Over a platter piled with crustaceans at a small restaurant in the city's Chaoyang district, they discuss their next step.

Two of the guys want to go and see some live bands. There is a five-band punk bash on at the Get Lucky bar in the northeast, with groups from Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai. But the girls are unenthusiastic.

'Too noisy, too angry,' they say.

Instead they suggest going to the famed Sanlitun Bar Street, near the embassy district. The girls want to hear a cover band that plays in one of the dozens of bars that line the street. But their hard-rock boyfriends are not keen on listening to Eagles and Celine Dion covers. Besides, the place is packed with the irritating nouveau riche and their bimbo girlfriends, they say.

The two younger girls, who are 22, want to go to a rave being held on the Great Wall. Buses ferry people on the two-hour journey from Beijing and bring them back at dawn. The sounds are ambient, new-wave, trip-hop; the crowd a mix of hip locals and foreign students.

But the guys are not keen to go after their last experience. They often smoke marijuana and occasionally take drugs such as Ecstasy and Ice, all of which will be readily available at the rave. This in itself does not put them off, but the police attention the rave attracts certainly does.

After one rave in early summer, police stopped the buses coming back to Beijing and made the Chinese get off the bus, they say. They were taken to a police station and made to give urine samples, and several people were arrested on drug-related charges. That, combined with the rain that pelted down for 12 hours, has put them off.

As a compromise, they agree to go to the Houhai district, a lake area a few kilometres north of Tiananmen Square that has become a thriving entertainment district over the past two years.

The area - with its tree-lined lakes, hutongs and ancient courtyards lined with traditional, single-storey houses - is one of the few examples of old Beijing.

Two years ago, a half a dozen teahouses and small bars catered to those who came to stroll there, but now more that 70 establishments offer everything from cocktails to cappuccinos.

Over a few bottles of Tsingtao by the waterside, the eight friends talk about their next move. They wonder whether they should go to a club or to a karaoke parlour. Club FM, Orange, the Tree Lounge and The Club are suggested - where the city's young and beautiful drape themselves over sofas and listen to soft house sounds.

Banana, with its pumping rave music and vibrating dance floor, is a more energetic option. The club also boasts two raunchy dancers - a black man and a blonde woman - who strip down to thongs and tassels in cages that dangle over the sweating masses.

Most of the gang just want to sing their hearts out in a karaoke room.

They rent a room in a KTV centre, order brandy for the boys and soft drinks and fruit for the girls, and belt out hits from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The lyrics run across the bottom of the screen but they all know them off by heart.

By 2am they are hungry, so they move on to one of the many 24-hour dumpling restaurants to gorge themselves on flour balls stuffed with pork and scallions and shrimp and cabbage.

Then it is time to indulge themselves in the national pastime: gambling.

They pile back to one of their homes and the women watch the latest Lord of the Rings movie on DVD while the men set up the card table. They will sit in a cloud of smoke and play until well after sunrise, betting more money that they can afford.

Sunday will be spent mostly in bed. And then it is five days of long hours in the office and evenings in front of the TV, counting down the days to the weekend.