So I went down to Gulou last night to meet an old friend who has just come back from wandering through the jungles of Laos for several weeks. We’ll call him Frog. Why? Because he’s French.
Anyway, so Frog recommended a place apparently called “Balls” where Pastis (the 茴香酒 of the title) can be bought for ten kuai a glass or seventy kuai a bottle. As I told Frog last night, there were some serious holes in my education, and Pastis was one of them, so I was keen to try. So we got a bottle, we drank, and…. Wow, it’s really good stuff. So we continued drinking. And then disaster struck- the bottle was empty. So we got another one.
And when I got home, I fell very fast asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and didn’t even come close to waking up until some time after nine. And I wasn’t even out that late. Well, late enough that I had to bang on the gate and wake up Daye to get back inside, meaning I got back after 10:30, but that doesn’t mean much. lzh was still wide awake when I got home, and she’s never been a night owl, so I got back some time after 10:30, but certainly not late. And I still feel like I could go back to sleep for another few hours, but these days once I’m awake, that’s it, no going back to sleep.
So that Pastis was good.
So was the bar. Well, I trust Frog’s taste in bars, but still, I was impressed. Well set up, and quiet and relaxed, a place where you can actually sit and chat, the way a bar should be. Strange thing was, it seemed like we were the only two foreigners there, which is certainly not what I expected of that part of town.
Altogether a good time.
