As March 17th approached it seemed like a necessary time for a celebration. After some discussion (and the refusal of our boss to agree to start school late on Friday) we decided to look into a Friday, March 18th belated St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl downtown. This was in recollection of a similar event held on Halloween. That had been widely seen as a huge success and an introduction for many into the nightlife of Shenyang.
The deal was made and about 25 of us booked our spots.
My plan was to go into town with some colleagues and check in to a hotel. Jackie didn’t want to go on the pub crawl, but she did want to do some things downtown. As it turned out we dropped her off at Cool Cuts hair salon on our way to the hotel. She got her hair cut while a few of us unwound in the lobby bar of the Sheraton. We didn’t stay at the Sheraton, but our hotel is right behind it so this was a nice place to wait. Three young women played soothing classical music as we baptized ourselves with the first of the night’s libations.
It started to rain while we relaxed. Jackie called to say that the rain had made catching a cab much more difficult and she’d meet us at the restaurant for dinner. ‘Nuff said. We ambled over and settled into a booth. Jackie arrived soon after and we fueled up. She said she’d stay in the hotel and maybe go next door for a massage at the traditional medicine center.
Three of us went back to the Sheraton thinking that we’d have our best luck catching a cab there. We were wrong. After three or four taxis told us they wouldn’t take us to the pub crawl’s starting place, we crossed the street and hoped for better luck on the north-bound side. We quickly got the attention of a cabbie who, when he learned that Lenore’s was near the U.S. Consulate, agreed to take us. We were there by 8:30.
Lenore’s was a small place full of more Anglos than I had ever seen in one place in Shenyang. Most did a good job in the wearin’ ‘o the green and I thought things looked very authentic, especially when I spied the cases of Guinness piled up by the door. We paid 100rmb to Casey, the event organizer, and he gave us coupons for free drinks. Lenore’s was pouring free vodka drinks tonight. I got myself a vodka and tonic and then joined others from school in an awkward clump in the press of bodies. We made small talk and compared green outfits. There were drawings for door prizes, one of which someone from our group won.
By the time the buses were ready to take us on the next leg of the crawl, we had figured out that there were basically three groups involved. In addition to the folks from our school there were about 20 young English men and women and about another 20 young Russians. Yes, as I discovered when I complimented the most thoroughly Kelly green bedecked of the lasses in Lenore’s on the authenticity of her outfit (up to the oversized leprechaun hat perched on her head), nearly a third of our fellow celebrants were about as Irish as Vladimir Putin, literally. They were Russians from who knows where in a place as far removed from the Emerald Isle as you can get. They liked to drink and sing and dance though and that served them well. Even if the only song of theirs that any of us recognized was the Russian version of the theme music to Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers. Bizarre.
I was in the bus shared with the English youths. They sang too; over and over and over. Their song was the same thing sung over and over and over. It went like this, “Casey, Casey, Casey is our captain. A ship needs and anchor and Casey is a wanker.” (Then substitute in someone else’s name for the second through umpteenth verses.) Apparently the person named is supposed to chug a beer while the group is serenading them. When the bottle of Jose Cuervo started around the singers took a break. The next thing we knew we were unloading on “Bar Street”. Bar Street has that name because it is a street of, you guessed it, bars. Our official destination was Giggles, but if we wanted to drop in at The Shamrock or The Buddha Bar or any of the couple other places, we could. I had already planned a trip to The Shamrock for a rendezvous with Arthur.
We hung out at Giggles a respectable amount of time, mostly because it took Casey that long to distribute the free drink tickets. While there we mingled and followed the encouragement of the Russian girls to visit the upstairs where they were singing and dancing.
But a real pint waited next door, so most of the SPA crew relocated to The Shamrock where we met Kevin the proprietor and passed some time in pleasant conversation.
Too soon the call went out for us to return to the bus and head off for our last stop. The departure from The Shamrock was assuaged by the knowledge that pizza awaited at The Green Mile. The pizza wasn’t waiting for us when we arrived, but free drinks were so no one complained. Once the pizza appeared it was hot and gooey and plentiful. Each new pie was placed somewhere (on the bar, on a table,…) and created a momentary migration of patrons from their private corners to the feeding ground where they’d snatch up hot slices and juggle them between hands as they made their way back to their tables. Some generous souls would grab two or three slices and bring the extra to their waiting fellows. This frequently resulted in the production of long strings of molten cheese dangling from pizza slices as their bearers raced to get the pizza back to their table before the droopy stalactites reached the floor.
Eventually some people decided that they had to stop the revelry and find a taxi and begin the long ride home. A group of us who booked in-town hotel rooms to avoid that chore agreed to close the night out with a KTV adventure.
I’ve written about KTV before so I won’t bore you with a repetition. One novelty was the participation of our newest colleague and her boyfriend. Ms. Wang is SPA’s Chinese teacher, although judging from her singing ability and interest she could just as easily be a music teacher.
Now that I’ve given you all that information I can ask you a question inspired by the old riddle—Buses, Pizzas, Russians in Green Hats: How many celebrated St. Pat’s?
