SlaveToShopping

RIP Stella McCartney

2010-11-28T05:03:00.003Z

No, Stella McCartney isn't dead but my bag is. It is very sad and I'm in mourning. I can't bear to part with her but I know she must be thrown away. She met her demise by being stored next to a purple Miu Miu bag and they sort of got stuck together and the colour transferred and stained her beyond the point of being wearable. Bummer is that I don't really like or use the Miu Miu bag.

Let this be a lesson to you all, use your dustbags when you're not using the bag. It will keep them safe and clean. I loved this bag and am very sorry to see her go.

Why so mean, Nordstrom?

2010-11-05T08:13:00.003Z

These are the cutest shoes ever. Transparent Marc by Marc Jacobs mouse shoes. They are from Nordstrom. They're $150 marked down to $108.80.

But the shipping fee to Australia is $58.50. Mean!

Shopbop has free shipping to Australia.
Topshop only charges £9
ASOS is £10
I never pay more than about $15 on eBay.

But $58.50? Mean!

The trouble with moving around a lot

2010-10-24T04:07:00.007+01:00

Moving around a lot means a few things...you have to learn a new place, find new jobs, get settled in, keep friendships all over the world alive. But one of the most annoying bits is that there's lots of stuff that I get used to then can't find when I move to the next place....here are a few that I will go to great lengths to get my hands on. Thankfully between eBay and some online shops I can get my fix.

From Canada: Low Fat Kraft Smooth Peanut Butter...this stuff is smooth and extra sweet since they fill it with sweetners to account for the low-fatness. The best PB and you can't get it in Australia or the UK.

Lululemon thong undies....these leave absolutely no VPL, lumps or bumps. The smoothest undies I've ever found. Hmmm there's a smooth theme going on here.

(Anyone who quickly looks at this set of images will think something pervy is going on with undies and PB. Not the case, sorry.)

From the UK: Boots No7 Advanced Renewal Anti-Ageing Glycolic Peel...makes my skin look and feel the same as if I had gone for a facial. Smaller pores and smoother skin. (Still with the smooth!) Cost of this kit is £18. Cost of a facial <£50. No brainer.

Perfumes from Selfridges. OK this one isn't exactly one particular product. It's just that Selfridges has a spectacular perfume section where I discovered a few more rare fragrances like Juliette has a Gun and Frederic Male Carnal Flower. I can always order these perfumes but there's nothing like spending a half hour wandering around the ground floor of Selfridges.

Reggae reggae Tomato Ketchup...spicy tasty ketchup. I don't want to have Heinz ever again. Enough said.

Aussie stuff I missed while I was away: Waxaway After-waxing Oil...I absolutly cannot get waxed without this stuff. If I don't use it, I'm guaranteed to get an ingrown hair or go rashy. And this gets the sticky left over wax off. Bonus.

Mor Cosmetics...kind of like high end Body Shop products. Luuurvely smelling body butters and candles. Belladonna is my favourite smell but most of them are really good with the exception of the sickly sweet vanilla marshmellow ones.

Bondi Markets...sort of like the Selfridges perfume section experience, you can't replicate this one. But why would you buy a sundress anywhere else? You can buy something in a shopping centre for $100 or go to sunny Bondi and only pay $50-60. Then you're already at the beach. Magic.

OK - this list is mainly cosmetics and food so what does that say about me? All I can say about all of this is thank the lord for the interwebs because although it's a hassle, I can pretty much get any of this stuff from anywhere I am.

Paradise in Il Nido

2010-09-04T07:51:00.001+01:00

August 12: We're on a flight to Palawan at 10am from Cebu. It's a short one and we're in Puerto Princesa by 11am. The crap bit about this is that El Nido is a 6 hour bus ride away and the buses have all left for the day. So we have to burn a day in Puerto. It's a funny little town but we make use of an Internet cafe, play cards and drink some beers for the afternoon. Early morning bus tomorrow.

