Shanghai Night Life Part IV

I like lizards.

So who's been to Phebe yet?

If not....go there! If you have then check out Fuxing park.

Anyone remember Club Lady Gaga?

Richy: Typical Chinese club. (Fuxing park)

Not many foreigners, pretty standard Chinese club meaning there are about 10 million tables and chairs and then a small dance floor.....even though its a small dance floor this club is still pretty cool.

The club is great for finding Chinese girls and just generally having fun, its close to a few other clubs so its a good place to hang around as you can bounce to other places quickly and easily.

Drinks are ok priced.

Park 97: A bizzare bizzare place. (fuxing park)

Two levels and many many tables.....

I've never seen it totally packed but then again its never really empty.....

Security are pushy and a little retarded, the club has lots of Chinese people and not many foreigners (this seems to be the case with Fu xing park) its mainly commerical boring music and I haven't personally had a fantastic or memorable time there, yet (still hoping).

It's worth checking out but not worth spending the night at.

Not sure about the drinks.

Guandi: Its famous...(fuxing park)

I've been here a few times, its almost always empty which leads me to believe its a late late late night club (4am-ish)

It's trendy and occasionally attracts some people from the Shanghai dance crews....it can be a little hit and miss though because its rarely consistent with the music.

Check it out or dont.....

Not sure about the drinks.

I will cover more clubs (Xin tian Di - complete coverage) in the next post.

Small dive bars/clubs:

Windows underground

C's

Everything else in between: 

Mural

Windows too

Brown sugar

Davidoff lounge

Tipsy...

LADDDDDDYYYYYYYY GAGA. (watch out for this one)

Thanks for reading my rant on Shanghai clubs, I hope you love it.

Peace

Kane

Shanghai Night Life Part III

Hey, I'mmmmmm back.

Anyone been to Lady Gaga? That place is unreal.

Here we go:

Muse 1: ohhhhhhhh damn.

I love this place, this place is totally chill. (Xi kang lu crossing Yu yao lu)

Muse is a great place because its balanced, you have 2 decent sized dance floors (it's 3 levels), 3 bars and its a perfect mix of Foreigners and Chinese 30/70.

Friday nights has good music, generally hip hop and they generally have dancers and MC's/Black dudes rapping or beat boxers.

Saturday is more house or just commerical remixed hip hop.

Always a good place to find girls who are friendly towards foreigners and speak reasonable English.

The 3rd level is private rooms with private service.

Drinks aren't too expensive.

Muse 2: ummmmmmmmmm...yeah...

Basically just a bigger M1 without the 2nd dance floor.

There are A LOT of tables, again same crowd and its a little classier......It is usually too crowded, you have to battle your way through to get anywhere on the busy nights which is a pain in the ass.

The dance floor is a death trap, its a few raised blocks and if you fall if there is a good chance of death.

Other than that, its all right.

Drinks are more expensive than muse 1.

Sky:  Oh...HbSichuan.....

Sky is a wonderful place, its right next to Muse 1 and you can sneak into both of them by going around the back and either going in through the fire exit to get into Sky or use the elevator to get into Muse.

Sky has TABLES, they recently just filled up half the dance floor with tables.....which is kinda crappy but there is still enough of a dance floor to have a good time.

Alcohol is well (correction - 40rmb gets you an orange juice with a spit of vodka in it - RUBBISH) priced, the place is really well run and managed, security is good and everything goes smoothly.

It does get pretty packed on weekends, Friday night is Hip hop, Saturday is house and commercial stuff.

Phebe: I love this place, so much.

Phebe is/was/still sorta is the bomb.

Again it recently got raped (yes raped) with tables, despite that its still a great place....onto why its a great place:

It's a Chinese club.....and it has some Foreigners....it also has some class.

There is mini golf, a Lady playing Piano (that sadly no one can hear) and many cool events/dance things/shows they hold inside.

There is the Lesbian act where two Chinese girls in a shower mimic sex with a dude (they're wearing clothes).

The Michael Jackson act : Some Chinese dude pretends to do some MJ moves...then pulls off most of his clothing and does some sorta gay belly dancing thing and generally prances around....its amusing.

They have a few other shows and other things going on which keep it interesting....

