The Party Life

---

One thing that definitely deserves it's own blog because it is a whole other world of it's own is the party life of China. Remember, I come from a small "city" (after China I struggle to see Christchurch as city it's more a small town), that after earthquakes rocked the city we were left with no town to party at so it would be drinks at your friend's flat. Also, being in NZ drinks were so expensive you would always predrink/pregame (for the American's I'll add that in), before going out so you really only had to buy one or two while in town.

Well let me take you down a completely different path of experiences when I came to China. I first experienced what the party life was like when I spent that one week in Beijing for TEFL. My expectation is drink at a friends hotel room then go out and have a good night and come home at the usual time of about 2am.

Oh how naïve I was.

Being a foreigner in China especially at Chinese clubs would be like Ed Sheeran walking into a club: the Chinese gawking at you and then suddenly being offered all the free drinks in the world.

Fast forward to partying in Suzhou my first year? Alcohol was disgustingly cheap at the good old dive bar we call The Drunken Clam. First we would come here because it was far too early to go anywhere else so here we would be buying drinks of Malibu with pineapple juice for max 20rmb (nz$4) or shots for 7 rmb (about nz$1). From there we'd move onto Chinese clubs where music was so loud sign language is the only language spoken, the lights so bright sunglasses would be recommended and alcohol so bad you had to keep drinking to forget the taste. But the brilliance here was as a foreigner, we all knew someone who knew someone. Luckily for me, I knew people who worked at the bar. So we ended up drinking litres of free alcohol partying into the early hours of dawn. With the amount of dancing I did, pretty sure I burned off all the calories I was gaining from the ridiculous amount of drinking we were doing. We would switch between a few main bars - Muse, Syndrome and then to my personal favourite, Ellen's. This is where we would have delicious shisha and dance to actual decent music that I could do my well known dancing that people have come to appreciate...I hope.

After a year of partying like a Hollywood star, I decided to calm it down a bit in my second year and found more bar like vibe places. In Suzhou, this became bars in Ligondi and our trusty foreign friendly bar, The Camel.

Then we found my usual when I moved apartments to begin my last year in China; Locke Pub. Ah the memories. This is where I met one of my besties that you will no doubt hear lots about. It is where I discovered my love for prosecco, my dance for Shape of You so to be fair, Locke will hold many memories for as it will for many of my friends who have suffered the take over of Maria by having to listen to High School Musical, Spice Girls, Ed Sheeran, NZ anthem songs etc combined with me prancing around the bar like a lunatic when all they came was for a quiet drink with chill vibes. #sorrynotsorry.

But now, I am trying to calm down completely on this constant going out lifestyle so I can save my monies on more travel adventures around China and future travels in different countries because there is just so much more to explore!

---