As part of the non-rnb weekend, we head on down to Chinese Laundry – a safe place to go, so here we go!

Hanging with a statue depiction of someone probably related to me

Chinese Laundry Saturdays: 14th August 2010

Assessment Time: 09:00PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – 04:00AM
Lockout: There was a lockout, but unsure what time it was. We were told leaving at 3:00AM that once we left we were not allowed back in. The lockout may probably have been 2:00AM
Address: 111 Sussex St, Sydney (above the Slip Inn)
Venue Website: http://www.merivale.com/
Promoter Website: https://www.jammusic.com.au/#/chinese-laundry
Occurence: Every Saturday. Promoters also do Friday nights.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There was no strict dress code tonight. Most of the guys wore casual – shirts and jackets with jeans. Girls were mostly dressed well here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Standard Prices are $15 before 10PM, $25 After. Guestlists available for discounted prices from the promoter website
Guestlist: See promoter website for details
Inside: Nothing has changed since last time. Walk into the bottom level, where the Cave on the left to hold 100 people or so. Chinese Laundry room on the right where the main tiled floor holds 150 or so people. Secondary chillout room behind a wall where the only lounges reside for 50 or so people. TV in the chillout room is playing episodes of The Smurfs. Sand Bar on the top level with a large outdoor smoking courtyard for 200-300 people.
Cloak Room: No cloak room services tonight.
Bar Prices: $12 Smirnoff double blacks. Lines were 2-3 Deep at the Sand Bar and Cave most times. Courtyard and Chinese Laundry had much shorter lines and we bought from here instead.
DJs: Maseo (De La Soul), Act Yo Age, Kraymer, Samrai, Chris Fraser and more.
Music Style: House, Breaks and Rnb/House Mashup. All the commercial house songs were being played earlier as well as  a lot of hip hop, old school rap songs too in the Sand Bar. Later on the night it was more of the DJs playing songs they liked, which were not necessarily well known to the crowd, but still danceable to, which was the key point here. Occasionally in the Cave, the beat got pretty repetitive and we needed a break, from the breaks. (pun unintentially intented)
Crowd: Mostly a white crowd, but tonight there was an unusual higher number of asians than usual. Find out later there was a few Asian birthdays tonight, which explained it.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment
Atmosphere: It was a good turnout, but it wasn’t as sardine packed as last time I was here. It may have been because of the lineup not being as strong – the lead DJ was delegatd to the Sand Bar. Either way this turned out better dancewise – there was enough room to dance around without it being too dead. however places like the chillout room in Chinese Laundry were empty most of the time. For me, it was a good balance on the floor, but for people who liked packed out venues, tonight would be a little disappointing. People in general here are having fun and of course are dancing. any other non dancers just hang out at the outdoor courtyard.

Sand Bar Upstairs Dancefloor area

Video: Walkthrough all 3 rooms – Chinese Laundry, Cave, then Sand Bar, then the outdoor courtyard

Timeline
Mirror Mirror
We started the night at the Sand Bar upstairs, where fortunately there is a mirror overhanging on the wall. It is perfect to stare at yourself or to practise your dancing moves. Unfortunately friends were not fans of me staring at the mirror, they needed my attention, ha! How can one not get their eyes off themselves if they are so good loooking?

Man in the mirror

Shuffling in the Cave
We dance in the Cave. It’s pretty dark and this is where most of the people can get their shuffling on. I started to do my shuffle, and there was another dude who joined in on the action. He came really close to me, like within personal space, at times, but it was all good. We just continued to dance.

The 40 Year old Cavewoman
Theres an older, a little larger, woman going hard at it. Not quite shuffling or as fast as younger folk, but you can tell she’s dancing and spinning around and having a pretty awesome time. We dance and she told me it was her first time out in 2 years, as last year she gave birth to a kid. Suddenly we started to make out. haha, I’m kidding about that part. anyway, she made me guess her age, and luckily I had my age radar on. I guessed she was 40 on first go, and well, I was right. She introduced us to all her friends, which was the entire front of the cave. I didn’t even realise. lol. All friendly and seemingly having a good time. This is what clubbing is about!

"The Smurfs" on TV!

He’s teaching me how to shuffle
I’m feeling a bit lazy and not really dancing much. Then ok, I put the accelerator on and I go pretty hard at it. I’m spinning and doing all that I know. Then the dude who was shuffling with me earlier comes up and demonstrates how to shuffle. I already knew that and I demonstrate it again. He then tells me “you’re doing good, keep going at it”. ugh! Patronised! Like telling a chess grandmaster he is doing well with the 4 move checkmate – just keep at it and he’ll forget to protect that key pawn.

Heres me trying to do a 360 of the Chinese Laundry room:

As you can see, I get interrupted by attention seeking whores who have adopted the slogan of, “If I can’t take my shirt off in a club, I can take off half my shirt instead, which technically is allowed”. However you still look like a douchebag, lol. Funny guys though, but one of them borrowed and lost M’s prop glasses, and offered his feather boa (just the feather) as compensation, which was not accepted.

Arrivederci

Sand Bar closed upstairs at 03:00AM. Tempted to dance more downstairs, but our friend was not too keen on the house downstairs, so we leave.

Recommendation
This wasn’t too bad a night at all. If I paid $25 it might have been a different story. If you got bored in one area, you could always escape to check out another area, which is what I love about multi room clubs. It was also good to see the outdoor smoking area finally extended to cover the whole area complete with heating as well. Perhaps a few more people would have given a better atmosphere. 

Chinese Laundry Saturdays – 14th August 2010 – 6.5/10