For more than a year now I have had it in mind to attempt to organize a bar crawl along Nanluoguxiang.
Now that the pleasant weather is here (not too hot, not too cold - this won't last more than a month or so), I think the time is ripe to put this plan into effect.
The sooner the better - because new bars seem to be opening down there almost every day.
A quick check a few evenings ago suggested a total at present of 26 (although I may have missed one or two; and there are at least a dozen restaurants and coffee bars, some of which arguably might merit inclusion). Even if we confine ourselves to piss-weak bottles of Tsingtao, I fear this may be pushing the limits of possibility - both in terms of expense and liver damage. I'm sure I have killed off 25 or 30 Tsingtaos in a night once or twice before - but it did make me pretty darned drunk! And I'm not sure that I know anyone else sufficiently hardcore to give this a serious go with me (I wonder if Big Frank would come back from Korea for the event?).
I think we'll have to aim to start in the early afternoon, and allow a good 8-10 hours for completion. I'll settle on a date shortly, and let you know.
But I warn you.....
as my friend The Weeble always says, There are rules, you know. I think we'll allow people to omit a drink, or take a soft drink, in any bar they wish (I really wouldn't want anybody to make themselves ill attempting this); but I will have no truck with people dropping out through mere tiredness or boredom, or electing to stick in a favourite bar part way up the street. This is our challenge: to visit every single bar on that street in succession. Edmund Hillary didn't say to himself, "Well, that's a bloody big mountain; perhaps I'll just go half-way up", now, did he? NO.
We have to do it...... because it's there.
Who's with me?
* A reference that even The Weeble won't get.
3 comments:
Include me out -- as far as I'm concerned there are at most three (3) bars on Nan Luogu Xiang worth visiting, now that ownership of Sandglass has reverted to the bastard Han for whom Alc and Wula made so much money.
And it is true that I did not get the reference.
The point of the event is not the bars themselves, but the physical challenge involved, the discipline required to achieve something pointless and difficult.
If there were a profusion of decent bars on the street, we would get tempted to linger, rather than moving always swiftly onwards to the next venue on the list. This is why it is convenient that 12 Square Meters is as the start and Reef is near the end (and Sandglass is not what it once was; and Salud is notable more for the music and the tottie than for great bar-ness). Any lingering at these two should not derail the overall schedule too much.
I shall explain the reference in a day or two.
I have now provided an explanation of the obscure reference in this post title (and in this earlier one).
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