Dancing In The Home Country... Well Close Anyways

Dances:  Everything
Part:  Lead
Workout:  Arms and back at the gym.
Pictures Posted (Facebook):  Seattle Star Ball - Parts 1 & 2

I got my workout done early in the day today.  Sarah and I wouldn't be practicing because we had been invited out by one of our dance friends to go to Chinatown (or if it makes you feel better to be politically correct: International District) for a dance party.  So here were the details I knew going in.  The dance was at a restaurant in Chinatown called Ocean City.  The deal was, each person is required to spend a minimum of $15 for food.  That covers both your food of course and the dancing.  Sarah and I have been trying pretty hard to branch out recently with the social side of our dancing.  We have stopped going to Washington Dance Club for now because it's always the same people, the same music, and it's relatively far from our other options.  It's also a $12 cover.  That's annoying on two fronts.  One because it's kind of expensive for what it is.  And two because it's $12.  I've ranted about this before, but with $12 you always need to either carry singles, or get $8 back.  Just annoying.  Ok, back to Ocean City.

When we got there we were lucky enough to find a parking spot in the Ocean City garage.  Now Chinatown has gotten a lot sketchier from when I remember it as a kid.  It's not the most desirable place to be at night.  This garage was PACKED.  And I mean Asian style packed.  People double parked, cars parked at odd angles, etc.  When we got into the restaurant we heard loud music coming from upstairs so we headed in that direction.  Turns out it's live music!  Not really good live music, since the singers were a bit out of tune and the instrumentation was cheesy MIDI samples, but still awesome because it was LIVE!  The floor was very small though.  I would say roughly the same size as DanceWork's floor.  Only difference is, now you have all crazy Asian drivers (more on this later).  We found our friends already seated at a table and joined them.

Overall the dance was ok.  The dancers there are quite obviously beginners so navigating through them is always a challenge.  Not to mention that Asians tend to drive quite recklessly both on the floor and the road.  So this lead to even more creative leading than normal.  Also Karen had a great quote that night.  It was during a Cha-Cha or perhaps another Latin dance when we noticed a large group of people on the floor in line dance formation (exactly like you would see when people do the Electric Slide at weddings) attempting to dance the basic.  I asked Karen what was up with group class on the floor to which she replied "Oh yeah.  Sometimes they behave that way."  Sarah and I laughed pretty hard at that.  It really was pretty random.  This "behavior" spanned several dances including a few Standard ones.  That was EXTRA tricky to circumvent.
We ended the night with a quick stop for some bubble tea.  I gotta say, it was nice having this drastic change of pace.  Good food, great friends, good dancing.  What more can you ask for.