Shanghai is known for its bar scene. Unlike Beijing, Shanghai’s bars display a wide diversity of genres, prices, decors, and entertainment. The hobnobbers convene nightly along the Bund drinking brandy for $30USD a glass while the English teachers rendezvous along Hangshan Road, where cold beer can flow for as cheap as $1USD. Everything imaginable lies in between these extremes, the most intense of which are the so-called all-you-can-drink bars catering almost exclusively to expats.
One of the top bars in Shanghai’s all-you-can-drink scene is De La Coast where for 100 RMB (about $14USD) you can do your best to damage your liver amid flashing lights and endless seizure-like dance offs. A truly gifted DJ blasts perfectly mixed tunes while friendly bartenders mix an unending barrage of rail drinks. The bar is successful primarily because it attracts a steady stream of regulars.
While De La Coast may be one of the more dual-gendered bars in the area, attracting a plethora of expats and locals alike, the traditional drink-for-a-sum bars in Shanghai use blunt human-nature tactics for attracting foreign currency: pigtails, pushup bras, and stick on purple eyelashes.
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‘Stand your ground’ could be their motto. Jalan Paletehan taxi drivers in Blok M, Jakarta, belong to a very restricted category, and they don’t allow just any other colleague to enter the family.
Like the plague-stricken, the respectable Blue Bird taxis are not even allowed to operate on their territory (as a matter of fact they stand by outside the perimeter up the street).
Sitting on the car hood while chain-smoking Kretek cigarettes, the average predatory Paletehan taxi driver is out to chase his prey. The target is anyone who looks more or less like a pedestrian Bule (Indonesian word given to Western people) strolling from a point A to a point B.
Even if you clearly seem to be just going next door, they will still call out to you for a ride. Indeed, they don’t really care about your destination. Rather, what preoccupies them is how they can get as much money from you as possible.
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Intro
The Dell XPS M1330 is a slick, travel powerhouse laptop small enough to actually be used in an airplane or airport coffee house. You get most of the bells and whistles of a larger laptop without the weight and chunkiness. As always, Dell offers tons of stuff to customize your build: Bluetooth, different Wi-Fi options, as well as an expanded batter pack. Plus, it’s just so damn sexy.
Design
This to me is was the biggest factor in buying a 13.3 inch laptop. Of all the laptops I looked at (sorry I didn’t bother looking at the Macs), this was the one that stood out the most. It’s thin, the keyboard is encased in brushed aluminum, and above the keyboard is a touch sensitive row of keys for DVD playback, sound intensity manipulation, and Media Direct initialization. On the leading edge, you got dual headphone jacks, a Mic jack, and an SD media port. The disc tray is a slot load, which is a welcome change, and though this laptop comes with all the standard I/O ports (USB, IEEE and VGA), it also comes with a HDMI port. A nice surprise is that where your dummy PCI express card usually would sit there is a media remote included with your purchase.
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By far the most common question I receive from people (men) interested in moving to Panama or one of its Central American sisters is “What is the cost of living?” I´ve been in Panama for two months now and knowing that I would eventually do this piece for readers, I have paid careful attention to what it costs to operate.
I suppose I have had an advantage here because I’ve lived in several developing nations and it seems that once you can adjust to the financial aspects of one, it is that much easier in the next. People arriving here from Europe or the U.S. will immediately notice that this place is cheaper than home but it will take them some time to realize the available savings because the locals won’t necessarily give you accurate prices and will sometimes simply try to rip you off.
Whether its produce or prostitutes the two-tier pricing system is definitely in practice here for those bearing the mark of the Gringo. A good example would be a young man from Florida that came to the Miami Bar and had a few drinks with us. There were girls everywhere, all with services for sale. Eventually he took a stunning Colombian back to his room.
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I have compiled a list of top things for budding Wannabe Romeos to bring with them to Thailand. Please read carefully as they could save your wallet one day!
1. Contact your local vet and buy cure all pills for buffalos.
2. Get your family doctor to write a report in Thai explaining why it’s impossible for her grandmother to die ten times.
3. Job application forms. Go online to a Thai employment agency, print 516 copies of various job application forms and the next time a Thai puts their hands out for money, hand them 6, or 7 forms.
4. Surprise her and arrive in Thailand unannounced and unexpected… Knock on her door and have her introduce you to her brother. Make sure to have a certified letter from a Thai doctor explaining that sleeping with her brother is unacceptable behavior. She may as well fess up and cop to the fact that her brother is actually her Thai boyfriend.
5. Intelligence pills (in large quantities) - whenever you have the urge to say the word yes, take ten and lie down.
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Let me introduce you to Frank. He’s a big guy and stands out in a crowd. If it isn’t the lantern jaw it’s the barn door wide shoulders, and muscles on his muscles. I’ve known Frank for a long time. He looks like a bouncer – a very rich bouncer.
Everything about him, from his immaculately cut hair, handmade London shirts, manicured hands, genuine Rolex, silk trousers, and leather loafers reeks of money. Then you visit his house. Set on a chunk of beachfront property, the house is three stories of sheer heaven; from the gym on the bottom floor to the master bedroom at the top. There’s a balcony you can play tennis on…doubles.
He’s a rich guy and the girls flock to him.
Is he a banker? No.
Does he invest in property? No… unless owning beach-front property qualifies.
He lives the Expat Rockstar lifestyle simply by sitting in front of his laptop and betting. Betting on sports events like Australian Open tennis tournament and betting on horses. He’ll bet on golf, politics, football, and on anything he can turn a profit. And he’s going to show me how…
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An ongoing joke Mr. Smith and I have going is whether this “hotel” actually ever has people calling to reserve rooms. I found the BathHouse at the Alexis Hotel late one January night in ’08 buried in a sea of web pages about Indonesian night life.
What interested me the most about this place was that not only were there local women there, but also lovely ladies from Thailand, Uzbekistan, Myanmar (Burma), Russia, and mainland China. After determining that this place was well indeed worthy of a trip, I telephoned Mr. Smith and made plans for the following night to hit up the Alexis Hotel.
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I recently read in The Guardian, that bible for middle-class twits like myself, that while sales of cheap mobiles and expensive mobiles were healthy, phones in the middle range were suffering.
Seems that Bob Customer’s mindset is either, ‘Ahh! Credit crunch: I’ll have to downsize!’ or ‘Right, if I’m going to lose my job, I want lots of buttons to play with and a big screen containing more pixels than the combined populations of India and China to stare at in between hunting for a new job.’
I empathize more with Bob number 2. When I was obsessively hunting (is there any other way?) for reviews and info on the latest phones recently, all I wanted to know was, which one had it all without being prohibitively expensive?
Finally, a winner emerged – the Nokia N82. In black, of course, not the cheap silver that it was originally released in.
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