Job Discussion Forums

Stephen Jones · Joined: 21 Feb 2003 Posts: 4124

My dear Melee,

The problem with your idea is that they will simply buy bootleg stuff instead, as happens in India.

basiltherat · Joined: 04 Oct 2003 Posts: 952

several shops sell alcohol in damascus alto u have to know where they are. Unlikely to just chance upon one. The old city, esp Bab Touma - the Christian area - is pretty good for restaurants which offer beer etc. Eastern provinces of Syria you;re less likely to see places selling booze.
Beer averages a dollar a can which is pretty reasonable.

It seems to me that lots of people drink here but dont admit to it. However, drinking in public is a bit of a no-no.

The Meridian hotel in Damascus has a pretty wierd disco/nightclub where anything goes .... literally.

best
basil

ls650 · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 3484 Location: British Columbia

cangringo · Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 327 Location: Vancouver, Canada

The other problem with Canada, well Vancouver specifically are the massive drug problems. No one wants to talk about it but the amount of heroin junkies wandering around Vancouver is amazing...I don't know what the solution is but government regulation just doesn't seem to be helping, I mean the stuff is illegal...they are trying to push the homeless and druggies further from downtown now because of the upcoming Olympics. They don't seem to want to solve the problem, just get rid of it.

They did an article about the dumpster divers and bottle collectors and interviewed some who admitted that yes they go out and collect so they can make some money, then take that money and go buy more booze/drugs etc.

There are lots of people begging on the streets and when you offer them food, most of the time they refuse - you watch people give them money and they toddle off to the liquor store for another bottle of whatever.

I am of the opinion that we are all adults and should be able to make our own choices in life. I am not against support for people who need it but I'm against heavy regulations that punish the people who can live their lives without overindulging.

Ok ...gets off soapbox...I'm done now

I love that we can zip over to the corner store (happens to be our neighbors) and get a few brews. They keep them colder than we do anyway. I also love that it doesn't cost an arm and a leg for a couple of brewskies after a long week, or a long day ... Very Happy

JonnyB61 · Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 216 Location: Japan

william wallace · Joined: 14 May 2003 Posts: 2869 Location: in between

Lot's of(beer) boozers in China, at 30 cents a quart. It's watered-down slop but if you're not discriminating.....and the fire-water 54% at about the same price.Local alcoholism is rising but seems to be still 5+ years away

jammish · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 1704

Beer in China is cheap, but there's a reason for that: a large proportion of it is like fizzy water with a 'beer' flavour added. You typically pay about 2 RMB for the really cheap local stuff. That's $0.26. Personally I find it's worth paying the extra 1 RMB or so and getting the slightly more 'expensive' beer. I pay 3 RMB for Kingway here and it's a bit more like a real beer. I had 5 bottles of it last night and was actually quite pissed. Christ, some of the stuff in wuhan, like Singo, you could drink and drink it and hardly get drunk.

Then there is baijiu which costs anything from as little as about 2.5 RMB per bottle, and is recommended for anyone who wants to go blind before they get old. Evil stuff.

jammish · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 1704

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

Yes, for domestic at a liquor store less than a dollar, imported a bit more than a dollar. Quite a bit cheaper than Japan, but you wouldn't know it from the way people drink beer here! Cool

SueH · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 1022 Location: Northern Italy

Here in Italy most houses/flats have cantine (cellars) so there's no need for those desperate dashes to the offie, given a bit of forethought. At the moment having an early evening bottle from one of the 5 cases of decent English beer which I got on my last trip home by car: for tax reasons bought in France!

Wine varies widely in price, but I've got to the stage in life where, although I can't afford the really good stuff I don't bother with the bad. A decent glass in a bar can be �2-3, and a bottle of decent Barbera in my local wine bar goes for �10, although it's a struggle to get to pay sometimes.

My experience of Canada was too long ago to matter - tobacco farm in Ontario as a student and a couple of skiing trips to Whistler when I had money, but I seem to recall you had to sit down to drink, and it was all a bit puritanical. (Maybe people fall over or they don't trust them not to fight?) On a bus in Whistler once the driver just stopped and didn't move off. He didn't say anything so I had no idea why. It turned out that an American guy was having a drink from a can of beer (I think), but the driver didn't explain that that was against the law and just sat there. When I got off I told him that if they were going to get foreign visitors perhaps the first thing they should do in these situations was to politely tell them the regulations and ask them to stop. Don't think I'll go to Canada for the booze then, although a few nice wines and micro-breweries.

yaramaz · Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:14 pm Post subject:

Is it still that puritanical? I haven't really lived there in about 5-6 years, but I do remember standing up and drinking, and getting beer and wine from non-government outlets (which just had beer and wine I think, no spirits). I was in BC, which may be different from other provinces.

yaramaz · Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:16 pm Post subject:

I meant to add that microbreweries and their off sales were fairly major in the bar/drinking scene, as were wineries. Homebrew featured quite prominently in my upbringing: my grandma made a mean stout from the 1940s til she died at 90-something.

jammish · Joined: 17 Nov 2005 Posts: 1704

Mike_2007 · Joined: 24 Apr 2007 Posts: 349 Location: Bucharest, Romania

You can get booze of almost any description even from bus stops here! No kidding, there are loads of this bus stop slash kiosk type things.

A can of beer from the supermarket is about 40p, bottle of cheap wine about a quid.

Sef · Joined: 26 Mar 2007 Posts: 74 Location: UK

In China, I was amazed by the baijiu that came in sports bottles! So you can get drunk while you exercise? Then one of my Chinese friends told me that that variety is used by restaurant owners for getting grease off tables. Good job I was never tempted to try it!
About the times you can buy alcohol, I think it's purely economical. If a restaurant/bar is making enough money from you, they'll stay open until you leave. And I definitely remember buying beer at an all night SuGuo at 4am!
I don't know about rising alcoholism but I remember having to insist that we walked home after a banquet because our driver had been knocking back bai jiu all night and I remember how offended the driver was!