk to the Class Bar, which is where virile young men who are looking to pick up on girls go to rot. Class Bar basically consists of a Chinese cover band and forty other middle-aged Chinese men trying to out-drink and out-smoke each other. No young girls, no loud music, no dance floor; basically, it was the the anti-Guandii. Which made it the perfect place to disappoint him and please my close-to-the-vest Chinese co-workers, whose idea of a crazy night out is a half a can of beer after the first one, then a taxi ride home before midnight rolls around.

I won’t get too much into the details of that night; suffice it to say that we somehow ended up at Cash Box again, which is slowly turning into my third home, right behind my real one and the ladies bathroom on the first floor at work, and while the Intel folks slowly dropped one by one like flies, I was still going strong as Pearl and Clint and Mikkel (an imposter Luigi if I ever saw one) and even Jamie showed up to pay respects to the Carlsberg Mini-Keg. I walked out as the sun was rising, then quickly hissed and got into a cab. After stumbling home and into bed at 6:30, I whispered to myself that I would NOT get home this early again the next night.

Eugenia had been requesting a night out for Halloween, so I happily obliged by first taking her to my friend Rain’s “Party for Scorpios,” which was disappointing because apparently all the Scorpios in Shanghai are old Chinese men. We quickly got out of there and made our way to Guandii for a real Halloween bash. What made it all the more fantasic was Mike and Pei Pei (aka Bei Bei, aka Audrey) making a rare appearance after a week in purgatory. Pei Pei confessed that it had been nearly two years between Guandii appearances, and I tried to dig into my memory to disprove that, but for some reason all I could recall were memories of losing my 1st grade spelling by spelling “bus” with an “a,” so I quickly shook that off and gave her a toast.

Mike dressed as “So Faded,” as that’s how he kept introducing himself to everyone that night

The night took a tragic turn as I was ready to escort Eugenia out the door and discovered that someone had run off with my favorite jacket in the world. It was a felt Banana thing that my folks had gotten me for Christmas a year earlier, and it was the thing, when I wore it, that gave me the self confidence to walk up to any pretty girl and yank on her hair, then quickly sprint away. After angrily flipping through all apparel at our table, I took some random black jacket to avenge my stolen one, and ran outside into the cold, autumn air and waved it at the heavens. Unfortunately, it belonged to a classmat of Clint’s, and after he convinced me not to hold it for ransom, I had to give it back.

After falling over upon seeing Jessica dressed as herself, I decided to be more prepared in case she came close

Anyway, the night ended the only way it could have: with Hobbits jumping out of the trees at Fuxing park and offering me my coat back for a bushel of carrots. Well, at least that would have been more interesting than telling you guys I went to Cash Box and dusted off another Carlsberg Mini-Keg, which is what we ended up doing. Every time I complained about my jacket, Coco would pour me more beer, so eventually I just started ordering song A and then singing the lyrics to song B.

When I finally got home after brawling with the old men doing tai chi in the park, I looked at my watch and smiled. I had kept my promise I made the night before after all, as it was one hour later than the day before. I had literally spent the entire weekend in the dark, waking up to sunset and laying down to sunrise. And all I had to show for it was an empty wallet and broken dreams of lost jackets and super hot girls in pussycat costumes.

Hmm, maybe it wasn’t such a dark weekend after all.

I walk up towards VIP and as the hostess starts checking the guest list, the two promotion girls start pointing at me and whispering. This is OK, because people whisper about me all the time since I have an oversized head, but then they start giggling and I get a little antsy.

I walk into the club and stand at the entrance. It’s a Wednesday night, but this is the VIP Room, so the place is still pretty crowded and all the tables are full. The men are all pretty GQ and the women are, how should I put this, really really hot. Then, some of them slowly start to turn their heads toward the entrance where I’m standing, and through the misty dry ice I can see that some are shaking their heads, some are chuckling. What the hell is going on,I wonder to myself.

At the table towards the stage I shake hands with people I’ve never met, and the row of ladies sitting by the vodka start cheering and clapping when they see me. I look around to make sure that it’s me they’re laughing at, and when I feel pretty confident that it is me, I take a bow and start pressing my hand against my chest to show my gratitude.

