The original "Spa Castle"

I write this from a sleep deprived state as I lounge comfortably in a bathrobe at the Queen Spa in Shenzhen. For about 30 bucks you get free food, drinks, ice cream, ping pong, swimming pool, gym, floors of massage chairs, saunas, steam rooms, hot tubs and every amenity one could possibly offer, they charged my cell phone for free and delivered it to my throne of a chair with tea. You can buy dirt cheap massages and you even get a free complimentary room to  sleep over and spend the night. Well, getting back to the recent history, after a clean and noteworthy experience at the Shenzhen Foreign Language School, where i played ambassador to America, the past two days have turned towards drinking, dancing and other debauchery. Dan is involved in an international social group, made up of people living and working in China from all over the world. I've met quite a few of these foreigners and YCG (young Chinese girl) groupies that socialize with the foreign crowd. 

A small cross section of the group includes Chris who is from the UK, a bunch of Muslims from Pakistan, Addi from India, Helen from the Philippines, Desi from Germany, Dwight, who I think is from Texas, that could explain alot, and of course Sero, aka The Mayor from Turkey, he is the well established social leader and chairman of  Coco Park, a string of foreign bars and of course your fair share of YCGs. They set up all these events via some Chinese social media app I've never heard of, but they are constantly on it talking to one another in mass text messages in two groups lovingly referred to as "beauties & handsomes" and the other one "sinners group", for the more party oriented crowd. These guys do Western activities like playing ultimate Frisbee, go to parks, sights and each others houses and some of them go to guy-yin (foreigner) bars. There they drink, party and attract attention from the Chinese locals. On Friday, first a few of us went to a small bar called Frankie's that looked like it belonged in Boston or Philadelphia. 

We met up with one of Dan's best friends in China, Desi. She was on her way down to the platform at the same time we were going up to find her. She shouted out to Daniel and then met us on the escalator once we went on the right one. We then took a taxi to go to the bar. The bar is near the Shenzhen transitional border, when Shenzhen was only a city planning experiment, before the city was fully integrated into the PRC. We drank PBR, in bottles, didn't even know that existed, the Brooklyn Hipsters would be happy to know the brand has quiet a big following in China. We listened to CCR and Led Zeppelin play over the stereo. Dan's friend Christy works there. I learned that she is one of the few Chinese citizens born in Shenzhen and has lived there for 22 years. She remembers when Shenzhen was practical nothing and described the process in which the skyline was erected in a matter of months. Nowadays it is the densest city, surpassing New York, Hong Kong and Mumbai. We also rode the subway for the first time. Clean, fast, bright. This line was finished only a few months ago and more are being banged out at about 5 times the speed of the 2nd Avenue subway. 

From Frankie's we took a taxi for the price a subway ride in NYC to Coco Park, 3 outdoor bars, all attached, that attract mostly foreigners. This mostly outdoor venue had a DJ playing dance party music inside on a modest sized dance floor. If I drank as much as I danced I wouldn't have survived the night. My wacky dancing was surprising appreciated and hopefully captivating to most.  During my visit to the bathroom  I did witness an oddity, a western style toilet on the top of a small slippery staircase. Above a shower nozzle, one of those European or Israeli like ones that disconnect from the small hook. What I later learned was the western toilet was put on top of a traditional Chinese squatter. The shower head is used to clean up the squatter units. 

At Christy's apartment I came face to face with my first squatter. No porcelain, just straight up hole and handrail on the wall for stabilization. Its a good thing i had to do a number 1.  If I had to use this thing for anything else I think it's more then feasible that I'd miss or worse, end up stepping in it. If I was intoxicated, I'd give myself no more then a 59% percent chance of walking away unscathed.  And since I can tell that China is already beginning to effect my stomach, these poo holes called bathrooms are beginning to scare the crap out of me.