[My Weekender] with Swiss James

Swiss James is a binge-drinking blogger, podcaster, writer for That's Shanghai and general attention whore.

The weekend starts when I'm on the maglev, cranking up Wham! on my headphones and deleting spam text messages from Nigerian fellas I stopped calling like 6 weeks ago (give it up guys!).

After a good dinner at Sichuan Citizen or Southern Barbarian (get off my back -- they're popular for a reason) it's time to hit the sauce. Usually I hang out at illegal cricket fights but since the recent crackdown on insect gambling I sometimes end up at Exit Bar where Sergio makes a Long Island Ice Tea that I'm genuinely frightened of, Adobo with its retardedly cheap happy hour, or the invitation-only party train on Subway line F.

Given the choice I'd have Munchies tie my Saturday morning breakfast hotdog to a brick and throw it through the bedroom window, but if I do make it out of bed it's nice to go to the Boxing Cat Brewery, H Cafe, or Waga's. City Diner has been off my list of favorites since I found a used hypodermic syringe in my Eggs Benedict, but I'll forgive them if they forgive what I did in the bathroom.

Saturday afternoon's are for serious blog business -- I've got daily website updates and a monthly magazine page to fill don't you know, so I'm all eyes for hilarious misspellings and quirky shoes down on Nanjing Dong Lu, Zhongshan Park or the Science Museum. Quick tip for any bloggers out there: always carry an emergency Chinglish t-shirt in your bag, migrant workers outside the train station will wear anything on demand for 15rmb.

Saturday nights I'll be down at The Beaver at some point, playing table football with my German friends and wondering when they got so much better at this game than me (answer: after my 6th bottle of Paulaner), or practicing taxidermy on the endangered wildlife I buy outside of the Fabric Market. Shelter and Not Me are always options, although it's becoming increasingly hard to ignore the fact I am no longer 23.

Sunday mornings I'm up early for a meeting of The Extreme Sports And Black Ops Realists For The Fifth Age -- it's a social club made up of ex-Serbian Navy, soldiers of fortune, and bored bon viveurs -- we meet up at Saizeriya to train with experimental weapons and play the ukulele. This week we're taking jet-skis out on the Huang Pu river to do some live ammunition practice (weather permitting). They're a great bunch of lads, but it can get a bit competitive, especially during the annual Blindfold Trampoline Karate Tournament.

Assuming no serious injuries, I'll be back at home on the sofa by 7pm for a night of DVDs and snuggles.