August 13: 7am bus to El Nido. Pretty uneventful other than the driver claims to not have enough people in the van so he's not making money so he won't turn the A/C on to save gas. No point in explaining to him that in business you can't turn a profit every day. We get in to El Nido and call in to a bunch of beach bungalow places to find a place to stay. We're alarmed by the number of full places but learn later that most of the only have 6-8 rooms. We get a couple of rooms at a place called Ricos and we're set. Beachfront, hammocks out the front, next door to a dive shop...perfect. We explore a bit and grab some lunch where we first experience the El Nido brownouts. There is no power in this town from 6am -2pm. So we find out that the beer isn't truly cold most of the time. But all the restaurants cook with gas so we can always be fed. Pete is still recovering from his Dengue so we'll be relaxing for the next couple of days. We spend the aternoon in the sun in hammock at the beach. Later we explore the town some more in search of dinner and find the Artcafe. We'll later find out through trial and error that it has the best food and mist consistent service in El Nido.

August 14: Beach day. Super lazy. The most ambitious thing we do is find a dive shop to book some dives for the next day.

August 15-16: Pete is feeling better and we go diving. The way they do it here is great. It's 2 dives out on the same boat and lunch is included. They take you to the dive spot then pull up at a secluded beach. El Nido absolutely stunning with dozens of islands of craggy limestone jutting out of the sea and white sandy beach dotted along all of them. Non-divers book island hopping trips for around 1000 pesos a day. We're paying 2500 but we get the island hopping, lunch on a beach and 2 dives. Amazing value and a really nice day out. The diving is great with really pretty coral gardens and cool rock formations. One of our dives is through a tunnel which was amazing! Felt like a night dive in the middle if the day. Very cool.

We luck out with the weather too - for the rainy season it's nice and sunny. During our stay in El Nido it did rain most days but usually only for an hour or so in the late afternoon.

August 17: I'm feeling a bit meh with low energy. We go diving and go through a craggy limestone crevasses that had the most beautiful pale pink fan corals. Disturbing thing about this dive is that we heard dynamite fishing while underwater. Also I have real trouble equalizing and decide to not do the second dive. I relax in the sun on the boat instead.

For dinner that night we try a place called the Alternative. Decent food (useless service but we're getting used to that here) but the cool thing about the restaurant is that the have two 'nests' that overhang the beach. Perfect for chilling out with some drinks. If only they weren't playing the best of Bryan Adams CD!

August 18: Day off diving and it turns out I have a cold. This is my second cold of the holiday. How does this happen? I'm stuffy and sniffy. And to top it all off, the rainy season has really kicked in and it pours rain all day. But its not cold at least. We spend the day relaxing and hanging out reading.

August 19: Another day off diving but it's nice and sunny beach day. Perfect to relax on a deckchair in my decongestant and cough syrup buzz.

We changed bungalows to a completely different place this morning as a couple with a screaming baby moved in next to us after we did at Rico's. I hadn't really noticed them since we were out diving then out for dinners most days but the baby drove me insane yesterday while we spent the day there. So we moved to Rosanna's where we have a nicer room and no babies!

August 20: The boys go diving but I take the day off. I'm too stuffy to be able to equalize underwater. And I don't mind a day to myself. The weather is nice. I sleep in and watch a movie on my iphone. I also finish another book on the sun on a deck chair. That's two books in three days. I love reading beachy crap. Not a bad way to be stuck with a cold.

August 21: Another lazy day in El Nido for me while the guys dive. The weather isn't as good today and I only get about a half hour in the sun when the rain kicks in. Love the summery rain though. From our bungalow we can open up all the windows and doors, sit and read or have a drink and watch the rain come down. Can't complain really. It's our last night here so we go to the Artcafe to make sure we have a decent meal.

August 22: Bus trip to Puerto Princesa. Boring and uneventful. We waste the rest of the day having beers in PP and at our hotel. There's a brownout in the evening. I won't miss those!

August 23: Flight to Manila. The two major airports here are over two hours apart by bus or car. It's a complete pain in the butt cause we want to fly back to Singapore but can't make the connection between the main Manila airport and Clark airport on the same day. We later find out there are some other airlines/routes we could have taken that would have taken less time. Oh well. We also find out there was a bus hijacking in central Manila today. Good thing we only got in later in the day.

August 24: Flight to Singapore. Civilization. Yay!