VIP is a fantastic space and there are usually tons of hot women, but the drinks are pretty expensive and the music is terrible, unless you like hard house and break beats and really annoying stage shows with greasy European male dancers. Still, the XS Vodka and currant juice is really tasty, and before long I find myself on stage jumping up and down. People all around me start pointing and staring, and I guess I’m dancing pretty well, at least much better than the clowns on stage, and so I jump up and down even harder.

Finally, I start wearing down and signal to Pearl and Clint that we should head home. After saying bye to Coco next door, I realize that the bouncers are all staring at me and whispering amongst each other. This time, I’m pretty sure that it’s not because I’m a great dancer or because I’m super sexy, and so I stop and ask them what their problem is. They gesture at my clothing, and I look down and realize that I’m dressed like Super Mario. Then, I remember what Jane had said when she saw me waiting in the lobby at Pearl’s apartment.

“So, is that your costume,” she asks. I frown and reply,”Nooooooooo” in that really long, drawn out curl that people use when they seem suspicious of the question.

So, for those of you that think it’s weird that I go to work in blue overalls, a red shirt, and a huge red hat with an “M” on it, all I have to saw to you is: “Bowser Bowser.”

Halloween begins. Happy Trick-or-Treating.

I like mushrooms, so sue me

Chaz Tenenbaum in Shanghai

The place I live in Shanghai is sort of like a townhouse in a gated community. Most of my neighbors (whom I have never had the motivation to go meet) are mostly expatriates from Taiwan, Korea, and countries that manufacture white people. There are some scattered locals here and there, and most of them are families and not aspiring gigolos like myself. Because of the large number of kids who go to American or foreign schools, the neighborhood management like to bring a taste of the West into the complex during holidays. Since Halloween is nearly upon us, there now sits some ghastly decoration in the courtyard near the front gate. It’s been there a few days now, and I have gotten quite used to it (since I’m usually passed out when I cab in at night), that I was quite surprised when the drived let out a miniature yelp as he pulled into the gate.

Boo Hu

Driver: Why would they put such a scary face right here? Don’t you know how scary that is in the dark?
Me (looking around): Oh, you mean that pumpkin face right there?
Driver: Yes, it’s so scary. Why would the put such a horrible thing up for everyone to see? Do you live here?
Me: Yup.
Driver: Well, as a resident, you have a right to complain to the management. You can tell them to take it down.
Me: Oh, I think it’s for Halloween. You know, when people celebrate ghosts and stuff.
Driver: But think of the children.
Me: I think this is for the children.
Driver (muttering): Scared the shit out of me

Then it dawned on me that Shanghai taxi drivers are people too, not just hideous drivers who are programmed to take the long route and are required to roll down the window and hawk magnificent shiny loogeys and who have odious dental hygiene. They’re people with real feelings and real fears, and perhaps I should stop kicking their trunks when they cut me off and respect their personal, taxi-driver space.

I got out of the cab, walked around to the driver side, and reached through the window and gave my driver a huge, comforting hug. “There there, my child,” I whispered to him as I patted his head and massaged his shoulders, “It’s just an ugly face made from paper and cardboard and lights.” Then I kissed him on the forehead and headed inside, feeling pretty darn good about myself. That lasted for a good three seconds as I heard him hawking a massive ball of phlegm onto outside of my house. I hope that Great Pumpkin at the gate of my complex haunts him forever.

Raphael ended his Eastern Europe/Central Asia/Silk Road trek last week in Shanghai, where I had first met him a year and a half ago at Hongqiao airport on the way to our Tibet adventure. Herr Bick is quite the fortunate traveler, having missed both the tsunami last December and the earthquake in Kashmir. It was good seeing him again and to hear of his unusual and fascinating encounters with people from all walks of life. There was the Austrian professor who gave up a life of drugs and moved onto a life of women, and converted to Islam so he could have multiple wives. Then there was the German dude who worked for one year after college, then decided that that was “enough” and has spent the last few years riding his bike literally around the world. Then, there was the big-headed Californian who was living in Shanghai who liked to eat nothing but chili peppers and whose idea of long-distance travel is to cross the river from Puxi to Pudong.

Oh wait, that last guy was me.

