My birthday (2)
As I live a long way away for present sending, I got a lot of vouchers and money for my birthday. These needed spending so I took Friday off and had almost a second birthday. In particular, I thought, I could have my cake that I am owed.
I've been looking forward to going shopping here for ages, I think because I had been telling myself in the UK for a while that I mustn't buy any clothes as it will be summer in Australia and I will want summer clothes. But I haven't really felt I could buy any clothes here as we have been spending so much money on sorting everything else out: furniture, sheets and towels (I am quite amazed by how much sheets and towels cost) and "white goods" (fridge, toaster, kettle, iron etc.). So it was with real joy I set out on Friday to spend money on clothes that was specifically designated for the purpose.
I didn't get out especially promptly yesterday - I felt I ought to make an attempt to blog some of the stuff we have been doing and it took me a long time to upload the winery photos. I found a handy feature whereby you can upload more than one photo at a time - up to 5. So I tried it. It took longer than normal to upload (understandably) but then didn't add the photos to the blog, I tried again in case it was a glitch. No joy. I tried with only two photos and that didn't work either so I then had to upload all 5 separately like I would have had to do to start with. Grrrr.
By this time the post office was open (they don't open until 9am here unlike in the UK where they open extra early but then shut early too) so I went to fetch the wine. As we back onto the casino there is usually a line of taxis outside our back door. I approached one and proposed my plan to him - he drives me to the post office, waits while I get the wine, drives me back and wait while I unload it. I was a bit concerned that I would have to leave him with the wine while I carried it up a case at a time but I thought I would worry about that later.
The taxi driver reluctantly agreed to my plan and off we went. The queue in the post office was not too long (it was about 11:30am - just in time before the lunch break rush) but the two people in front of me both took an age.
I am not sure about the advisability of admitting to breaking the law in a blog. Let's say that suppose Sean had forgotton to sign over the slip from the post office for the one wine delivery that was in his name, I may have had to fake his signtature (not very well either). The lady in the post office didn't seem worried by Sean's signature though, although she was worried that I was collecting it at all. "Who is this?" she demanded, to which I could only reply "Sean" adding "I have his passport here", which seemed to make everything OK in her eyes.
She spent a long time shuffling about in the back room, during which I saw the taxi driver coming up to check whether I was still there, although he just sidled away when he saw I was at the desk. I was asked to explain how I was going to get the wine home and then some more shuffling ensued. Finally I was taken to another door where a hitherto unseen post office employee loaded the wine onto and trolley and took it out for me. It didn't look like the trolley would go down the curb so I ran across the road to the taxi with the crates one at a time.
On the way back I had a brilliant idea - instead of running up to the flat carrying the crates, I could get the taxi driver to drive into the car park to the bottom of the lift. Genius. The plan went off without a hitch, although the taxi was slightly too big for the car park and made a ding-ding-ding sound as it went along by banging the overhead pipes with the TAXI sign.
By the time I got out it was gone 12pm so I knew I had to be efficient in my shopping. I started with Harbourside in Darling Harbour, a slightly touristy shopping centre that I had walked through every day on my way to Starbucks without having time to stop and look at things I noticed. in particular an Aussie discount store (mainly cut price souvenirs and Australia T-shirts) had been offering fake fur stoles for $3 each. I had been debating this for a long time but I succumbed and bought a white one and a black one. Will I ever wear them? Who knows.
Fur Stoles
I did quite well in Darling Harbour and picked up a vest top, a dress made from Hemp (although I am assured by the label that there are no active ingredients and also, which I didn't know, that Hemp is much better for the environment than cotton) and a mini-skirt. Will I ever be brave enough to wear the mini-skirt? We shall see.
I also paid a visit to the British Lolly Shop. Lolly is just the Australian word for sweet. What we would call a lolly is known as a lolly on a stick. I thought I would buy Sean some sugared almonds and did so. I noticed some Bourneville - sadly lacking from Australian supermarkets even though they are choc (literally) full of Cadbury's Dairy Milk - and bought a couple of bars of that too. I noticed some condiments on a shelf: Coleman's mustard and various other English treats. Now Sean has been desparate for some HP sauce since we got here - he's even been in touch with people coming back from the UK and asked them to smuggle some over for him. I asked, hopefully, at the Lolly shop and they do sell it, they are just temporarily out of stock. So Sean may well be sauced up next week.
It was about 2pm when I headed into town. I am not sure why I can cope with Oxford Street and Kensington but not here, but the centre of Sydney seems to me to be absolutely full of clothes shops and so I was already feeling confused in anticipation.