They also have Drink girls (girls who drink with you if you pay them), hookers and everything else in between.

I love Phebe because something magic always happens there, I've met models, ABC's and all sorts here, I've had some of my favourite clubbing experiences here.

Drinks are ok priced.

All the clubs are pretty close to each other (10 mins or so by Taxi) and its easy to travel around as there are Taxi's at all hours.

I hope this clears some stuff up for you guys.

Seriously check out Phebe, even if you don't prefer Chinese clubs, you will like Phebe.

Peace

Kane

Shanghai Night Life Part II

I asked my main main in Shanghai, Kane Vast to finish off this series since Shanghai is his stomping ground.  He willingly agreed to help me out and I'm really thankful for that because he'll be able to give you way better insider knowledge of the scene than I can.

When I originally asked him to put something together he wrote THOUSANDS of words, so I've decided to break it up into some smaller chunks for easy consumption.

Anyway, enough of me, let's get to what you really want to know...

--

Hey RPQ asked me to drop by and give my 2 yuan on Shanghai night life.

To start it all off.....

Shanghai has everything...........from clean and classy to dark and dirty.

Shanghai gives you choice.

Shanghai is everything good, bad and awesome all mixed together.

Starting with dinner....

Shanghai has every restaurant, cuisine and scary dish you could imagine....whatever you can think of, we've got it (yes that includes house pets). (anywhere from 100 rmb for 3 people to 1000 depending which restaurant u go to)

It's a great city to start out eating something awesome for dinner (Xin jiang food for example - Lou shan guan lu) and then moving onto a lounge for some fancy cocktails (Xintian di and Tian zi fang are fantastic, expensive but classy) or even an ice bar, the next step is to then hit up one of Shanghai's many clubs......

 

We've got world famous clubs and world famous DJ's....and then we've got everything else on the dark side of night life that you could think of.

I'm into the Clubs and DJ's so thats what you're gonna hear about from me.

Drink price ranges are described in three ways.

Expensive: 100 rmb for a drink (vodka and coke) is expensive and its most likely the alcohol is real.

Ok: 40 to 70rmb is an ok price and there is a good chance its real.

Cheap: 10 to 30 rmb is cheap and you're getting either really cheap rubbish alcohol or fake alcohol (some clubs here are famous for fake alcohol)

We're going to remember a few key points about China here:

1. Bars/Clubs are there to make money, not to look after you or get involved in your problems, meaning if you get drunk or into a fight you will not receive help from bouncers, they will watch 20 Chinese dudes beat you down and not do a damn thing to help.

2. Almost all major clubs have girls who are paid to drink with you, a lot the clubs have hookers./

These are pretty easy to spot because there will be a table full of girls who aren't drinking much and are all sitting there on their phones looking bored.

3. Chinese people overall are friendly.....do keep in mind that the personal space thing is non existent here so being pushed and shoved is normal and means you shouldn't start fights over it (no matter how god damn annoying it is) because you wont win.

Here we go

I'm going to break this down into types: (I will post about the dive bars, other clubs that i didn't mention here and anything  else i missed next time)

Big commercial clubs:

Club Obama: Club Obama opened with a bang.....and then fizzled. (Yan an xi lu)

It is huge, it is classy and it is over done.

I went there for the opening night and it was crazy, the club is well set up with a theater like setting with chairs surrounding the dance floor which is in the middle of the room.

It occasionally draws famous DJ's and has a generally mixed crowd of Chinese and Foreigners....the problem is that the club isn't close to the central part of Shanghai night life (Xintian Di area) and that makes it not as popular.

Mostly house/techno music.

Drinks are exxxxxxxxxpensive.

Circus: Circus Circus Circus....... (Yan an xi lu)

This place is either really awesome or really crap.

It's above Obama and seems to suffer from the location problem a little but it also makes up for it by having dancers and other forms of entertainment (lots and lots of girls you can pay to sit down and drink with you).

It draws a crowd of both Chinese and Foreigners...most foreigners mostly.

The dance floor is again in the middle of the room, they mostly have techno, house or remixes of Hip hop.

Drinks are ok priced.

Bar 88: Hookers, Lady boys, Drunk Chinese.