There's a reason there are no Filipino restaurants

2010-08-20T09:11:00.006+01:00

A few words on food in the Philippines

It's really quite awful. I hate to say it because I wish the food here was good but it's just not. The popular dish is adobo...an oily brown sauce of soy and vinegar. They don't use spice for flavour or heat which is a shame since the dishes are crying out for it. Everything seems to be a variation of the adobo brown sauce. They have their noodle dish similar to mee goreng/chow mein which is pancit bihon or pancit guisado. Not super tasty and the quality varies a lot depending where you get it. I had one with slimy gelatinous pork and dry bits of liver in it. Gross.

And their take on western dishes isn't much better. The only thing that's bankable is pizza. Everything else is fair game for them to take liberties with. Check out this pic of steak and chips. Ew.

And finally restaurant service. There isn't any. You have to actively flag them down for everything. Nothing comes at the right time. They've brought us 2 out of 3 mains and youll grow old waiting for the third dish. If they screw up and bring you something you didn't order, they don't take it away. They just bring you what you actually wanted and charge you for both. And there's no consistency. When you find a dish you like don't make the mistake of going back another day and expect the same. Even with the same staff they can ruin the meal you thought was good the day before.

Having bitched about the food in the Phillipines, we have had some good meals but usually in the bigger cities or more touristy spots. (mostly other cuisines unfortunately) Food and service gets much more dodgy the smaller the town is.

Malapascua & Cebu: first half of the week great, second half not so much

2010-08-12T05:15:00.004+01:00

July 31: Arrive in Cebu airport and are promptly picked up by our driver Buddy. The ride up Cebu takes around two and a half hours and then there's a half hour banca ride from the top of Cebu to tiny Malapascua island. Our hotel Blue Corals looks nice at the end of the beach so we check in, drop our bags and head out to find a beer and a dive shop. Thresher Shark Divers is the first shop we came across, had the best dive rates and best of all had a restaurant/bar on top. Perfect. We sign up for an early morning shark spotting dive and grab dinner and a couple of beers then head to bed early for our 5:30am dive.

Turns out there's an outdoor night club directly next to the hotel with unavoidable pumping loud music. The bass is so heavy that earplugs do nothing. The speaker stack in pretty much outside our window and it about 7ft high. On top of that, Pete finds biting ants in our bed but we have another queen bed to move to in the room. I get 3 hours of sleep that night. There's no one at the front desk after 10pm if we wanted to move rooms so we cant. Our early night turns out to be a nightmare. I vow to check out in the morning after the dive.

August 1: Our early dive turns out to be amazing. Joseph and I are so tired as we didn't get much sleep - Pete somehow managed to sleep through the shit dance music. But we wake right up when we hit the water. The dive consists of dropping to about 27 metres and waiting for the sharks to come. About 15 minutes in we're rewarded with a big thresher sharks circling around a cleaning station right in front of us. He hangs around for a few minutes for us to watch so we think the dive is a huge success! After about 25 minutes Joseph has to surface (he's on air and we're on Nitrox) and we get a few more minutes. And then the most amazing thing happens: a huge manta ray approaches us and swims right over top of us just a few metres away! It's like 2 dives in one: shark and manta.

After the dive we sort our room situation out...we check out of Blue Corals and in to Cocobanas. It's a much nicer room, oceanfront with a veranda, a/c, a fridge and tv.

We do more dives including a night dive where Joseph spots a group of 3-4 mandarin fish. They are tiny and gorgeous. Dinner is at the hotel next door - Sunsplash has a chillout oceanside lounge with really nice food.

August 2: We're signed up for 4 dives today. No sharks or mantas on the early morning dive this time which makes us realise how lucky we were yesterday. I sit out the 10am dive - the boys said it was a good macro dive but I decided to chill out instead. We all did the 2pm dive which is a manta spotting dive and it blew us away...we basically dropped down on two huge mantas as we got in the water. They swam right underneath us as we were descending from the boat. Amazing!! We settled down at 27m again and the mantas circled around a few more times. Pete got some great shots. We are so lucky!

I decided to skip the night dive as we had just done one the night before. When Pete and Joseph came back from the night dive, Pete complained of being really cold which isn't like him. He had a really long hot shower to feel better and we went to dinner. We were signed up for a 3-dive day trip the next day so had an early night.

