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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Hey, everybody. This is Anthony Otomo and you’ll have to excuse me if what I’ve written seems a bit off. I’ve been drinking VSOP very heavily for the past few days. I thought I’d touch on my journey from being a slave to where I’m at now and the future goal of being free.
“Free” can mean so much to so many, but for me free meant never having to answer to anyone. It meant doing what I want to do with no consequence other than my own guilt (which the cognac is extremely adept at silencing). And most importantly it meant being my own master. Retiring at 65 when my plumbing doesn’t work and I’ve only got 2 or 3 marbles left rolling around upstairs is not free.
Roping myself to a huge house in Small Town Suck with friends of convenience and a few blood-sucking kids is not free. And trading my soul for a 7/11 on every corner and cable TV is a trade I’m not willing to make. And it is not free.
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I grew up in a small crappy town in whitebread USA population lame. I spent most of my early 20s looking for a way to have a Rockstar Life living and traveling around the world with a beautiful woman on each arm. Something like James Bond minus the ball removing lasers, but plus the girls named Pussy Galore.
During the late 90’s dot com boom I eventually ended up working IT, it was a good field and the money was great but I knew that my job pretty much guaranteed that I would end up spending the rest of my life stuck working in a dead end soul sucking cubicle just so I could bury myself in debt buying a bunch of IKEA end tables - and then if I was lucky after working for 35 years I could retire with barely enough money to survive on after wasting my the best years of my life.
No matter what job I had I always knew that their was something “bigger” waiting for me out in the world – something that I would never find in the states. I constantly longed to travel and live the Big Life globetrotting around the world with a model on each arm and a fat bank account; I spent all of my spare money on books about traveling, biographies about different adventurers and expats that had lived amazing lives around the world and self help programs. At work I surfed travel sites and forums all day long living vicariously through people that were actually living and traveling around the world.
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Seems like only yesterday when I decided to sell my business and make the move to Thailand. After a couple of trips to the country, I was certain Thailand was my Utopia. Years later, older and slightly wiser, I’ve concluded there is no Utopia – at least not in the physical sense. Not to burst anyone’s bubble but heaven on earth is a figment of our imaginations, devoid of any complete reality. Heaven is far reaching and every so often extends its hand – only until reality slithers its way back into the picture.
When I moved to Thailand, I was 32 years-old, I’m now 46. Fourteen years changes a person and while I’m certainly happy with my decision, I’m not sure I would have made a move at my current age and in my current situation. In other words, I made the move when the time was right.
As I said, Thailand is no Utopia, nonetheless, I can’t think of a whole lot of other places I’d rather be. Once you are entrenched in a foreign country’s society, its morphs from an exotic destination to a place you call home; normalcy replaces the euphoria of a vacation.
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Continued From: Goodbye Rat Race Part 1
Making A Go Of It…
A few doors down from my office there was a company that sold fresh fish to many of the restaurants in the local area. I was friends with one of the guys who worked there and he had taken several trips to Thailand and Indonesia. We would take long lunches once or twice a week and discuss what life abroad would be like. He had spent several months in Indonesia and returned with more money than he left with so I was always keen to hear what he had to say. It was at this time when I first started to think it was truly possible to live in an exotic destination like Thailand or Indonesia.
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to pack up, leave everything behind and start your life fresh in a foreign country. Would you like to say goodbye rat race, while at the same time living life on your own terms?
People chose to leave their homeland for a variety of reasons; economic, political, social and religious reasons are a few of the most common. There’s a great big world out there – a world most people only hear about on CNN or see on National Geographic – and it’s a shame not to check out as much of it as possible. Nowadays, with the advent of the internet and globalization, you can make a living from just about anywhere, while at the same time traveling and living how you choose.
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I have to differ with James in the “Fishing in Pattaya” article (I am one of the “buddies” he mentions). James says that “if you have been to one beach tourist town in Southeast Asia, you have pretty much seen them all”. Now I’m not calling my dear buddy a liar, Far from it. James is one of the most straight-forward guys I know; as a matter of fact he can be candid to the point of awkwardness sometimes.
What I am saying is that James has seen and done a lot more than your average traveler. Same things that get us normal guys off don’t seem to lift an eyebrow on James. I am not as experienced a traveler as James is, but I’ve seen my fair share of places. I’d have to say that seeing Pattaya was something I will never forget without the aid of some serious brain trauma. After the trip there, I said to James that this place should be required travel to any male past the age of puberty.
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