Raphael stayed at my place his first night back into town and kept saying how good it felt to be back in civilization. Of course, saying this after someone had hawked a loogey on his foot just went to show how many backward places he had been to on his trek. Then again, after X many days of not showering, maybe the phlegm actually helped to make him smell slightly better, since I had unwisely allowed him to spend an hour on my laptop in my room before his first shower in X many days. Later, I had to defumigate my room by spraying every 3 cubic feet with sprays from the Aqua di Gio that Shirley got me back in the late nineties.

Another historic moment brought on by Raphael’s visit was my first ever experience at all-you-can-eat-and-drink Japanese without getting so much as a buzz. Then again, there is something about drinking with a compellingly granola German Jehovah’s witness that makes getting piss drunk less than palatable. As his diet the past week through China had consisted of smog and cookies, I watched his eyes light up as he ordered everything from the cow tongue to the eel, then watched my hopes of a healthy dinner melt away as the teppanyaki chef slammed a stick of butter onto the beef, then drenched it in oil as he cooked it over the grill.

I’m not sure when I’ll see Raphael again. He’s headed to South America next, where he will take a few days to go to Antarctica to spread German wisdom to the penguins. During our dinner together I fretted about not living my life to the fullest. Raphael himself had been putting off starting at the prestigious McKinsey consulting firm so he could see the world, and here I was making a pittance with only company I’ve ever known, without any plans on going anywhere that didn’t have a Starbucks.

Me: Raphael, I’m feeling like my life has no direction and ambition when compared to you.
Raphael: I’m still hungry, think you could handle another order of ice cream?

Raphael’s challenge left me with a sense of purpose that had been missing in my belly for quite some time, so I took him up on it. We ate ice cream and watched the chef slap more butter onto big, fatty pieces of steak, and I realized that my life was damn good. Who the hell wants to be like Raphael and climb Kilimanjaro anyway?

I’d rather be that Austrian dude with the four wives. Now that’s something I’m willing to shoot for!

The problem with trying to discipline yourself to a strict regimen of healthy living is, well, that it’s so fucking hard to do! After two weeks of this “program,” in which I steadfastly refuse to go out drinking late during a weeknight and go to the gym every other day, I can already feel the choking fingers of boredom wrapped around my neck. This naturally leads me to approach the weekend with my tongue hanging down towards my knees in gleeful anticipation, and this past weekend was a textbook example of the ejaculative ecstasy with which I savor the moment of joy that I used to taste on my lips every night.

Friday was a return to form for me, as I set up table at Mint for the few of us to put our feet up. After a bottle of Chivas and half a bottle of Skyy, we had all the nudging we needed as headed to Cash Box. As the weak and weary slowly slipped out of the room to head home around the three o’clock time frame, someone (I believe it was me) had the brilliant idea of returning my home to continue the binge. The rest of the evening/morning was decidedly blurry, with vague recollections of riding out into the brisk air on Julie to get green tea mixed with the image of Karen, visiting from Beijing, going mano-a-mano with Coco in a whiskey-pounding contest.

Below is a fantastic snapshot of how we all were that night. This picture tells quite a story; let me walk y’all through it. You can see Coco trying to pour Clint a drink, and looking at him suspiciously as he furiously tries to wave her off. Pearl is on your bottom right, repeating the phrase “this girl is crazy” to all of us as Coco had been keeping our glasses full throughout this midnight snack. Meanwhile, Eddy realizes that three quarters of a glass of whiskey and a few drops of green tea don’t taste too good.

The sight of Coco with a bottle of liquor is one of impending doom for all of us at 5 am in the morning

The funny thing about our weekends is that, even though they’re ritualistic in almost every sense (Guandii -> Cash Box -> Sunlight -> Guandii, etc etc), there’s still a sense of excitement as the hour nears. Dinner on Saturdays always includes someone who has the gumption to say out loud: “OK, I’ll go to Guandii, but I won’t drink that much.” This phrase is inevitably followed by a 3 second pause, and then a 10 minute burst of intense laughter from all of us. There is no such thing as a quiet evening at Guandii.