August 3: 8am...Pete is still feeling really cold and fluey so I go to the dive shop and cancel our day trip. Good thing we have a decent hotel room as we wind up hanging out, watching some TV and reading on the veranda. He spends the day in bed and doesn't even make it out to dinner. Joseph and I go to Angelinas pizza which is really good.

August 4: Pete is still feeling sick. Another day of TV, reading and hanging out.

August 5: Pete still sick but claims to be feeling a bit better. He signs up for 2 dives with Joseph but when the times comes he just doesn't have the energy. He's getting frustrated by being fluey and headachy and not able to do anthing. But Joseph lucks out again and spots another thresher on one of his dives. I spend a while online at an Internet terminal in the Blue Corals.

August 6: Pete wakes up with a rash. This is not good. We had expected his flu to pass bit he seems to be getting worse. We are planning on leaving the next morning anyway and decide to rake him straight to hospital.

August 7: The weather has been a bit stormy during the week so our morning banca ride back to Cebu island is slow and very wavy. The car ride to Cebu city goes quickly and we check into a hotel 3 blocks from the hospital, drop our bags and head to the ER. They take Petes blood and two hours later tell us he has Dengue fever. He has the classic symptoms: first few days of fluey feeling, headache and the rash that signifies the worst of it. Luckily he doesn't have joint pain which can happen. Pete's blood platelet count is 107. (Normal is 140-400) He is admitted and spends the next few days in Cebu Doctors University Hospital to be monitored. Dengue goes away on it's own if there are no complications but they need to watch his recovery. He has a 'luxury' suite which is a private room with a 32" tv, a couple of couches for us to hang out on.

August 8-11: Pete's platelet count drops to 90 the day after being admitted to hospital but climbs on the days after.

For Pete, his days were filled with crappy hospital meals, constantly being checked for blood tests etc and a lot of tv watching boredom. And our visits of course.

For Joseph and myself, a lot of the days were spent being bored in Petes hospital room watching tv with him (crap movies on HBO and a lot of CSI). Once in a while I'd go on a trip to a shopping centre to kill time but they're not great. I had a really good facial for 400 pesos (￡6) across the street from the hospital. I got to know the area and got some laundry done, bought some snacks for the boys, found the fast food places so Joseph could fill up. I coloured my hair and Joseph's. I also spent a fair bit of time on the phone to the insurance company in the UK. Luckily there was free wifi in the hotel and the hospital so I could skype and everyone could facebook.

Cebu is the Philippines second biggest city. On the whole, it's fairly grimy but feels generally safe. Our hotel (the regally named Dynasty Tourist Inn) was basic, cheap and most importantly near the hospital.

On the 10th, we get good news that Pete can have his IV out and be released the next day. The insurance company can't believe that the whole 5 day hospital visit only comes to 30,000 pesos = about ￡420.

By the 11th when he's released his platelets are back up to 127 and he's back into the world. We went to the Ayala mall so he could have a decent lunch, then we watched Salt at the movies and had a beer at TGI Fridays. He's still a bit tired but is OK. We're going to continue the holiday. We'd considered cutting the trip short and heading straight to Sydney.

Boracay!

2010-08-06T02:10:00.003+01:00

July 23: Off to Boracay! Get up for a 8:30am flight. (Best banana cake in the world is at the Manila airport by the way.) Arrive in Caticlan at 9:30 am and we've arranged transfer to our hotel which is great cause it's a bus-banca-bus trip and our bags are carried for us. Yay! We are welcomed at the Island Jewel hotel ($25 a night!) with an ice cold beer are our rooms are already ready. Super friendly front desk guy. I'm pleased with our rooms - A/C, fridge, hot water, balcony, comfy bed and down the end of the beach away from karaoke and outdoor discos. The fridge is always stocked with beer and water too.

