Clubbing in Beijing

Finding Houhai was not as easy as I had hoped, I figured that I got off at the closest metro station and thought that I could walk from there, after about 20 minutes of walking through a street sided with ruins and reconstruction work I gave up, my friend (actually friends friend), Candy, got to talk to the taxi driver with my phone and after some argument, when Chinese people talk it always sounds like argument, he understood where to go and drove me there, and it was quite far. Once there I contacted Candy again but neither of us was really certain that I was at the right place, we did manage to find each other, or she found me, and we went off to find a bar. I didn’t really understand why it needed so much finding, there were tons of bars all around us, but Candy insisted that we should find a special one. I guess it was not so much finding the place as just walking there, it was a bit to walk to get there but I might have been worth it, we didn’t test any other place so I can’t be sure.

The place was small and had like nearly all the other places a singer, and he was actually pretty good. Candy seemed to fall half in sleep or in trance everything he was singing some sad love song, I figured that she must have some kind of love problem, which she later admitted too, so I didn’t disturb her. We had a few beers, she one and me two, at that place and they went on to another place that was more like a tiny club than a bar, or something in between, I think they call it dancing bar or something like that. It was not too crowded but since it had started raining everybody had gone inside and there were some cute girls around dancing, they had a hired dancer too and she was actually quite hot. And Candy is the kind of girl with too much energy that would dance alone without music, so I really didn’t have much choice unless I wanted to sit alone somewhere in the noise, it was too much noise to start random conversation and I was not in much mood for that anyway.

After that we took a taxi to somewhere a little bit more central where we met up with her friends for KTV, karaoke. To say friends might be an exaggeration, but I guess they are in a way, they are online friends forming a group in a messenger like network called QQ that is very common here in China, they only meet once in a while to go out clubbing, Candy said she only really knows one of them and this is only the third time they met. They were all pretty cool though, and it is a really good idea that people of the same mind go out together, all of them were out for drinking and partying, not a single one of them were reluctant to drink more than a sip like most other Chinese, especially girls, that I’ve met. They taught me a pretty cool dice drinking game that seems to be common here, and I tried to sing once too, that was quite a disaster though. We didn’t have much time at the KTV place, we arrived just when they were leaving, had we arrived earlier we would have had to pay our part for the room too, which might actually have been worth it, it was pretty fun.

A very long drive to somewhere where a girl that had broken her shoe and a very long drive from there to the club, the club was pretty cool too and it seems there was no entrance fee. I think it doesn’t work that way here actually, it seems there was no dance floor either actually, I think that there are just a lot of big tables, and every group will buy a table and drinks for the night that that, then everybody is just hanging around their own table. I’m not really certain of this, it looked like there was a dance floor when we arrived, but at around 5am when most people had left is seemed to have tables everywhere where people had been dancing too. And that’s what we had too, a big table for our group, a small wagon with Chiva’s Regal and Icetea, that seems to be the only thing they drink, it’s quite good though so I don’t mind. Clubbing music in China is what you expect from one of the smaller dance floors in any larger club in Sweden, or in a techno club, but the only techno club I’ve ever been to is Amnesia, Sydskånska nationen once in a while, It’s not really the kind of music I would like, it’s just too unchanging, but in general I like places where people are having fun, so this works as good as anything.

We stayed at the club until around 5am, with some fall outs along the way I guess, most of the guys stayed all the time and there were 4 girls left including Candy, she is one energetic girl, when we left. Most of us when for some food, breakfast of drunken food or whatever it can be called, at a noodle place, it’s not what I eat when I’ve been drinking so I didn’t have much, but having some hot soup, we all had noodle soup, was quite refreshing. After that Candy and I got dropped off at the closest metro station, and after about 20 minutes waiting we caught the first train back to where ever, Candy got off after only one stop so after that I was alone, trying my best to stay awake until my station.

I did manage to stay awake but once at the station I couldn’t find a single taxi to take me back to Mei’s place. After some time a guy in a small car stopped and offered me a ride though, I assumed it was a illegal taxi service and I paid him twice what a normal taxi would cost, I’m just too nice sometimes, especially when I’m drunk. Once home the next problem came up, the door was locked and I don’t have any key, Mei didn’t answer her mobile, she had left it in another room when she went to sleep, which is really bad since she had agreed to help me if I had any problems with taxi or anything on the way home, and no one seemed to hear me banging on the door. After about 20 minutes Mei’s boyfriend had woken up, partly by the banging and partly by the phone I guess, and opened for me.