I decided to simplify things by heading towards Ojay, which I had a voucher for. I had still not had my cake but I decided if I had spent my voucher I could pause and feel I had done well.
The belt
I passed a shop called Supre and went in. I had been admiring a belt in the windows as I passed it and decided to go in and get it. The clothing content was very typical school girl fashion (think Top Shop, Miss Selfridge) and contained a vast amount of clothing. I piled up my arms and went to the fitting room. In the end I bought two sensible tops for winter, a black pencil skirt, the belt and a long black strapless dress that was a bargain on the sale. A good result, but I felt I had worked hard for it.
Long black strapless dress
Determined now to reach Ojay, just so I could go home, I headed into Central Plaza. I meandered through some shops and stopped at a shoe shop, remembering that I had vaguely planned to buy some winter boots. Everyone here is already cold, I get kind enquiries after the state of my body temperature when walking around in summer dresses. It is still hotter here than summers in the UK.
All the shoes here are two sizes up so I had to ask for a 10. The only had one of the styles I liked in a 10 and the lady had to go upstairs to get it and gave me a 9 to try. It was slightly uncomfortable but I got the idea. The boots are very nice and the only drawback was that I had just got used to buying cheap clothes and at about £65 they seemed ferociously expensive. The kind sales lady reassured me that I wouldn't find them cheaper somewhere else and that was enough for me. I was now out of birthday money and all that remained was to find Ojay.
Boots
It turned out that I was not in Central Plaza as I thought, I had somehow got into the Queen Victoria building. We were told in a video we were shown on the wine tour that it had won some prize for best looking shopping centre and I can see that they may be right, however it did not contain Ojay. I went back the way I came, worked out where I went wrong, found a handy shopping centre directory for Central Plaza and then stumbled across Ojay almost by accident.
It was very different from the other shops I had been in, but in the same way as all the small clothes shops the assistants took clothes that I was waiting to try on and hung them up ready for me. Now I was laden down with purchases, I appreciated this even more. All the clothes were more expensive than the boots I had just bought but, determined, I tried a whole load of stuff on. I had an attentive assistant who changed sizes and so on for me and I was eventually left with a dress and a pair of trousers. The voucher didn't cover both but - what the hell - it was my birthday.
Fatigued, I made my way home as swiftly as possible. I failed to buy a cupcake yet again. Maybe another day...
As I live a long way away for present sending, I got a lot of vouchers and money for my birthday. These needed spending so I took Friday off and had almost a second birthday. In particular, I thought, I could have my cake that I am owed.
I've been looking forward to going shopping here for ages, I think because I had been telling myself in the UK for a while that I mustn't buy any clothes as it will be summer in Australia and I will want summer clothes. But I haven't really felt I could buy any clothes here as we have been spending so much money on sorting everything else out: furniture, sheets and towels (I am quite amazed by how much sheets and towels cost) and "white goods" (fridge, toaster, kettle, iron etc.). So it was with real joy I set out on Friday to spend money on clothes that was specifically designated for the purpose.
I didn't get out especially promptly yesterday - I felt I ought to make an attempt to blog some of the stuff we have been doing and it took me a long time to upload the winery photos. I found a handy feature whereby you can upload more than one photo at a time - up to 5. So I tried it. It took longer than normal to upload (understandably) but then didn't add the photos to the blog, I tried again in case it was a glitch. No joy. I tried with only two photos and that didn't work either so I then had to upload all 5 separately like I would have had to do to start with. Grrrr.
By this time the post office was open (they don't open until 9am here unlike in the UK where they open extra early but then shut early too) so I went to fetch the wine. As we back onto the casino there is usually a line of taxis outside our back door. I approached one and proposed my plan to him - he drives me to the post office, waits while I get the wine, drives me back and wait while I unload it. I was a bit concerned that I would have to leave him with the wine while I carried it up a case at a time but I thought I would worry about that later.
The taxi driver reluctantly agreed to my plan and off we went. The queue in the post office was not too long (it was about 11:30am - just in time before the lunch break rush) but the two people in front of me both took an age.
I am not sure about the advisability of admitting to breaking the law in a blog. Let's say that suppose Sean had forgotton to sign over the slip from the post office for the one wine delivery that was in his name, I may have had to fake his signtature (not very well either). The lady in the post office didn't seem worried by Sean's signature though, although she was worried that I was collecting it at all. "Who is this?" she demanded, to which I could only reply "Sean" adding "I have his passport here", which seemed to make everything OK in her eyes.
