Its
been a while since i had some time to write so here we go recap style. We rode
a bus from Shenzhen to Qingyuan, a city, smaller then Shenzhen but a city
nonetheless about 3.5 hours northwest. We have been here for 2 nights so far
and I have yet to spot another foreigner. Given this, our presence has received
significantly more attention. Everyone stares, YCGs giggle and little
words of English get spoken with a smile although no one we have come in with
speaks English and this has been at times quite a can of worms when traveled unoccupied by Dan's many native bilingual friends. After leaving the bus
station we randomly walked and aimed for a hotel in our proximity. This was not
very difficult to acquire. We found lovely accommodations for around 170 qui a
night. Later that night we walked the waterfront and took in the scenery
that was a contrast to Shenzhen. There were some people swimming in the
shallow water and I really wanted to join them, partially to cool off and partially
to shock the locals.
This didn't happen, we continued onward towards a crowd that gathered near the water and watched a crew of uniformed men lug a filled body bag up and into their vehicle as an emotional women screamed and wept in agony. As we passed the scene, I jumped from the bangs. Firecrackers filled the silence. They chase away the evil spirits that linger after death explained Dan. Oh god, someone just died here. Moving on. We ate dinner at a restaurant that gave us a private room. Dan had been utilizing Lisa and Christy for all sorts of translation purposes. Before dinner he took a picture of the menu emailed it to her and got her to order for us. Thankful she recommended shells. I got to eat seafood. Finally. The private room thing was a lot of fun but the isolated window less atmosphere turned my behavior from silly to really silly and weird. I started to obsess with the tissue packets that you buy at the restaurants and use in place of napkins. I pocketed a few of these as souvenirs for my tissue obsessed friend and Mike left with their bottle opener. After dinner we walked and came across the glitzy KTV, Chinese karaoke location. Upon entering we were greeted by a row of YCGs in cute little outfits staring at us with the same awkward faces of confusion that we were likely displaying ourselves. Dan started to make arrangements for our room which was suppose to include one of the girls from the lineup, but for exactly what purpose we weren't sure. Desi was confident they were all probably prostitutes. My thoughts were much more wholesome and given that their was a lady in our party I felt like less of a chauvinist sleazeball. Dan assigned me the task of choosing one of the girls and I opted for the tallest and the most confident looking of the group. After some giggles from the lineup, she unenthusiastically followed us into our karaoke living room equipped with savory snacks, chickens feet and our own private squatter toilet. We performed a collection of English songs, I rapped a view numbers which actually seemed to impress posh spice and her friend who had the job of obsessively refilling our drinks. That's their job. Drink refill, drink refill. The constant service in china is awkward. Towards the end of the night it looked like she
was having more fun and performed several songs for us in Chinese and a
duet of because of you in English. At the end of the evening Dan somehow
asked the girl to come with us to a club in the neighborhood. She changed into
posh spice night out on the town clothing and we took a taxi to a club called
88 which looked all steampunk in style.
We
got a table, a bottle of something we drank mixed with green tea and by this
stage in the trip I knew what to expect, I would pretty much be the only one dancing
and their would be everyone else playing dice and sitting on their butts in
typical Chinese fashion. What I was not prepared for was my visit to the
bathroom. When I was peeing at the urinal I felt hands on my shoulders. I
panicked and expected the worse, but the hands started to massage me and who I
initially perceived as my homosexual attacker proved to be a bathroom attendant
and masseuse. After my urination was complete and equipment was put awa,
he lifted me up and cracked my back and then covered my face and neck with hot
towels just like my Russian barber would do in NY. I tipped him 10 yuen and 5
yuen the subsequent visit. He seemed quite pleased. When I got back we had
balloons, glow sticks and several more women at our table. Two girls who
apparently wanted to sit with us and drink our drinks. One wore glasses frames
without lenses. There was also an older lady with an ear piece who appeared to
be some sort of manager at the place although seemed overly flirtatious for our
attention given the age difference and the fact we were surrounded by YCGs
including posh spice. Despite the recent talk of male Chinese jealously, men
from the neighboring tables all wanted to bang glasses with us. We left the club with big smiles. Ben had made an accurate prediction. He would have been so proud.
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