Beijing says: “We teach you beetches how to KTV!"

Ohhh, so 有 (you) feeeeeling. One of the slight misuses of English I noticed is that when I'm really excited about something, whether it's Xinjiang food or karaoke, my coworkers will tell me, "You're so high!" And I know they're not talking about drugs, but it never ceases to amuse me =)

Tonight I went with the Happy Girls (otherwise known as ztang, wenwen, 老 P, and carol) for what was my third time at Cashbox Karaoke (inexplicably labeled as PARTY WORLD outside). The last two times I was photographically disabled, and so could not do this glorious experience the justice it so rightly deserves.

Just to make one thing abundantly clear: Karaoke-ing in China puts anything I've ever experienced in America to shame. Shame, I tell you. And here is why.

First, the outside. Not sure if you can see it, but yes that is a Ferarri parked outside. Again, inexplicably.

You walk in through these large glass doors and enter this gold and white, sparkling, totally marbled lobby with high flying ceilings. It dawns on you that you have entered not just a Party World, but a karaoke palace. You feel sufficiently humbled -- you are a long way away from the cramped, dim, dingy, brothel-like establishments of downtown Sunnyvale that won't even serve peanuts, let alone alcohol.

Yes, it's totally over the top, enough to rival the most audacious Vegas casino in its use of gold on absolutely everything. It even sold its own paraphernalia, some no-name dudes from China's version of American Idol:

We waited around for almost 30 minutes for a room. And trust me it was not for lack of rooms - this place was 6 floors, with something like 50 rooms on each floor. I guess it was just a hoppin' Thursday night. When we finally got it, we were ushered into a gold-plated elevator...

down a lavish hallway...

...and into a comfortably small but annoyingly warm room, well appointed with sofas, flat-screen TV and fully automated song selection system.

One of the highlights of karaoke-ing at Cashbox is the free, sprawling buffet included in the price. Just when you think it couldn't get any better, they throw FOOD at you. Not literally. But you could have made-to-order noodles, finger foods like fries and onion rings, fresh squeezed juices, customized hotpot (with some addictive sesame sauce), a variety of Chinese pastries, regular dishes like Chinese broccoli and fried rice, and all the sugary drinks you could possibly hope for.

Yes, that's tomato-and-egg over noodles on the bottom left. Yummm. All this plus about 3 solid hours of singing, to be had for the lowly sum of ~Y100 per person. It's enough to make the most humanly imperfect being drop to her knees and cry out, "What did I do to deserve all this?!?"

I'll post some clips on YouTube later, esp one of the girls rapping to 中国话. But for now, some highlights:

• The girls rapping to 中国话.
• Wenwen and my duet, "When You Believe" by Mariah and Whitney.
• Armin serenading us with "The Pretender."
• About 10 songs from the girl trio S.H.E.
• Armin and ztang's duet, "A Whole New World."
• Us encouraging the girls to join us on Madonna's "Material Girls," and wenwen protesting, "Oh noooooo, we are spiiiiiiiritual girls!"
• The girls teasing 老 P for putting them to sleep with her suuuuuper sad love songs.
• Many "so 有 feeeeeeeeeeeling" duets by ztang and carol.
  

Man, I can't wait to take my mom here =D.