And of course, there is no such thing as Guandii without a trip out to Cash Box after all the dancing has subsided. Students of this blog now know what that means: Carlsberg Mini-Keg! The little green keg is an essential staple of any drunken singing at the karaoke palace, and after seeing it make multiple appearances in our room the night before, it was a familiar but welcome vision as I walked into the room to meet up with everyone who had a head start.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes drunken bike-riding

At around three o’clock, I started getting text messages from Hao Xue, who had recently taken up an English course and was trying to finish her homework. After answering a few of her questions, she came up with this brainstopper: Can you please make a sentence with the word “ourselves” in it?

I looked at Clint, because at that point my brain was totally fried. “Clint, help me out here, my friend needs help with her English homework. Can you help make up sentence that includes the word ‘ourseves’?”

Clint, who had been romancing the mini-keg for a while, paused and stared up at the ceiling. After a minute of brow-furrowing, he came back with this: “There’s no such word as ‘ourselves.’”

I stopped to think. Did Hao Xue make a mistake? It sure did sound like a weird word that shouldn’t exist. I decided that Clint must be right, that my mind was totally off. How could I ever aspire to be a good blogger and not even know that? “You’re right, thanks Clint.”

Good thing we didn’t make a fool of ourselves and use a totally non-existent word. But as you can see from this picture, we sure did have ourselves a good time. Next time, we need to learn how to not drink so fast and take care of ourselves a little more. This way, we’ll remember that “ourselves” isn’t really a word at all.

Just FYI, it’s Clint with the sloppy seconds. She was mine first

All you can eat Arabian food at Zahara, and then a killer time at (where else) Guandii. Hope Nicole and her posse all had a great time. We know we sure did.

I named my new bike Julie. I wish there were some really amusing story about how I came up with that name, but really it’s an incredibly dull explanation. Eugenia was staying over for a few days because she was working the F1 race, and one night she wanted to watch “Before Sunrise.” We rode out to the local DVD shop with her sitting in the back, and all I could think of was “Julie Delpy sure doesn’t do too many movies.” I guess I ended up associating the name “Julie” with the throbbing vibrations from the bicycle seat, and the association stuck.

Anyway, Julie and I have been bonding the past few days. Last Friday I rode her to Intel’s Gubei office about 15 minutes away, and when I got off work I rode her back to the gym in the rain. Riding in the rain through a monstrous intersection, swerving and dodging old ladies on mopeds and carts with hugs amounts of garbage on them, I had never felt closer to an inanimate object before in my entire life, not including all those times I made out with the toilet bowl at Guandii. The next day, Julie and I were there on a double-date with Clint, who also thought it would be cool to buy a bike. Then on Sunday, I spent an hour riding out to Chace and Lucy’s, with my huge sense of accomplishment for riding across Shanghai rewarded by the sight of Chace drinking cold Tsingtaos in front of me while I laid sprawled on his couch. It was a great weekend.

Meet Julie, my other half

Friday night was also Nicole’s birthday (pics here), which started off at Zahara for some delicious appetizers and belly dancing. Chace was so turned off by the hummus that he substituted beer instead, which resulted in the placing of his hand on my leg many a time during the course of the evening. The belly dancing was one of the highlights, especially since the dancer had the savvy to pull only drunk people from our table to dance with her. Mikkel did his best jitterbug imitation while Chace leaned to me and whispered: “Let’s pretend to be talking about something serious so she won’t come and make me dance with her.” Of course, he was totally sloshed so it sounded more like: “Let’s talk dance no me no belly, berrrrgh.”

Amen

The evening ended at Guandii, which was hosting a huge F1 party. Thankfully, Nicole booked in advance, and so we slinked our way into our nice VIP booth while every sweaty dude outside was forced to dry-hump the sweaty dude in front. Of course, Mikkel and Chace and I were happy to dry-hump each other back at our table, while Bonnie and Luce displayed their love for Nicole by grinding each other in a way that made me blush and run outside to the nearest church. After a healthy week filled with vegetables and treadmills and riding Julie representing the closest thing to action that I could’ve gotten, it was nice to re-live my old life again, just for one night. After slugging it out with Kasper and a good deal of Kahlua, I went home and made mad passionate love to Julie, though her spokes really left some deep scratches.

