Aye! She’s a fine vessle indeed

This weekend, for no reason in particular, I thought it would be interesting to meet some people I had never met, in a city I’ve never been to, all to wind up doing something I’ve painfully experienced oh so many times before.

I had met a friend through the powers of the Internet, and set forth to see her in a non-digital manner. She had informed me that her Canadian friend had a bar in Huangdao, across the bay from Qingdao. To get there I needed to sail on the majestic Qingdao-Xue Shi Dao ferry. We had originally planned to meet at 6:30 at Huangdao’s Jusco.

Thanks to my planning skills, or lack thereof, I managed to make it to the ferry station just as the boat I needed to get on was cruising away. I of course didn’t know this, because I had purchased tickets to go to another city. I figured because I was to meet my friend in Huangdao, that’s the ferry I should take. I was wrong. The Huangdao ferry actually goes someplace else, possibly North Korea. The ferry I needed to take was the one that went to the Xue Shi Dao station in Huangdao, farther away from Korea. After exchanging my ticket, and watching the mad rush of people trying to jump onto the Huangdao ferry as it was sailing away, I got in line for the next XueShiDao ferry. I’m not exactly sure why I did this, or really, why anyone did. I would have been better off just sitting down, because as soon as the line started to move, it quickly dissolved into a giant blob of humanity trying to crush it’s way through the turnstiles to get aboard the boat. Once I got on the vessel, and peeled off some of the Chinese people from my shoes, it was apparent that the whole mess had been futile, there were plenty of seats, and the boat wasn’t going anywhere for another 20 minutes.

Upon meeting my friend at Pizza Hut, I met up with some of her friends; we enjoyed some good by Chinese standards pizza before making our way to the bar/club/disco. The bar was called Revolution, had nice interior, and it was apparently brand new (Canadian operated of course). Salsa was the soundtrack of the night, and I proceeded to enjoy 15RMB Coronas and meet a number of people while forgetting their names to before they had finished telling me them. Things were going well, as I don’t mind salsa music, and I definitely don’t mind two-dollar coronas. However my new friend’s friends decided to leave quite early and after a while my friend suggested we go check out what else Huangdao had to offer.

As we were leaving the club, I noticed a number of interesting looking establishments. These places had massive flashing neon signs, typical of anywhere you go in Asia, yet were all on seedy backstreets. The most peculiar thing about them, was that despite their signage that could capture the attention of a blind man, they had no windows, and their doors were solid metal gate like entrances with small buzzers near by. It was then when I noticed that the luminescent signs were not in Chinese, but in Japanese. I could only imagine that what was going on inside of those quality looking places was not two obese naked men in underwear wrestling each other in the sand. Well I hoped to God it wasn’t.

After a short walk, we wound up at a Chinese disco. From excessive previous experience, I knew Chinese discos should be avoided at all costs. Picture a dark cave, filled with smoke, drunken Chinese people, and extremely loud pop or techno music. The bad part is that they spill beer at rate that makes the Exxon Valdez look like small misunderstanding. I’ll admit the music is rough too. Think of what was popular back in 1993-5. Think night at the Roxbury. Now think faster tempo, and Chinese people who stole their clothes the set of Saved by the Bell flailing about wildly. I know, I know, your brain can’t think anymore, it just shriveled up and died. But who was I to say no to my date, even with those shady Japanese clubs looking mighty good at this point.

The people in the club love to chug beers. I’m not sure why, because that’s the same as Paris Hilton having an infatuation with quantum physics. I commented to my friend about this, and of course she egged me on to challenge someone else. This of course, is what I wanted, and what better way to impress a girl than by showing her the ultimate measure of a man’s worth, the speed at which he can consume a beer. It took a little while to find someone who wasn’t so drunk that they would drop the bottle on their face while chugging, but I found my man. Now I must admit, I am not a speed drinker. I’m much more Terry Fox, than Ben Johnson. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to make the B-Team in the boat races back in school if the future of ale depended on it. In light of this, I was confident my opponent wouldn’t best me. We ganbei’d and I gorged my beer as if I had successfully used a fake ID for the first time. I slammed down the bottle. I figure I must have finished it in about 10 seconds. My opponent was still going. Sometime later, he was still going. After about a good minute or more, he finally finished and high five’d me. Good sportsmanship indeed, for then he congratulated me with a beer…suddenly it dawned on me; I may have found my place in these Chinese discos!

Filed under: booze related