At the bar

Tonight I got a taste of the Shanghai nightlife and went to a bar called Dada. I made some new friends ^^
The bar had really good reviews and was located down an alley and had some neon lights. Inside it was quite cosy and not too busy and reminded me a lot of this bar in Tottenham Court Road. There was a projector with some strange art animations, stacks of Jenga blocks, a foosball table and even a very old computer game system I didn't recognise set up.

Some of the barmen could speak English and some couldn't which made it difficult as two different ones served me and in the end had to ask the guy next to me to translate. Drinks weren't too bad, 3 drinks came to about 60RMB. Its also worth noting that there is no law against smoking indoors in China so lots of people were lighting up. Also there were a lot of foreigners and just generally a good atmosphere. I also think alcohol here is much stronger - I only had one drink and it feels like I had 3!

I also learnt the hard way to not get into a red taxi. It seems these taxi's aren't suited for foreigners and they drivers don't speak any English. I tried to take a taxi back to my place and the driver was speaking in Shanghainese and kept circling back and forth and getting rather annoyed at me for not being able to direct him! Come on he is a taxi driver! How would I know the directions?! I ended up being charged 20RMB and being kicked out at the bottom of the road so I had to trek back and hope I was going in the right direction.  

Lesson learnt - don't take a red taxi.