We decide to explore and get some lunch. We need our extend our 21 day tourist visas so we start at the immigration office which is a desk in a restaurant but find out it's only open Monday and Tuesday. So we'll have to come back. Pretty much everything in Boracay is on the beach path so we go looking at dive shops. They all look OK then we find Calypso which has a pool, bar and restaurant. Super nice guys and we book dives for the next day. Almost next door is a Mexican place called Azzuro. We will wind up spending a LOT of time at these 2 places. After some burritos and taco salads we want beach time. The rest of the day is pretty lazy. We find a cheap dinner later while exploring Boracay food options. It's not super cheap here - not like Thailand or Malaysia where we could easily have dinner for under £10. We'll struggle all week to find meals under £20.

July 24: Boracay diving. As promised by our guide Borek, we see a big frogfish among other things. It's a good start to our diving with Calypso and I decide to do my advanced course with them. My next dive is a beach navigation dive which would be totally boring if not for a seahorse in the sand. The three of us do a beach night dive which was really good - feeding octopus and lionfish. Pete gets some great video of the octopus. Can't remember where we had lunch and dinner but you can bet that one or the other was burritos at Azzuro. We learn that Joseph can do his advanced course with me, he'll have to make up his navigation dive. Easy.

July 25: Remainder of advanced dives: wreck, deep and naturalist dives. The wreck is nice - a big, deliberately sunk boat where we see our first ghost pipefish. We've been doing so much diving that emperor angelfish and huge snappers are becoming boring. Funny. On the deep dive we see mappa pufferfish and porcupinefish. The 'naturalist' dive, which to me sounds like you should do it naked, is a beautiful fairly shallow reef called Fridays Rock. Once Joseph finishes his navigation dive tomorrow, we'll both be advanced qualified. Nice. Pete and I also decide to take our Nitrox qualification which is basically watching a video, skimming a book and taking a short test. We must really like Calypso cause we are spending a BOMB with them on courses and dives. Pete says he wants something BBQd for dinner and we find the perfect place called 'I love BBQ'. They have awesome pulled pork and pork belly with sweet syrupy smoky sauce. Yum!

July 26: A day off diving but not a lazy day. We start at the immigration 'office' - a table in a restaurant where we go through a very painless visa extension process of filling out a form, handing over 9090pesos and getting an extra stamp in our passports. I think this is the only friendly immigration person I've ever met in my travels and relocations! We do a little shopping around and find ourselves back at Azzuro for amazing mango pancakes. I've managed to create a tropical version of my favourite Templeton breakfast: a big fat pancake with streaky bacon all covered in maple syrup. Seriously filling and yum. For the rest of the week we split the pancakes cause they're so big. Pete and I head back to Calypso to sit our Nitrox test. Joseph and I hand in our (very easy) book work for our advanced qualification. The tropical downpour rain starts early today around 3pm so we retreat back to the hotel. Pete and joseph chill out reading/internetting/snoozing. I go for a massage at the hotel spa next door. Cheap and good!

July 27: Pete and I do our first nitrox dives. On the next dive, Joseph does his navigation and he's finished his advanced reqirement. We're all done our new diving qualifications. Sweet. It's an early dive day and the weather is nice so we have a beach afternoon. Later we go to Calypso for dinner and wish we had gone sooner. The food is really nice, not as expensive as we thought it might be and they have wine! (most places don't)

July 28: Our last dive day. Our second dive of the day is a fast drift dive. It's a blast and we cover over a mile in less than 30 minutes. It's super fast and there's really nothing to see so we just do spins and summersaults along the way. There's some great videos and pics. We do another night dive as well with octopus, lionfish and a stonefish! And another dinner at Calypso. All good.

July 29: Beach day! Finally. We go for mango pancakes late in the morning at Azzuro then head to the beach chairs for the afternoon. I pretty much read a whole book in a sitting . (The Jimmy Choo story - lucky bitch silver spoon mouthed girl does good with her family connections) Joseph hangs out in his room all day facebooking, playing games and watching movies on his iPhone. Back to Calypso for dinner and wine!

July 30: Another day off of diving since we fly tomorrow and we've done 11 dives this week. I take Joseph for a pedicure while Pete gets online to upload phots . The girls in the pedi shop think Joseph is hillarious...his feet barely fit in the foot bath and I'm pretty sure they have a giggle about his hairy legs. I get a mani and pedi, he gets a foot scrub and pedi and the whole thing comes to less than £10. And the funniest bit is that Joseph can't stop talking about how his feet are so soft. We do a bit of shopping and relax for the afternoon.

