'Round the World in 80 Days

[chicagoagd]

I know there are some globetrotters out there with some amazing stories of when you went out on the town in a foreign city, here’s your chance to wow us with how the natives party.

I’m not looking for the “we went to the Grand Canyon, we sang campfire songs” kind of story, I’m looking for the “holy s**t, I want to go there!!” kind of story. Where you took the risk and had the experience of a lifetime....

SHANGHAI:

My group met this Chinese girl while we were touring Shanghai, she said she’d take us to a cool club to let us hang out with the locals. The next thing we know we’re flying down the streets, weaving in and out of traffic, barely missing pedestrians (who don’t have ANY rights and your life is at risk crossing a street). We don’t know where we are, and at that point, don’t really care. We go into this club, sit at a table, and the next thing we know, people around us are pulling up their chairs to practice their English on us. The Chinese girl next to me basically just knows how to say “you’re beautiful”, so I’m not sure whether she’s hitting on me or just trying to make conversation (I'm a girl ). We leave with that group and go to this other club (almost like a warehouse) to go dance, but got weirded out when they all watched us to see how we danced (They all danced the same, back and forth steps, virtually no hip movement). All during the night they were eating watermelon at the clubs, what's with that?? We didn't go out of our comfort zone to try that (ya never know...there's a reason for the word "shanghaied"). Finally we called it a night and handed our taxi driver the hotel business card so that we could get back. It was definitely a great night; unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to tell you the bars’ names because they all were written in Chinese.

How many cities can we hit? And for those who haven’t traveled, here’s your incentive!!

[Shark_in_Skirt]

What a great thread!!

Another story about China:

When I was 10 years old my parents decided that I was "losing touch with my roots" so they decided to pack me up and ship me off to China. ALONE.

Anyway, so before I even got to China there was total disaster... my airplane had some major technical difficulties and therefore all of the passengers had to stay the night in a local hotel... so it was an interesting experince sleeping in a big hotel room by myself at age 10.

A week after I arrived in Dilian, China (where my family is from), I decided that I was going to walk from one grandmother's house to the other's. Too bad none of the street names are marked and pretty much every single building looks exactly the same. Ended up wandering around the city for about two hours crying my eyes out until I found my way to a police station.

When at the police station, I wasn't even able to tell them my grandparents' names because I honestly didn't know! I always just refered to them as Grandma and Grandpa. I was just spilling out this story in my HORRIBLE Chinese about how I'm visiting from America and I got lost. They looked extremely skeptical.

Luckily, I was able to recall the phone number and they called... then they sent me home on a police motorcycle.

I will never forget this incident which had to be the most terrifying time of my life. Since then I've had this really unreasonable fear of getting lost... I don't even like driving anywhere beyond a 20-mile radius of my house!

XOXO,
Annie.

[chicagoagd]

bumping this up, someone's got to have a fun story.....

[CutiePie2000]

Okay, I was 23 years old and in a "Study in Germany, Live with a German Family" type of situation. There were a bunch of us Canadian students and we were on a weekend trip out to Berlin.
Anyhow, we went out to a club but it was kind of lame, so we spoke to the DJ to find out where the locals went. He gave us a couple of names of clubs, one of which was "The Bunker". The Bunker was in either former East Berlin or it was near Kreuzberg, which is the Turkish part of Berlin and VERY ROUGH. BTW, the Bunker apparently used to be an old hideout of Hitler's so we were a bit curious, albeit creeped out to go to a place where such an evil man has been.

Anyhow, we didn't have a car, & there were 4 of us girls. We ran into 2 US Serviceman, Brian and Bob, who were total sweeties and they said that they would drive us around Berlin and we would try to find "The Bunker". We never did find "The Bunker", but we did stop to ask for directions at one point. BIG MISTAKE. We did and 2 of us were out of the car and some Turkish men were nearby and saw the guys' military haircuts...and they started YELLING in Turkish and sprinting towards the car. We jumped back in, chop chop and drove off so fast! (I should clarify, some people are not very "welcoming" of the American Military Presence in Germany).

So, we drove around a bit more, and went to this building. It was about 5 stories. First 2 was nothing, the 3rd was a club. We walked up to the 4th floor and practically walked in on a Turkish briz or something! It was crazy. Instead, we quickly hurried back down and went in the 3rd floor. This was a club called TRASH and it was the LOUDEST place I have ever been in. The people in there were scary'ish looking (If any of you remember the video by Billy Idol, called "Dancing With Myself", where the ghouls are coming after him on the rooftop of the building, you'll know what I mean!). Anyhow, we just stuck in a group and danced until about 7 am (Yes, you read that right).

The sun was out and shining brightly...it was the funniest thing.
Then the 2 Army guys drove us back to the Youth Hostel and we went walking into breakfast! Everyone else in our group was already down having breakfast and we came walking in, wearing our club clothes. It was awesome!