I KTVed and I Liked It

A singing microphone is only one of the many reasons why KTV is incredibly awesome.

At the beginning of this semester, I had all my students introduce themselves. During part of the introductions, I would ask the students what they do for fun here. There were basically three responses: Shopping, surfing the Internet and KTV.
Before I talk too much about KTV, as per my friend Ryan's request, here is a poem:

KTV can be quite fun,
there is a mic for everyone.
People sing and think they're good.
Other's laugh just like they should.
When you're done, you eat a snack.
The buffet table does not lack.
I just wish America could see
How awesome KTV can be.

For my birthday I decided to get in on some of the incredible action of KTV. There is a place about a ten minute walk from where all us teachers live. It is on the sixth floor of a tall building.

One thing to keep in mind, is that most places in China are not kept exceptionally clean or nice. The streets usually have an abundance of trash, and buildings are not much better. The buildings here are all made of cement and usually have an unfinished and dusty feel to them. This fact just added to my excitement when I found out that the KTV place was very nice and clean!

The view when walking in. Everything was black and shiny.

After entering the KTV house(?) we paid for a room for an hour and a half. The room has a nice black couch going all the way around with mics set up in various places. There is a large screen TV out in front for everyone to view the lyrics and weird videos from the songs. Off to the side is a smaller touchscreen that lets you select your songs and build your queue.

Our room.

Usually it takes about 30 minutes just to figure out how everything works before you can even get going in the first place. After that you spend another 15 minutes or so trying to convince someone to actually pick a song and sing. Well we finally did, and had a great time! It is surprising how fun it is to go a little bit crazy. The snack food was great and the time flew by too fast!

L-R. Brad, John, and me. Me and John belted out "Under Pressure." I won't admit to being a good singer, but I would have to say we totally rocked this song. John did an awesome Bowie, and I screamed loud enough to hit the high Freddie Mercury notes.

This was the main buffet area just after it had closed. 

I really have no idea what a hyorant is, but I feel safe knowing we have one.

If you want to go somewhere nice in China, just go to KTV.