Serendipity is being Chinese and having lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Australia, seated next to a table of Indian-Malaysians from your home town of Kuala Lumpur. One of whom is a Datuk – an honourary title given out in Malaysia, like “Sir”.
What a spin out.
Bottle service in Perth nightclubs
There are no nightclubs in Perth that do bottle service and by extension, table service. This is where you would buy an entire bottle of spirit and get a free flow of ice and mixers. Not even in more uppity clubs like Onyx in West Perth. Are there any in the Eastern States?
The only places that do bottle service here in Perth are karaoke bars and your more Asian-centric clubs (used to anyway) but there aren’t many at all. Bottle service is just not a norm.
Whereas if you go to Asia it makes more economic sense to buy by the bottle rather than individual drinks. And with the bottle service, you also have the choice to get a table reserved in advance. Lounges and couches change the whole clubbing dynamic, and you tend to see groups of people rather than individual stragglers. It’s like having your own private party at home but with a lot more people in nicer surroundings and better music.
Bottle service is also available in the US and in Europe. So why not here?
Standard shot = 60mL
1L of spirit would therefore yield 16 drinks approx.
At $8 per drink, the bar/club would earn $133 per bottle of spirit.
Wholesale price of 1L of spirit is approx. $20-$25.
Gross profit is therefore $110 approx. (not counting labour, ice, mixers, spillage and glass breakages)Retail price of 1L of spirit is $30-60 approx. An industry standard 3x markup would be $180.
It would seem that there isn’t much of a price incentive to buy by the bottle even though you won’t have to queue for your drinks. But that doesn’t explain it. A quick Google search yielded this price list from a US club, and another which matches what I calculated above.
While it may also seem to make sense for clubs to do it – having customers pour their own drinks would reduce the labour costs and improve the productivity of the bar staff which may mean selling more drinks, they don’t.
I think the main reason the clubs don’t do it may be that doing bottle service with the requisite tables and couches would take up space. They won’t be able to pack in as many punters who may buy more drinks. But Australia isn’t exactly short of space, so this doesn’t explain it either.
The only thing left to conclude is that it’s a different clubbing culture that we have here. Though this does force people to walk around and mingle more. So I guess it’s not all that bad. 
Technorati Tags: clubbing, drinks, alcohol, bottle service, Australia, Australian
Scenes from a night out in Northbridge, Perth’s clubbing district. First up, a collection of queues outside the venues.
Walking back to our cars around 3am and what we see along the way. These scenes replay themselves every weekend and I never get sick of it.
Technorati Tags: Northbridge, Perth, Western Australia
The women whom I will be talking about are not hags, and I’m not a fag (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but it sure is a catchy title ain’t it?
This is a story of three women who featured heavily in my social life (all of it in fact) for a good part of 2003 and it goes a little something like this.
Cherry, Filipino
Jackie, Vietnamese
Jessica, Eurasian (Malay + Aussie)
Whilst dating a single mom (story for another time) I met one of her friends – Cherry, on a double-date. We had a similar sense of humour and we hit it off very quickly. Nothing eventuated with the single mom but Cherry and I started going out a lot for drinks and clubbing. Through her, I met Jackie and Jessica.
I was not interested in them and similarly, I think they relegated me to the “friends” ladder right away. Which is just as well because they were outrageous flirts. I don’t think a guy can possibly feel secure with a woman who flirts shamelessly with everyone, both males and females alike. It was ambiguous like that, especially with Cherry.
We would go out as a group almost every weekend and I would see them change men every two weeks or so. They enjoyed being picked up. The only constant guy in the circle would be me. I would hear their stories which were often very entertaining and educational. Oh yeah.
The phrase “too much information” never quite figured in our conversations.
Why did I choose to hang out with them? They made me feel good. Even though there wasn’t sex involved, having three women around constantly flirting with me, hugging and giving me kisses on the cheek did my ego tremendous good. We knew each other’s limits and we never breached it, which makes everything else really fun.
Though I must say, it probably didn’t make me look favourably in the eyes of other women. “Why is he always with these three?” I was either a player or I was gay. I was neither of course but appearances counted I guess.
