I love staying with locals when I go overseas–obviously it’s always nice to have cheap rent and language help, but also because of memories which can’t be made otherwise.
For example, today I gathered three friends that I knew from three different places. How many times can you even say that when visiting one city? Now, how many times will I ever be able to say I ate at a Thai restaurant while being seranaded by a Filipino cover band while in Shanghai.
The band was awesome, by the way. I told one of the guys before I was Filipino (I recognized his accent) so he squealed (he was flamboyantly gay) and had the singers sing in Tagalog to us. He then proceeded to hit on my friend Evan by telling him, “I like your breast! Do you work out?”
Later that night we bought drinks and games and played an epic game of Monopoly, Beijing style. Hugh and I won in the end with an epic land-grab real estate property merger. All the while we were taking shots of Chinese rubbing alcohol, aka, Baijou, one of the foulest things I have ever drank in my life. It smells vaguely fruity (or like feet, depending on who you ask), burns as it goes down, and left an oily aftertaste which was described as tasting like stinky tofu (which if you don’t know what that is, be glad. =P)
Oh yeah, and we watched a horrible movie called Teeth which was about some chick with teeth in her vagina which was, well, considering we were drinking whiskey+green tea (not as bad as it sounds) and 56% proof Baijou was fairly sobering. And disgusting. But comical. Go figure.
All in all, not a normal tourist night. 
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From じゅんちゃん:
Haha, what an experience.
I’ve never had baijou, but I’ve definately smelt it, and I think you’ve pretty much written the best description. But hey, what’s wrong with stinky tofu?
Pff, it’s so weird. I was just talking about that movie with someone recently. Hurr, vaginal dentata.
From Janus?:
hahahaha, that’s funny, I just ended up reading about Teeth on Wikipedia last week!
From Janelle:
Junchan: Eeek… stinky tofu… >.< I think it might be something you have to have as a kid, like shrimp paste. I can’t even get near it without gagging.
Janus: Highly unrecommended.
From Ken Griggs:
Great post guys. Have fun on your trip. I’ll keep checking on you. Tell Evan (if you’re still in Shanghai) I said what up. Peace.