I will now post a picture of Lucy that I took when I rode Julie over. I am posting it here not because it has any relevance to this narrative, but because it’s just so damn cool. I wish I could wear one too, but my head is about the size of Orange County, so no panda dice this time.

Electric-moped diaries

I haven’t been out all week, and tonight I’m taking a break from the gym, which gives me the perfect opportunity to blog about the two things that are on my mind right now.

I love my new bike. It’s not so much the bike itself as the concept of the bike. I’ve ridden it twice now, both times to get to and back from the gym, and while it only takes 10 or so minutes each leg, it’s such a soothing experience. I think it’s a combination of feeling eco-friendly, cost-conscious, and very Chinese. To be honest, in my two years here, being on that bike has been the most Chinese I’ve ever felt. Well, maybe a close second to that one time I sold that white guy a duffel bag for 300 RMB and then used the money to buy a pair of pajamas for me to go out strolling in the neighborhood.

“Please get your fat ass off of me!”

The bike itself isn’t the sturdiest thing in the world, and given my abundant girth I’m not sure if I’m destined to ride this baby for very long. Plus, it’s gonna get stolen. Still, I wanted to get it fully equipped, and Keith once told me that it’s not really a China bike until it’s been christened with a basket. I’ve also secured it with a flex lock and a back-tire lock. Now all I need is a name for it, since I name all things I love, like that tapeworm (”Andy”) I had a few years back. Any suggestions would be helpful, but it has to be something totally worthy of its meaning to me. Kind of like…”Bob.” Or “Joe.” You get the picture.

I hate mosquitoes. No, that would be complimenting them. I fucking LOATHE them. Have you ever run into something more universally hated than these little fuckers? Shanghai is overrun with them during the summer, and although we’re entering winter, it seems as if they still like to convene at Casa del Eric and keep me from sleep. The past few nights I’ve had my wonderful of Bob Dole interrupted by buzzing in my ears, followed by itchy bites all over my beautiful body. I end up waking up every few hours, turning on the lights until I see one of them on my wall, then smacking them to oblivion before heading back to sleep, only to repeat this again after an hour because his previously unseen brothers were seeking revenge. These mosquitoes start off being tiny little squibs, and end up being huge black blobs thanks to feasting off my blood the whole night. There’s no more satisfying feeling in the world than smacking the shit out of one and seeing its guts (and your blood) spread out across the wall. And no more dreaded sound than hearing the buzzing after you’ve just smacked one and thought it was safe to go to sleep. In fact, I hear one now. Please excuse me while I hide under the covers and bawl.

Murder scene from 3:34 am this morning

A lot of things have happened in the past week since I’ve returned from Qingdao:

- My gym was shut down by the authorities for not paying some sort of fee/tax/lease.
- My friend Jia Hua snorted too much coke at Armanni and I had to carry her home.
- I got a new bike.

The gym thing really rankles me because I should have seen it coming. It was such a terrible, shitty little gym that always smelled like moist seat cushions. The weights were shoddy, the treadmill had bumps on the tread, and the equipment looked like it was from the Schwarzenegger era. If I were opening a gym to scam local expats who had nowhere else to go, I’d try to keep my costs as low as possible as well.

In all honesty, my first reaction on hearing this news was: “Yes! Don’t need to work out after all!” But then I realized that this was the exact mentality that was keeping me from achieving all the challenging goals I set for myself, such as eating 6 burritos at Taco Popo instead of 5, or not having to stop and take a breather during a pound-out session.

I kid, I kid.

Anyway, I decided to go running anyway since I had already put on my workout costume. And as a reward for a 20 minute jog through the neighborhood, I decided to drop 800 RMB on a bottle of Johnny Walker at the CLASS bar with Jia Hua and her cousin, Sandy. I dragged Eddy along too, who by now probably wants to drop-kick my nuts for making him deal with that mess at Armanni. After CLASS and Guandii, Jia Hua wanted to meet her friends at the VERY local club. At the outset, Sandy told everyone that I was Jia Hua’s boyfriend so that I could drink for free; not that I needed any more alcohol in my system. At first what sounded like a grand plan turned into a nightmare when Jia Hua snorted too much coke, and I was left trying to hold her head up and keep her puke out of her hair. After carrying her limp body out of the club and into the cab while trying not to let her boobs pop out and letting her drop a few times, we finally arrived at my place and successfully dragged her onto the tatami.

