[My Weekender] with Megan Jumago

Megan Jumago heads up the Drunken Dragon Pub Crawl, terrorizing the town every Thursday and now on Saturdays as well -- "every week, different bars, different people, different crawl". They're kicking off their Bund-located DD pub crawl this Saturday night. Hit them up here and get crunk all over ritzy Shanghai.

Something about Shanghai makes it hard to differentiate my weeks from my weekends, especially when I regale friends at home with tales from the Pearl of the Orient, "You have a laser tag....BAR?!?". Yeah, and that’s just Wednesday.

For the last 8 months, my weekends have started on Thursday night, if not sooner, and even though my new grown-up job at the Essential Learning Group, requires me to be at the clinic by 8:30am on Friday mornings, I have yet to miss a Pub Crawl Thursday Night. This may have something to do with my new position on the team; my business cards say General Manager, but I like to think of it more as Party Enforcer. Or it could be the FOMC (Fear of Missing Crawl) that brings me back.

Thursday afternoon, I'll finalize bar contacts for that night’s crawl and then make my way to my new apartment. At this point Jenn and I are mostly living out of boxes, suitcases, and those giant Chinese migrant worker bags, but hopefully we will get set up soon, at least by Chinese New Year. I'm absolutely shocked by how much stuff I have accumulated after two years here, where did it all come from? Why do I have six EXPO maps?

Thursday, pre-crawl I'll grab dinner with Jenn, probably at the fried dumpling place on Fumin Lu around the corner from our new home (I like my dinners cheap and easy, just like I like my… beer…).

I’ll head over to O'Malley's around 9pm to make sure staff is ready for the crawl, and at about 9:15 people will start showing up for registration. I‘ll get to see bunch of people I haven't seen all week, both regular crawlers and staff (it's nice when you work with a bunch of your best friends). The rest of the rest of the night is a pretty typical, drinks, shots, bus, shots, drinks, bus etc. You get the idea. Hopefully I'll make it home by at least 2am.

Friday morning, as usual arrives way too early. Wake-up, get ready, stumble out the door, and ride my bike to the metro (it saves me time and is a good way to start the day, plus I hate the gym).

Friday is filled with meetings and emails. As the business manager for the special needs clinic and program I spend all day fielding requests from parents and specialists, it's a learning process but I'm really enjoying the change of pace and being busy, it keeps me out of trouble.

Friday night arrives and first it's off to pre-dinner drinks at The Alchemist where I will finally get to say hi to Ryan and have my dirty old man drink (a dirty gin martini. I really just want a jar of olives filled with gin but this is a close second). After a drink or two at alc, it's dinner time, and we're doing teppanyaki/sake/beer fest at Tariyo Teppankyai. It's an old faithful Shanghai tradition.

Post dinner, back to the safety of Puxi and I’m off to Josh and Landry's new place on the Bund with Liz (Yes, this is how she finds out), for a few hours to give the neighbors a good idea of what the next 12 months will be like.

We will then undoubtedly head to Yongfu Lu to do a bit of bar hopping. Between the hipsters at Shelter, the meat market in The Apartment and the rum in Bounty something interesting is bound to materialize. If that fails I’ll just congregate with the masses street drinking on the sidewalks of Yongfu fending off friendly but aggressive offers of flowers. The boys will probably want to embrace their inner Asian and go to Cashbox, then hit up 88 by the time the sun starts to rise.

Saturday starts around noon, I really like the idea of brunch, but usually because of Friday night I like the idea of ordering in from Brasa Chicken even more (the green sauce is like crack). Hopefully the weather will stay nice and I’ll pedal over to The Panty for a bagel and some cookies (I mostly just eat all day Saturday). And if it’s really nice we will go pool hopping down to Rico Rico Beach to check out the changes they’ve made cuz I haven’t been there since 4th of July.

Saturday evening is early dinner with Brandon and Monica as we finalize everything for our BIG night. It’s the Grand Opening of Bund Crawl Saturday’s presented by Pub Crawl Shanghai. We’re starting things off at Brix and it’s gonna be huge. It’s the concept as Thursday nights but with new bars and and a fresh crowd of young professionals who can’t stomach the Friday morning hang-over and didn’t move to Shanghai for the weather or the possibility of settling down. The whole team will be at Brix Saturday night along with everyone else that’s willing to submit themselves to the debauchery that is the Dragon. I’m counting on watching the sunrise on the Bund and finding out where they take those pictures of the fan dancers you can buy in Tianzifang.

Sunday morning/afternoon, brunch at Maya, it’s one of those hair of the dog situations. “Maybe I don’t stop being drunk I won’t get hung-over, that’s the way it works, isn’t it?” A plate of huevos rancheros and more then a couple margaritas later, I’ll spend the next few hours making my way to the Avocado Lady to pick up supplies for my new kitchen. I don’t really cook but I like the idea of cooking, and the idea of eating even more, dinner at Boxing Cat while recapping the weekend and doing prep work for Trivia Tuesdays at The Camel...