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Published: February 8th 2007
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….We flew back from Melbourne back into Sydney for two more nights at the Grace hotel on York street. This hotel is the tops and is one not to be missed if you’re looking for a good quality hotel with top rate facilities ( fitness centre, pool, spa, bars and restaurants ).
As we only had two days left in Sydney, we had to make the most of it so we decided to go on the ferry to manly where there is a great beach and good cafes along the front ( see our past blogs if you want to see Manly ). Within half an hour of us arriving, it started to rain, so we had to make a decision on what to do. We decided to catch the return ferry back to the city and do some shopping ( oh no…poor Graham again I hear you say !). To be fair, I ended up buying some unusual Adidas trainers from the Adidas store within the QV building ( Queen Victoria building ) on George street in the city centre and because we spent over $150AUD we entered a free prize draw to win one of four prizes of $12,500AUD
worth of jewellery from exclusive diamond jewellers ‘Mondial Neuman’ who are located inside the QV building. Anyway, the day after we ended up buying more shopping and had yet another entry into the draw.
Prior to us coming out to Australia, Tracey decided she would like a piece of jewellery that has a diamond called an ‘Argyle’ diamond which is pink in colour and is rare from the Argyle mine in Western Australia and ‘Mondial Neuman’ was one of the very few places that stocked such jewellery. Again, some months ago, I was thinking of buying Tracey an eternity ring and so the thought of getting her one with an Argyle diamond in would fit the bill. Unfortunately though, Tracey’s fingers are so small that another ring wouldn’t fit properly, so after talking to a jewellers back in the UK they suggested a pendant or something similar instead.
So at the Mondial Neuman store, she had seen an 18ct gold pendant with chain that is in the design of a koala bear and has two Argyle pink diamonds for its eyes. She loved it, but decided to ‘think it over’ for the night. The morning after, Tracey said
she would like it and so we returned to the store to buy it for her. Because it cost over $300AUD, we were eligible to claim tax back as we are tourists but the jeweller needed our passport details to which we said we would telephone them later that day. And again, because we had spent over $150 AUD in the building, we could have yet another entry into the draw.
To cut a long story short, Graham rang them later and started to give the passport details when a gentleman called Michael answered the phone and said that he too had some information for us……..and that is that Tracey had just won $12,500AUD ( £5100 ) worth of Argyle pink diamond earrings !!! Apparently, he had left an answerphone message on our phone back home in the UK and if I hadn’t have rung with the passport details, we would’ve been back in the UK and unable to claim our prize !
Michael asked us to go to the store as quickly as possible so she could collect her prize and have her photo taken….this was becoming so weird, it was like a dream and all along
Tracey thought I was kidding her.
We arrived to be greeted by Michael and his staff who confirmed to Tracey she had won although this wasn’t sinking in ! We were given the earrings and she had her photo taken by the QV building management. Anyway, we chatted for a short while and we just can’t believe how lucky we have been to win such an amazing prize. On returning to out hotel, we had to discreetly ask hotel management if we could use the hotel safe for safekeeping of these rare gems which they duly obliged.
So if anybody out there is after rare pink diamonds to suit ALL budgets as a great gift/souvenir of Australia, head on down to Mondial Neuman in the QV building as they are not pushy salespeople, and that is partly why we chose them to buy the koala pendant from.
Our last day in Sydney was spent partly up the Sydney tower which is the tallest building in the city for truly amazing views and pretty well priced too. You can also grab a cold drink at the top whilst taking in the stunning views of Sydney and you are not
rushed so in reality if you wanted to spend all day up there, you could. You get a good view of the airport too and there are several fixed pairs of binoculars that are FREE to use….which is even better.
Anyway, we caught our flight to Kuala Lumpur and here we are now. Its 5.10am and we have just over 3 more hours before our connecting flight for our 17 night stay on Langkawi. More soon guys, take care..Graham and Tracey x x
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Clive & Lisa
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Bejewelled!!
You two are so jammy! Firstly you get an airline upgrade for FREE - then you go on to win five GRAND's worth of diamond jewelery! Good on ya sport! For those of you that don't know, I have been the kind neighbour while Tracey & Graham have been away (just as they do for me when I'm on holiday!) checking on their house, opening and closing the cutains etc each day. The only problem I have encountered while doing this is the constant bleep of their answer phone evertime I go into the house! Not wishing to be nosey I have ignored the bleep bleep bleep twice a day for the last three weeks - how sick would they been to return home to a message announcing a win of £5K of earrings, only to find that not only was it too late to claim, but that I had politley ignored the message for 6 weeks!!!!!!!! Sounds like you are having an absolute ball in sun! We have a couple of inches of snow here tonight - off sledging with the kids in the morning. We await the next blog update (and the next story of good fortune!)