Eric: Should I take her to the hospital?
Sandy: Don’t worry, if we take her they’ll probably put her in prison for a few years, so let’s just take leave her here.
Eric: Sounds dicey
Sandy: We’re used to it

And I guess she was right, since the next morning Jia Hua woke up, drank some of my green tea, and innocently wondered why she couldn’t remember the previous 10 hours. Then she watched TV and let her cousin tell me things like, “Wouldn’t Jia Hua make a great wife?” Yes, these are the people I know.

Saturday started out much better as Eugenia came over and helped me buy a bicycle. With my gym shut down I had decided to get a bike so I could ride out to one a bit farther away, since after seeing Jia Hua licking the floor at Armanni I had vowed to myself to lead a much healthier life. Finally, after getting all the locks AND the basket (yes, I am now THAT Chinese), I rode my first Chinese bike home from the market with Eugenia holding on in the back. It was a sight I had seen thousands of times on the streets of Shanghai; guy riding bike with girl sitting prettily in the back. I never thought I’d be one of those guys, but Keith was right: it’s a fantastic feeling. Hopefully I get a chance to do it again before my new bike gets stolen, which is the inevitable tragic ending of every bike-story I’ve ever heard. I’d like to delay that inevitability as long as I can, which is why I now sleep with the front tire next to me in bed.

The healthy thing lasted about two hours as Eugenia and I went to all-you-can-eat sushi with Chace, Lucy, Clint and Kasper after I parked the bike at home. Two hours after that, Chace and Kasper and I were yelling out made-up stories of Keith and hookers and pouring sake down each others’ throats. Eugenia, who was wearing pink, drank just enough to have her face match her shirt. After we stumbled out and decided to go home, I was relieved that I didn’t have to do any more drinking. That is, of course, until I decided 1 minute later to go to Baidu and visit Coco and Yang Yang. I wish someone else was in the cab to stop me, as the night ended the way they always do, with me dropping even more money on another bottle I didn’t need. This time I called Kasper, who had already arrived at his house, to come back out. He responded with the following text message, which I’m showing here just to give y’all an idea of how wrong in the head we all were that night, and which I will never delete from my phone as long as I can. Word for word:

” I r home and ahhh y not u tell me b4 i like u pink f7iend ”

Kasper, let’s go out again soon.

Karen was super nice enough to pick Clint, Steve, Clare, and myself up from Dave’s apartment (thanks Dave for letting me sleep in your bed and shed unsavory things onto your sheets) in her BMW-for-a-week and drive us to the airport on Monday morning, even though technically she was supposed to be working. Apparently she had won some sort of drawing and her prize was to drive a BMW 325 around for a week. Choosing to drive me and Clare and two random dudes early on a weekday was definitely a gesture of friendship, something that I’ll return when Karen visits Shanghai in a few weeks. Good thing I bought that new bicycle (more on that later).

Qingdao is about an hour flight southeast of Beijing (I was too lazy to check the map, but I’m pretty sure it’s southeast). By the time we landed, the (in hindsight) completely ridiculous decision to stay up late to watch scrubs and get 3 hours of sleep before our flight started chewing away at us, particular Clint, who couldn’t seem to shake his nasty bug. The drinking the previous two nights probably didn’t help either.

Our hotel was situated right along the water, and we had an awesome view of the Qingdao coastline. Although I was ready to crawl into bed and curl up into a little ball of panda yarn, I knew our time in Qingdao was short, and so with Clint resting Steve, Clare and I made our way out into the town with absolutely no idea where to go and what to do. We ended up walking quite a bit that day (7 km), just checking out some coastal scenic spots and looking for some decent seafood. All the major coastal cities in China are known for good seafood, but somehow we ended up at McDonald’s after our crazy walk, unable to find an exciting seafood place and craving soft serve. Steve and I ended up ordering two Filet O’ Fish, so we knew that at the very least we could go back and say we had seafood in Qingdao.

