The other Waterloo intern here asked an HR person for something fun, so she brought us two + some of her friends firstly to Hotpot. It's a 'cook it yourself' restaurant where you get a massive, boiling pot set into the middle of your table. You order various raw meats, vegetables, and oils, then dump them into the cauldron at your leisure. The pot is also divided into two; one half housing the clear water, the other: murky, spicy filth.
Adventurous bez-I, and eat solely from the anthraxic cesspool; carts of chicken, beef, tofu breadballs, beansprouts, lotus root, and glow-in-the-dark mushrooms that look to invoke psychadelia. It is awesome: lotsa flava, tonsofun... until encountering the. Bathroom (a lonely doored crevice) is disgusting. iTis a first encounter with a kneeling toilet, but there is wet toilet paper where one would kneel. Fortunately, no need to use it as such. Blegh.
Pay for the meal. Walk to the location. A stone, old-looking building seemingly of recent material. Some large plastic flaps as the entrance (half the doors in China are like that). Push through the flaps, hand over the tickets, experience the new atmosphere. The Pet Conspiracy: a medium-deep name, American+Chinese background, new, and the authors of tonight's concert. Upon entry, the number of foreigners (~50%) here is immediately apparent. Mostly Asian girls and Caucasian guys with a month of scruff + square-rim glasses. Place the dimensions of a small gymnasium, we mingle in the crowd. That gets boring & crowded, we head upstairs. Liking the edgy atmosphere. Low volume, sly music; fashionable people; interesting art-work/placement; dirty enough to be grungy; clean enough to be comfortable. Starting soon - head back down. About 1000 in the crowd. Push our way into the middle of the floor.
Starts off with a little film of animals getting killed/mating. Band shows up. Person looks like Horus (Egyptian god) with an immense mask, holds large chains attached to the female lead singer. Solid beginning. A Metric sound + some screaming, miles of standard cable to decibels. Pleasantly surprisingly good. Overwhelming cigarette's'moke, legal in China. Leave with tobacco-infused cologne, half deaf, and satisfied with a first friday night.
-dough
Note to family: no illegal drugs involved here (they're super illegal in China - as opposed to you-won't-get-executed illegal)
Note to those who think I can't write properly: all the apparent mistakes are intentional ;) (innovative spelling, grammarz, made up words - concatenated or otherwise, punctuation, etc.)
Sweet pics courtesy of Gilman (+ above).
