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Published: March 19th 2006
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Cafe street in central Sydney
This is downstairs from where Pauls works. We’ve mentioned before that one of the things we were desperate to get to Sydney for was to do some shopping. We’re glad we waited as this city has a brilliant array of high street stores, malls, stalls & boutiques. We’ve spent some cash on new jeans for us both, new trainers for Alan, new tops for Shaz and some bath bombs for relaxation purposes (its so exciting that Paula’s apartment has a bath - such luxury!).
There are some gorgeous shopping centres here - one in particular is called the Queen Victoria Building or QVB for short, which is located on George Street in the heart of the city. It’s a fabulous late 19th century affair which takes up an entire block, and also has some underground cavernous passageways beneath the roads outside. Décor wise inside, it’s a bit like Princes Square in Glasgow, except its long and narrow whereas Princes Square is, as the name suggests, a square shape. Other open air malls are thriving little pockets of activity, springing up in between sky scraping office blocks and funky bars & restaurants, with amazing decorations left over from the festive period. It’s been lots of fun hanging out
Shopping mall decorations
Tha background changers colour constantly. Its very cool. and investigating of an afternoon.
Something to note is that there is no Gap here - which we think is a bit weird as they have them almost everywhere else we can think of outside Aus. Shaz was a bit gutted as she’d been planning to buy a pair of her fav jeans here - black flare denim - in a size that she knew would fit. Hope arrived in the form of ‘Just Jeans’ which is like a cross between Gap and the Levi stores. We were really glad to find what she was looking for as for three days we’d pounded the streets hunting for these elusive strides. See, the fashion thing at the moment here for girlies is skin tight denims. Well, can you imagine Shaz Egg in a pair of those? Doesn’t bear thinking about. The next trauma that she has is finding a pair of new trainers as her current ones burst 1 week after arriving in Sydney. Isn’t that a coincidence boys & girls? Hmmm.
When we’ve not been shopping, we’ve been walking the city, taking in as much as we can, and we’ve loved visiting a number of interesting exhibitions at
Boots for sale.
Any of the ladies fancy a pair of these? No? various museums throughout the central area. There is much more going on than there is usually in Sydney right now as their Festival of Arts is underway. In addition to the extra museum exhibitions, events include theatre, dance & music performances, open air cinema screenings on the harbour, fireworks & firedancing in the parks, and lots of other bits and pieces. Paula arranged tickets for us, herself and her boyfriend Meggsy, to go and see Cinderella Man at the Moonlight Cinema, and we were really excited as the shows take place outdoors at night when its dark opposite the Opera House, and the views are really stunning with the backdrop of the Harbour bridge and the city skyline with all its spangly lights.
The night arrived for our screening, and we discovered that rain was forecast. Paula was really downhearted about it as she’s been the previous year on a beautiful evening with fine weather and she recalls it being near perfect. However - the wet held off until we had a couple of drinks and some fish n’ chips at the venue, but about half an hour before the performance the rain started, …….and then some … it
Did you ever see such a big glass?
This was round at Paula's mum and dad's house for a BBQ one night. We had a lot of fun.
NOTE to my sister - this is the last glass in the world that I would EVER buy you. was PELTING it down! Fortunately we’d been handed plastic ponchos on the way in (never a good omen) so Paula and Shaz hastily pulled theirs on over their heads - the sensible thing to do. It was really amusing though as the boys never made a move - each waiting for the other to make the first gesture towards the plastic fantastics. Talk about preserving their fashion principles! Paula and Shaz just laughed at them, but before long the Alpha Males conceded that the cosy-ness of the capes was better than shivering in the showers! The rain was not for letting up and we were a bit surprised to find that the show did indeed go on. It was a weird arrangement - all these luminous white plastic pointy ponchos sitting in rows watching a big screen in the pouring rain. The film was exceptionally good though, and after about 10 mins we all forgot about the weather and settled in for the duration. Ironically, 2 minutes before the film credits rolled, the rain stopped.
Paula has been a fabulous hostess to us. Her flatmate Jo has been on holiday outside Sydney for the last 2 weeks, and very
generously offered us her room. It’s been superb having our own place, with the added benefit of seeing Pauls. There’s been many a night out already and we’ve loved meeting her family and some of her pals too. Such lovely people. One night we met Pauls after work and ended up in Chinatown, which is close to her office block, in a first rate restaurant specialising in seafood. As per her New Year resolution, Shaz wanted to try crab in the claw, so she was directed over to a huge tank filled with crustaceans to choose her dinner. This done, she returned to the table to join Alan and Pauls in conversation. A couple of mins later, a waiter appeared at the table next to us, with this big scary looking monster with claws like secateurs struggling away inside a see-through plastic bag. Shaz being the big girls blouse that she is, got a fright and let out a yelp as a claw appeared over the side of the bag. Why was he bringing it to the table? We found out that it was to ensure that we were happy with the quality before it was cooked. Well we hadn’t
a clue. Pauls asked the senior waiter - who had by now arrived at the side of the table to find out what the screaming was all about - what we should look for to tell the quality? He just said ‘colour’. Pauls said ‘what colour?’ The waiter said ‘ good colour’. Pauls said ‘what’s good colour?’ and the waiter replied ‘ bright’. It went on a bit like this for a few mins till we all got bored and told the guy it was fine. Meanwhile, the crab had nearly escaped about ten times (obviously knew it’s number was up) and we were starving and couldn’t wait to taste it. When it arrived it was yummy, if a bit awkward to get to the meat. Anyway - it won’t be the last time we have crab, although next time we’ll be waiting for our choice to be brought to the table pre and post cooking!
Till next time,
Shaz & Alan. xxxx
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