since when?!?!

what the hell is this? how can it possibly be that in a country where it's kind of alright to stab people at random it's not okay to walk in the streets with a drink in hand? so a joint's okay, a beer isn't?

and i'm being told that this isn't a new thing?

i'm shocked, angry, irritated and frustrated, and in complete denial and a state of disbelief. or at least i was in denial and a state of disbelief until the freakin' arbitrary woman on the street warned me of the same thing.

ugh. aside from my disgust at the above:

we went for drinks to an apartment in a building that's a part of the urban renewal project, and it is absolutely stunning - like something out of a movie. after that i paid moonflake and zenstar a visit (along with synkronos) for a really nice evening.

afterwards i met up with noddie, and we went to the wrong party. right place, wrong time - at least we were a day early and not a day late. i wanted trance and we got indie rock, and i'm left with one question if i ignore the fact that the girls definitely did not meet with my preconceptions of indie chicks: does indie rock have to suck? according to the wikipedia it wasn't originally a genre.

after hanging about on the balcony (along with a bunch of other people who might also have been avoiding the cacophony inside) we moved over to the waiting room, where our conversation was punctuated by the odd girls arguing over the dalai lama, who's supposedly contemplating not just his navel, but the possibility of stepping down as the dalai lama.

weird.

do the chinese suck? yes. more than the rest of us "civilized" nations? not really.

the next two places on the itinerary were closed, so noddie dropped me off at my car and i came on home, quite disappointed, obviously, in the wake of my south-african worldview being shattered.