Let's Get Loud - Gaya!

It was decided that Saturday was going to be ‘party day’ mainly because Sunday we were finally having a free day with not activities involved so there was reason to celebrate. Saturday was already tiring because we had a city tour and for some strange reason I decided I would play soccer. The tour involved a stop at the water wheel park and a beef noodle demonstration. Soccer on the other hand was brutal – although we won, today my whole body aches.

Mary, our tour guide and program director, made a big mistake on the tour by telling us where the bar street was located (Little did she know that we had already planned to party that day). Not only was there a bar street, but it is conveniently located about half a mile from campus (totally in walking distance), score! Later that night we set off on the party adventure to find a bar. We found a few and then realized that maybe 6pm was a little early for people to be partying – quickly rearranging our schedule we decided to eat at “Comeback.” After, we grilled our own food at Comeback, it was time to start the party.

First stop was a nice little pub. We had a few drinks, played some games, and listened to the Chinese version of Mary J. Blige’s “Family Affair.” But bars and pubs weren’t enough for me and a few of the other delegates because we wanted to DANCE! After being lost in translation a few hours we finally came upon a Chinese women who knew what we were looking for. In old foreigner fashion we had her write down the name of the place in Chinese characters, hoped in a taxi (taxis here are ridiculously cheap) and off we were to GAYA!

Gaya was like being in the movie “Robots” because their décor was fans, pipes, and other things spray painted gold. The music was totally bumping though with techno versions of certain famous rap songs, children’s songs with a little twist (I’m pretty sure they played Old McDonald one time as a call and response song), and various other familiar English songs. The best part was that there was live music! Totally stylish looking Chinese people singing in English to crazy disco – we must import this to America immediately. I remember dancing inappropriately to “Its my life” and in old J.Lo fashion “Let’s get loud.” I didn’t know what it is, but I have a strange connection with Jennifer Lopez – her music follows me everywhere. I think it is probably because we are soul mates, but that’s just a guess. There was no dance floor in this club, but we didn’t care and neither did the Chinese. Apparently you just hang around your table, drink, and shake your bom bom all you want. And that is precisely what we did. Gaya was great to us and we will for sure be gracing it with our presence often.