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Published: July 10th 2008
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Another glorious weekend for the books, but one of the last in Shanghai. Even though I have 3.5 weeks left in China, I'm spending this weekend in Korea and then next weekend we begin traveling around China with our company. Then the next weekend, I return home on Sunday. Time is really running faster than I can catch it!
So this weekend, I felt quite proud because I planned it with Lu and executed it myself (she was off to Hong Kong, which sounds like an amazing place PS)! July 4th wasn't just our nation's birthday but Kim's as well. So it began with a night at Bling's, which is a trendy club with a great ladies night. Kim was SO surprised, and we even got a couch area. We were initially told that we didn't have to pay for our seating, but we were told that we would have to get a bottle. But no one was there, so they said they wouldn't kick us out until more people came. High rollin' yo hahah! But the girls got some good vodka/sprite or OJ mixes. The guys were ready to head over to this bar called Zapata's, but I really
HOOTers!
Hahah, shorties wanted to spend midnight (and Kim's official entry to 19-dom) at Bling. Luckily, once everyone got up at around 11:30 pm, they starting dancing to the music. Heheh, my party animals couldn't give up good music and a good dance floor.
At around 11:50, Luia and I went over to the bar to get Kim a birthday shot of tequila. We saw a guy with a microphone, so we asked him if he could give a birthday shout out to the birthday girl. At midnight, we hear a birthday song remix, and so we head over to the dance floor and present Kim with her shot. It was perfect!
Then my friend Ryan comes over to tell me that kids from UCR and UCSD are in the club. We head over to say hi, and next thing you know they are dancing in our circle. Naturally, I get involved in an intense rap battle with this guy named Sam. It was all in good fun, or so I thought. Later he bought me a drink. When we were leaving, he asked me how he could contact me in the states. ROFLCOPTER. So I told him to find me on facebook.
Qipu
Home to 8 malls of bargain shopping He said I was killing him. LOLLERBLADES.
The next night was quite an experience for me. Kim surprised us (role reversal!) with a birthday dinner at HOOTER'S!!! I had never been there before, so I didn't know what to expect. Poles maybe? Well, it wasn't really raunchy. The waitresses were all Chinese, so those things had to be fake. But they had robust personalities. It was pretty fun, and they had us go up to dance the macarena and gladly took pictures with us. Mostly American guys were there LOL.
O and we had brought our co-worker Crystal with us. She is just so cute and so much fun to party with, even though this was her first night clubbing at Shanghai (despite being here for almost a month!). We know how to show these Chinese a good time.
After that, we went to a new place we discovered in Xintiandi called GPlus. We called ahead and they said that it was no cover. Of course, we get there and it's 50 rmb per person. HMM. The manager happened to be out there, so I told him about our predicament and how it was my friend's birthday. He
said that if I promised to come back and give him my number (for club purposes I reckon), he would let us in free. Voila.
The club was really nice. The dance floor fronted a giant projection screen that had music videos with lyrics and projected images of people on the dance floor! Alas, the techno wasn't enough for some people, so we went clubhopping...back to Muse! oy vey that club tires me. I was willing to stay pretty late for Kim (she was dancing with a Chinese kid we met over spring break hehe), but everyone wanted to go back. And I must admit that it was 3:30 am by that point...
The next day we went to this huge market called Qipu (pronounced Cheap-oo HAHAH). I had gone there Thursday with Luia and I hit a gold mine of clothing--2 dresses, a top, and shorts all for under $20 USD. Saturday I went for the accessories. I got these beautiful hand-made glass pendants, a belt, giant hoop earrings and cherry earrings (literally, plastic cherries dangling from my ears), and a bracelet. This place is AMAZING. When they talk about bargain shopping in China, they mean here.
That night we headed over to a newer club called The Wall, which was across the river in Pudong. The only reason we schlepped over there was because it had free drinks for guys and gals until midnight. But the place ended up being so dang hard to find that we only had 30 minutes to enjoy that special (no wonder they offered). So we decided to head on over to another place called Babyface. We had heard that it is THE night club in Shanghai. The place was cool, but super crowded. Think matches in a matchbox. Or Twizzlers in a Twizzler box. Yea, jam packed.
The girls weren't ready to leave, so I looked over and saw that Babyface owns another club called Richy's. Club hop time. We took a gamble by going to another club on Saturday night that had no cover, but it ended up not being too packed. We had such a fun group there, and we danced the night away.
The next day, we made a cultural trip (cultural Sundays!) to a place called Yu Yuan Gardens. This place is basically a giant shopping complex made in the style of Old Shanghai,
right on a pond and next to a sprawling garden area. We started our adventures by eating at a famous shao lin bao place where you could order dumplings that were so large and juicy that you had to use a straw to get all the juices. Heheh so very strange.
Then we went to the gardens itself, which were quite gorgeous and peaceful. It was a sprawling area with various ponds and pagodas and pathways and just quiet in general. It would have been a great deal nicer if the weather wasn't so oppressively humid. These past couple of days the weather has been so much nicer--even breezy!--and the skies have been bluer.
Sunday night we were unexpectedly presented with tickets to HAIRSPRAY live here in Shanghai!! Yes, it was in English. No, the actors weren't Chinese. There were, however, subtitles on the side. It was SO friggin good. I'm obsessed all over again. Even though I prefer Zac Efron to Shanghai's Linc, I can still say that the musical was better than the movie (hahah, go figure!).
This weekend I'm headed off to Korea, which should be quite the adventure. I'm there from July 11th-14th, and
Richy's
Wearing our stunna shades a special shout out to Linds. I am going to do my best to contact you on the actual day, but HAPPY EARLY 19th BIRTHDAY LOVE YOU!!!!
lovelove
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lindsey
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omg korea, sounds like sooo much fun. and YES HAIRSPRAY LIVE IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE MOVIE. janine and i saw it live before the movie came out and it was amazing. i love how you can get into clubs free by promising the manager your number. everyone wants some tlawrence XD I LOVE YOU BABE <3