Ned Kelly's Jazz Bar

The other night we took a calmer approach to our evening out (after going to apply for another China visa) and went to a local jazz bar called Ned Kelly's. It was an Australian bar/pub type place, very intimate, very decorated, and very lovely. We walked in to a packed house and stood at the "bar" aka 4' x 5' amount of space next to the 4' long bar until a few seats opened up.  Half of the group decided to go to an open bar, but there was no way we were leaving this magical place.  We ended up sitting at, slash in between, a table with two older couples who were traveling through China for a month.  They were probably in their 70's and had been friends for 40 years. Andrew struck up conversation with the husbands and learned a bit more about where they came from. They were from the UK and the men had been in the Rotary there. (I may have gathered that correctly from Andrew). We all sat with smiles permanently plastered on our faces the entire night just tapping our feet and enjoying a glass of wine.

Andrew and our new friends

We started talking to the couples again and one of the lady goes to reach for something and knocks over her husband's wine glass, shattering it, and spilling the wine all over the other couple. After huge gasps from Andrew and I, the couples just start laughing, what a relief. Although the red wine had gotten on the lady's white pants, she did not care at all. They cleaned up the mess and continued to make fun of the situation for the rest of the evening saying the man was wearing his last pair of clean pants for the trip, etc. Supposedly there had been an incident several years before where one of the couples had the other over for dinner and the wine spilling lady ended up cutting her foot and getting blood all over the lady's carpet and wall, "you've never seen blood go that far!" The couples were completely amazing and a wonderful example to see of not only such in love couples, but best friends that have spent 40 years together, traveling the world, and still enjoying each other's company.

Another one of the reasons we had ended up at this bar in the first place was because one of our french exchange students was getting to play the piano with the band! They called Michael on stage and he had to drink an initiation type drink that looked completely disgusting. They did one "warm up" song with the band and then the entire band performed a piece he had written himself. It was pretty long and SO good. Michael was unbelievable on the piano and you could tell he was having a blast. The last song he got to play he sang a part at the beginning. Overall the evening was so enjoyable. Just a wonderful place to relax and enjoy each other and insanely good music.