Still, I didn’t care. It was like being the opposite of a “fag hag”, sort of. No sexual tension equals fun.
They are still in Perth, some where. I don’t remember precisely when we started to drift apart. I was closest to Cherry in the group and when we both got too busy to meet up with each other, when meet-ups become infrequent calls and text-messages, I think that’s when the group as a whole stopped becoming one.
Maybe they’ve changed their priorities in life and settled down with good men.
To you three: I wish you the best and thanks for the fun times. They will always be in my memories.
Technorati Tags: single life, dating, relationships
Last night, after being inebriated at The Deen, and while winding down at Metro City, a stranger walked up to me.
Stranger: Are you Marcus?
Me: Yeah.
Stranger: I’m a reader – The Virgin Undergraduate.
The above didn’t sound as weird as it is to read. 
The V.U. is a long time reader and commenter. And my first reaction was, “Wow, HEY!” And he tells me that my post – “Dating, it’s character building” – struck a chord with him and was sort of influential with his actions recently with a girl.
As fond as I am of my own writing, heh … I don’t think of it as life-changing in any way whatsoever. So what he told me was probably the best compliment a blogger can get.
Prior to bumping into him, I was already enjoying myself a lot on my first night out since coming back from Singapore. The compliment ended the night on a high note. Nice bumping into you, the V.U. and thanks for the beer! And by the way, with regards to relationships, I’m still learning as I go along.
Another one bites the Singapore bug, not me yet though
I found out on Thursday that another friend is moving to Singapore. He’s one of two high school friends who’s made the identical transition: Perth to Sydney to Singapore. Two friends from university are also there.
Even more reason to visit Singapore. Even more reason to get tempted to work there. Although rent would be expensive, that is offset by the lower taxes and potentially higher pay. That is probably how my two friends who used to work in Sydney see it: Sydney offered higher salaries but the tax rate is still high, and that is coupled by the higher living costs compared to Perth (up for debate now as Perth property prices is matching up with Sydney’s due to the mining boom).
I’ve been told this and I realise it myself, it is also easier to find a woman there. Realistically, people still tend to find a mate with similar cultural and racial backgrounds. So why not improve the chances by immersing oneself in a sea of likeness, right?
Ostensibly, I can achieve the above by going to Kuala Lumpur as well. But truth be told, and it cringes me as a Malaysian to say it, Singapore’s efficiencies from its government departments to its public transport and infrastructure are very seductive.
Having said all that though, I’m not in a hurry to find a woman. And I still prefer the multitude of colours and cultures I get to see in Australia. I love my life here in Perth. And while I don’t get paid as much as my friends overseas, what I have is more than enough. My job still interests me. If I decide to make a move eventually, a few more years of Australian working experience can’t help but look good on the resume.
Or I might just end up spending my entire life in Perth. And what’s wrong with that?
Technorati Tags: Perth, Singapore, Australia
There’s no rest for the wicked, really. I wasn’t feeling well at all in the office yesterday and so decided to take a sick day today. But won’t you know it, the shit decided to hit the fan today too. So in a drug-induced haze I was woken up by urgent phone calls to attend to the emergency.
There is a down side to being able to work from anywhere, and this is it. You can’t even be sick in peace. There’s an emergency, you’ve got the Internet, you work. And that’s that. Even if you are stewing in your germ infested room.
After an hour and a half of dealing with the problem and sending out apologetic emails to important clients, I headed into the office to discuss with the boss the issues surrounding what happened. Just as I was about to leave home again, one of our servers hosted in a data centre lost its connectivity. Shite. The Internet is no use if you can’t connect to it.
So I headed into town begrudgingly. But turned out, it was a welcome relief. Once I finished what I had to do with the server, I decided to stay back to have some lunch and people watch. You already know that I’m tempted to go work in Singapore. On a similar degree, I’m also tempted to go work in the city again. If only this job wasn’t so damn interesting – it’s got a hold on me. And truth be told, I like being in my little fiefdom which comes from working in a smaller company. Hmm, time will tell if I will hop into bigger ponds.
And oh yes, I took some pictures.
