Chinese Karaoke Bar

This one doesn’t really need any pretense. Just, yeah. Chinese karaoke bar.

Basically, Ollie and I realized that everyone wanted to go drink on Friday night so he sent out the mass text basically establishing that it was going to be a group activity. Idly, Gavin and I had been planning on checking out this pub Kristy and pointed out during our first big group dinner and that was the plan until we decided to invite the TA’s. They have an even shorter stick than the teachers basically. They’ll obviously wanna knock a few back, right?

Right we were. The first question out of their collective mouth was “are you going to a bar-bar or a KTV bar?” I mentioned the pub plan and I could tell that, in their eyes, I was full of wrong. Ollie and I, who work together Friday mornings, were then the unwitting representatives of our whole troupe of teachers. But a quick mental head count put the odds in favor of karaoke. I knew Gavin loves karaoke, I’d sing, Jonathon (Ollie’s roommate) is a musician and will surely sing, the TA’s are Chinese so they’re obviously singing. Fuck it. Let’s do some karaoke.

 

We gathered in front of the large mall, Nikko Nikko Do, at 8:30 that night. We were trying to get a pin down on what sort of prices we could expect and it quickly dawned on us that pregaming was important. The KTV where the TA’s had booked a room was just kitty corner across the intersection. The two western girls were running late so that bought us some time. Luckily, there’s a supermarket underneath Nikko Nikko Do. Jonathon, leading the charge like a homing missile, took the men (Ollie and I) to the beverage section and they grabbed two cans of beer. I had taken one when I looked up and realized they both had two. I’m no wuss. I grabbed a second and ran to the check out. It was only like, seven Yuan for the beers; definitely cheaper than the bar.

We made it back outside just as the girls were getting off of their bus. We made our way through the underground crossing, doing a number on our beers in our short walk,  towards our KTV Partyroom. We didn’t have to leave the crossing to get into the building. The underground passage emptied right into a huge arcade. The KTV bar was several flights up and quite posh.

So, it’s like this. Most karaoke, especially high end places, have the groups in private rooms as opposed to a big open stage. The lighting was dim, the staff was smartly dressed, the prices were a bit steep on the surface but this is meant to be a group activity. Split however many ways our share only came out to forty Yuan a head. That got us hours of singing, twenty four cans of beer, a bottle of Absolute, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and all sorts of snacks.

Our room was equipped with a touch screen panel that allowed for song selection and presumably some other functions (obviously everything other than some of the songs/artists was in Chinese), a long couch, a low table, and two microphones. I was shown a list of the English songs on the screen and it seemed despairingly lacking and eventually Jonathon just lit up “I Am the Walrus” and we were off. Some songs were individual reveries, a lone performing pouring his or her heart and soul into the melody. Others were show stopping, decibel laden, cathartic group numbers, e.g., the Muppets cover of Bohemian Rhapsody. I sang most every alternative rock/ indie song on the docket (and Shots by LMFAO) and we all had an amazing time.