She spent a long time shuffling about in the back room, during which I saw the taxi driver coming up to check whether I was still there, although he just sidled away when he saw I was at the desk. I was asked to explain how I was going to get the wine home and then some more shuffling ensued. Finally I was taken to another door where a hitherto unseen post office employee loaded the wine onto and trolley and took it out for me. It didn't look like the trolley would go down the curb so I ran across the road to the taxi with the crates one at a time.
On the way back I had a brilliant idea - instead of running up to the flat carrying the crates, I could get the taxi driver to drive into the car park to the bottom of the lift. Genius. The plan went off without a hitch, although the taxi was slightly too big for the car park and made a ding-ding-ding sound as it went along by banging the overhead pipes with the TAXI sign.
By the time I got out it was gone 12pm so I knew I had to be efficient in my shopping. I started with Harbourside in Darling Harbour, a slightly touristy shopping centre that I had walked through every day on my way to Starbucks without having time to stop and look at things I noticed. in particular an Aussie discount store (mainly cut price souvenirs and Australia T-shirts) had been offering fake fur stoles for $3 each. I had been debating this for a long time but I succumbed and bought a white one and a black one. Will I ever wear them? Who knows.
Fur Stoles
I did quite well in Darling Harbour and picked up a vest top, a dress made from Hemp (although I am assured by the label that there are no active ingredients and also, which I didn't know, that Hemp is much better for the environment than cotton) and a mini-skirt. Will I ever be brave enough to wear the mini-skirt? We shall see.
I also paid a visit to the British Lolly Shop. Lolly is just the Australian word for sweet. What we would call a lolly is known as a lolly on a stick. I thought I would buy Sean some sugared almonds and did so. I noticed some Bourneville - sadly lacking from Australian supermarkets even though they are choc (literally) full of Cadbury's Dairy Milk - and bought a couple of bars of that too. I noticed some condiments on a shelf: Coleman's mustard and various other English treats. Now Sean has been desparate for some HP sauce since we got here - he's even been in touch with people coming back from the UK and asked them to smuggle some over for him. I asked, hopefully, at the Lolly shop and they do sell it, they are just temporarily out of stock. So Sean may well be sauced up next week.
It was about 2pm when I headed into town. I am not sure why I can cope with Oxford Street and Kensington but not here, but the centre of Sydney seems to me to be absolutely full of clothes shops and so I was already feeling confused in anticipation.
I decided to simplify things by heading towards Ojay, which I had a voucher for. I had still not had my cake but I decided if I had spent my voucher I could pause and feel I had done well.
The belt
I passed a shop called Supre and went in. I had been admiring a belt in the windows as I passed it and decided to go in and get it. The clothing content was very typical school girl fashion (think Top Shop, Miss Selfridge) and contained a vast amount of clothing. I piled up my arms and went to the fitting room. In the end I bought two sensible tops for winter, a black pencil skirt, the belt and a long black strapless dress that was a bargain on the sale. A good result, but I felt I had worked hard for it.
Long black strapless dress
Determined now to reach Ojay, just so I could go home, I headed into Central Plaza. I meandered through some shops and stopped at a shoe shop, remembering that I had vaguely planned to buy some winter boots. Everyone here is already cold, I get kind enquiries after the state of my body temperature when walking around in summer dresses. It is still hotter here than summers in the UK.
All the shoes here are two sizes up so I had to ask for a 10. The only had one of the styles I liked in a 10 and the lady had to go upstairs to get it and gave me a 9 to try. It was slightly uncomfortable but I got the idea. The boots are very nice and the only drawback was that I had just got used to buying cheap clothes and at about £65 they seemed ferociously expensive. The kind sales lady reassured me that I wouldn't find them cheaper somewhere else and that was enough for me. I was now out of birthday money and all that remained was to find Ojay.
Boots
It turned out that I was not in Central Plaza as I thought, I had somehow got into the Queen Victoria building. We were told in a video we were shown on the wine tour that it had won some prize for best looking shopping centre and I can see that they may be right, however it did not contain Ojay. I went back the way I came, worked out where I went wrong, found a handy shopping centre directory for Central Plaza and then stumbled across Ojay almost by accident.
It was very different from the other shops I had been in, but in the same way as all the small clothes shops the assistants took clothes that I was waiting to try on and hung them up ready for me. Now I was laden down with purchases, I appreciated this even more. All the clothes were more expensive than the boots I had just bought but, determined, I tried a whole load of stuff on. I had an attentive assistant who changed sizes and so on for me and I was eventually left with a dress and a pair of trousers. The voucher didn't cover both but - what the hell - it was my birthday.
Fatigued, I made my way home as swiftly as possible. I failed to buy a cupcake yet again. Maybe another day...
posted by Zoe at 10:21 AM
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