Beautiful shot of our hotel at sunset

The next day we rented a taxi for the entire day as we headed to some of the more popular spots in town, and also to Laoshan (崂山) about 40 km outside of the city center. Our driver was friendly, outgoing, and a total turd for taking us to a seafood restaurant at Laoshan that cost as much as his mother probably would go for on the open market. Even after staying away from the expensive shellfish and even going so far as to order chicken, the total bill for the five of us was a hair over 800 RMB. This, after dealing with a herd of unruly customers just to pay that goddamn amount, made me piping hot mad as we got back into the cab and headed toward the mountainside. It wasn’t until moments later that both Clint and Clare confessesed that they would have had no qualms about walking out without paying. Unfortunately, none of them shared my desire to not only leave without paying, but to take the cash register and the cute waitresses with us. On the way down we got our revenge by flipping the restaurant off, but then Clint mentioned that two random people were in the way and caught the brunt of our powerful middle fingers. Damn you, God of seafood, why dost though smite us! My next profession will be to open a seafood restaurant across the street and charge 10% less. I’d still be ripping off tourists, but what they hey, better them than me.

After the driver dropped us off at one of the bathing beaches, we decided to walk back to the hotel. Qingdao is beautiful in that the many of the streets are thin and windy and stony, just like many villages in Europe. There are lots of houses and villas as opposed to clumps of high-rise apartment buildings like in Shanghai. Part of this must be attributable to the fact that the Germans occupied this picturesque little town for two decades before turning it over to the Japanese. It was in one of these hybrid neighborhoods that we ran into an amusing sight: dozens and dozens of brides and bridegrooms, standing around taking pictures. I’m not sure if this is a custom in the States, but in the Chinese engaged couples like to dress up in full wedding gear and take professional photographs before the actual wedding. I guess in Qingdao, everyone agrees on where all the pretty spots are, and so in front of us was a beachful of brides, all heavily made up and all with funny looking dudes. It made me happy to know that one day, one of those dudes might be me.

Bridal Beach

That night, on the driver’s recommendation on where to go (ignoring his advice on drugging Clare…no joke), the four of us went to one of the hottest night clubs in Qingdao, called Feeling. The place was huge and ornate, but as Clare said, everyone at club was super “tu” (土), which in English parlance basically means “country.” You see, there are the cosmo/trendy types in big cities in Shanghai and Beijing, and then there is everyone else who can vary from being very bumpkin-esque to just slightly backwards. This club was full of those people. Forget the fact that they only served Heineken and Chivas and that the dance floor was actually a springy trampoline; you just don’t want to stay at a place where a 50 year old couple is doing the jitterbug next to a couple of young men taking turns picking the other one up and hugging them (no joke). There’s the dance floor at the hottest club in Qingdao for ya. Of course, that didn’t stop Steve and I from bouncing up and down on the trampoline for a good 10 minutes.

Our last day in Qingdao was clearly apex of our trip; it was what we (with the exception of Clare and Steve) had come to this town for: the Tsingtao Brewery. Tsingtao is the best selling beer in China, and was originally brewed by the Germans during their short tenure. What a legacy! The four of us happily slapped down 200 RMB for a tour of the Tsingtao Musem and Brewery. Though not quite Duff Gardens, I was still impressed with how Tsingtao is made (with magical pixie dust) and the whole chronology of how it came to be (magicial pixies created the recipe and gave it to Mao as a birthday gift). Damn, I guess I just revealed all the secrets, and you won’t have to go anymore. Oh wait, you still do, because they have this hilarious little toy house at the end of the tour that is supposed to simulate how a drunk person would feel. Basically, they slant the floor so that you can’t really stand up straight, even though you’re looking at normal walls and ceilings. The best part was when an old lady stood there and complained, “I don’t feel a thing!” Welcome to my world, Grandma, guess you and I are just used to getting blitzed every day.

Eric on beer: I get it, and I like it

So, beautiful ocean view, expensive seafood, trampoline-type dance floor, and an opportunity to worship at the shrine of Tsingtao, the true nectar of the gods. I knew I couldn’t top this for a while when I got back to Shanghai. Which is, of course, why Eddy (who just got back from Dalian) and I got piss drunk the next night when we got back. I see it as a eulogy of sorts, but then again, I see crazy things all the time when I’m drunk.