When the original plan of "coming over to my apartment and having some drinks while we watch a movie" fell through, we all went out to an Indian restaurant for food. I'm no connoisseur, so I can't really describe how great the chicken here was. It was obvious from the beginning that this wouldn't be our first stop. We ate at the restaurant for a while and headed over to the hostel we were at last Sunday. On the way we called Nate and Daphney, and had them meet us there. We had a couple drinks and played a bit of pool. I don't know if I was lucky or what, but I did much better than I've ever done before.
Once again, I limited myself to two drinks, and no beer. (I needed to be sober for work the next day, and I hate beer.) After we had all had a game of pool, we all piled into two taxis and went to 1 + 1, a dance club on the south (I think) side of the city. This club was packed with a lot more people than Salsa had. The dance floor was so crowded that you really had to squeeze to get onto it. I liked the music at Salsa better, but the lights and smoke at 1 + 1 were much better. Also, with so many people crammed onto the floor, people are less likely to notice if you're dancing badly. Usually, I don't care where we go, and I'll just travel along with the group, but I definitely plan on coming back here again.
Apparently Daphney hadn't been to a club for almost a year, so by the end of the night it was very noticeable that she had had to much to drink. What's funny though, is that her English was actually better than her Chinese at this point. And she used it. Normally she's fairly quite, but once she had that much in her, she couldn't stay quite. She even went so far as to swear (in English) at a security guard who told Saffron not to take pictures in the club.
When we left the club, Daphney was in no state to get a taxi, and make it home on her own. So after a brief deliberation with the other guys, it was decided that she would come home with me and Saffron. She put up a small argument, but it consisted primarily of talking about how much of a bitch her boss was, so we decided to ignore it.
The taxi ride back to the apartment consisted of Saffron doing a great job of telling the driver where to go, and me doing a great job of preventing Daphney from sticking her feet out the window and kicking the back of the drivers seat. Daphney continued to cheerily swear away about how hard it was for a girl to be raised in the conservative Chinese lifestyle. All the while, she never once spoke a word that wasn't English.
Somehow Graeme and Dane made it back to Gao Ke before us, and helped us to get Daphney to the apartment. Somehow she noticed and pointed out that there were actually stars in the sky. And there were. After four weeks, this is the first time I've seen the stars here.
We practically carried Daphney up the stairs to the apartment and got some water in her. I don't know what her schedule today is, but I doubt she'll be going anywhere with the hangover she'll have. I think it's a miracle that she wasn't spilling her stomach all over the cab. I fell asleep last night to the sound of her giggling a room over. I hope Saffron didn't have any problems sleeping.
Overall, Sunday nights will probably end with me getting very little sleep. 1+1 is a cool club that I'd liek to go back too. I get the feeling that the apartment will become a starndard place for our Chinese friends to crash if they're too drunk to make it home.
I'm on my break right now, still about 3 and a half hours before I start teaching my next class. I've got the internet and a cup of hot chocolate that I brought with me. My day is looking good. Maybe I can take a quick nap before I have to teach again today.