Bar 88.....It's everything awesome and terrible all mixed in one, there are lady boys, prostitutes and more all cruising around this bar, lots of tables (an INSANE amount) and an ok sized dance floor, always fun because of the constant insanity.

There are a lot of drunk Chinese people and a good mix of Foreigners chucked in....it is usually busy and its above ground level (long long stairs to get up) which is amusing when you're watching drunk people come down.

Drinks aren't over the top but not too cheap either.

The intro and brief hit up on three clubs should keep you busy!

Another post with alllllllot more club information on the way (Big commercial clubs and others continued next time).

Peace

--

Thanks for dropping by, Kane.

We'll have the next post up in about a week so look for it.

Shanghai Night Life: Part I

It's been a few months since I was last in Shanghai, but a friend of mine is planning on going there to party and asked me for some tips on the scene.  So instead, of writing an e-mail that will benefit just one person, I thought I'd put it up here for everyone to see.

First off, the Shanghai scene is different from other scenes in Asia because the night spots are spread out all over the city.  Secondly, people tend to bounce around to 3 or 4 different venues on any given night out rather than picking a spot and staying there.

One of the really cool things about zipping around from venue to venue by taxi is that it makes bouncing a whole lot easier than the other cities I've been in like Tokyo, Osaka, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taipei and Seoul.

The Shanghai scene also gets started a bit earlier and dies down a bit earlier with a lot of people heading home around 3 or 4am, which in Japan and Korea are the most pumping-est times to be in the club.

On the whole, venues are smaller, and there are more lounge/bar type places and the western style clubs that are there tend to be smaller.  There are also a lot of Chinese style clubs.

Chinese style clubs are more like really loud, dark lounges with small dancefloors.  Most of the time people go there with a large group of friends(like 10 or more).  These social circles are usually guys who have invited their female "friends" out and are footing the bill for the table and drinks.  The guys tend to be pretty protective and it's hard to break into these groups without an "in".  So if you don't know anyone there it's tough, especially for westerners.

Asians seem to have more success with this.  However sometimes the girls will be standing nearby and then you can sometimes cherry pick and isolate them before the guys get involved.  If they do confront you, I find the best way to handle the situation is to be friendly and talk in the face of their hostile stare down and it won't escalate.  Also you get bonus points for being cool and chill while he's doing his try hard alpha show for the girls that he thinks makes him look cool when really the girls are just wondering what he's getting so bent out of shape about.

Because you'll be spending a lot of time in taxis and you probably don't speak Chinese, youre best off to use a service called Guanxi that allows you to text the name of the club, restaurant, bar, etc, you want to go to in English.  You'll get a text back with a selection of the possible places you mean; you select one, and then they send you the address.  You can get the address in Chinese too which you can then show to your taxi driver: 95882929

There's also a free English language call-in service you can use instead(though I've never tried it myself): 962288

In Part II, I'll tell you where to go to chill out and soak in the good vibes as well as where to go to party it up with the cool kids:

Shanghai Night Life Part II

Quick Tips for Meeting Women #7: Club Game

In the boot camp you're doing approach, after approach, after approach. That has the specific purpose of developing the skills of opening and running a set.

However, that's usually not the ideal way to actually sarge a club. The ideal way, is to meet and mingle.

That means bouncing among sets, starting with the easiest opens, while keeping your eyes out for the one or two or three girls that you're really keen on.

In practice that means that you're running attraction with the girls, kinoing playfully, and just having fun and laughing. No isolation. Maybe a bit of qualification, but not enough for them to think that you're actually interested in them. You can start sexualizing early in this case(sexually qualifying her), since you're not actually interested which makes you fun and sexy.

Also, even though the girl isn't someone you'd want to be with seriously, she may be down to fuck you either that night or another time because she can tell from the way that you interact with her that you will deliver the goods.

The main thing is to eject from sets earlier rather than pushing them because you want to make sure you don't get blown out by any of the sets that you're really just using as warm-up and social proofing. Eject after BT Spikes, and then come back later while you're waiting it out.

Almost invariably, there will come a time in the night where it will be easy to open the sets you were targeting. It will be right there, begging to be opened(meaning that you'd be an idiot not to open in that situation).

Then that's when you unleash the full power of your game.