It's our wedding anniversary today and pete bought some Moet earlier in the week so we bring it to the BBQ place we found. Moet and 2 kilos of BBQ ribs. Nice!

July 31: Moving day. The rain is bucketing down. We get picked up on a trike and somehow manage to get 5 people + 3 bags on. The banca ride back to Caticlan is super funny cause we're on the boat with a school group who want a photo with Joseph cause they think he looks like Justin Beber. At Caticlan airport we get weighed with our carry-on bags. Here's a weird one: you're only allowed 10 kilos in checked bags but you can have any weight you can carry in carry-on. So we check exactly 30kg between us and we easily have another 15-20 in carry-on. Stupid rule. We're on a tiny turboprop and I get a mobil signal to update facebook from my phone. Naughty! We land in Cebu and our driver is there to take us to our hotel in Malapascua - our next dive spot.

Last week in Borneo: Sepilok, Klias river & KK

2010-07-30T06:40:00.005+01:00

July 18: Sepilok orangutan park. Thank god the park only opens at 9:30am and the first feeding is 10am. No getting up really early! Those are civilised and not super early hours. Two orangutans come to the first feeding. These are as close as wild orangutans as we'll see in Borneo. They come in swinging and hang around for a little bit. Quite a sight. We do a small walk around the park. Loads of butterflies but unfortunately leeches as well. The park is really close to the jungle resort so we get to leave for a bit, go for lunch and a beer. At lunch, a Chinese tour group of about 6 guys were staring at my feet. I couldn't work out why until the said "Leech!" I had a little leech attached to the side of my foot happily sucking away. So gross! And even grosser that I didn't realize it was there. We hang out at lynch for a while then return for the 3pm feeding. Two more orangutan show up this time plus a pig-tailed macaque and we stay a while to watch them. We booked for a night walk at 6 and see flying squirrels, orangutans, some jungle creepy crawleys and lots of highly poisonous pit vipers. The vipers are all over the jungle which is a bit frightening to think we walked through it so much.

July 19: Short flight back to Kota Kinabalu K for a relaxing afternoon. I decide to get a haircut which turns out to be hilarious. The shampoo girl washes my hair in the stylist chair with a squeezy bottle, makes loads of suds and never spills a drop on me. The shampoo takes about 20 minutes. When they're ready to do my cut, some guy pops out from behind the counter and without a word to me just starts cutting. He trims my hair in about four and a half minutes then without a word goes back behind the counter and sticks his iPod back in. Funny! I love going to salons in foreign countries.

July 20: We're up early to go white water rafting. At the pickup time, the Proboscis river company calls to let us know that we can't go rafting cause the Beaufort train is broken. Ookaaay, but they'll pick us up a 2pm to do the rest of the trip which is to head to the Klias river for proboscis monkey spotting from a boat, then do a second cruise after dinner for fireflies. We kill time until 2 in KK by going to an Internet place so Pete can back up his photos to DVDs. At 2, we are back on track and get in a minivan for the river. When we get to the jungle 'resort' (they all call themselves resorts but this place is a riverside restaurant with some huts) there are loads of Chinese tourists with screaming kids. Crap. The proboscis river ride is good with lots spotted but there are 4 boats full of noisy tourists who scare the monkeys away so you can't really observe them for any period of time. The staff at the resort are very accommodating to us, reserving a separate table for us away from the tours for dinner and making sure we're happy which is really nice. After dinner we get a quiet boat to ourselves for fireflies, which are magical. The trees look like they have flashing white twinkle lights on them. They are so sparkling and lit up it is really impressive. After this, they let us know we can't go rafting the next day...the train in still broken and the river is flooded which doesn't make for great rafting. We stay anyway as we want to do the boat trip at dawn. What we only the realize is that once again we're the ONLY people staying the night here. No wonder they're taking care of us so well.

July 21: Alarm at 5:30. Our morning boat ride is at 6. We have the river completely to ourselves at dawn. It's glassy and the morning jungle birds are singing. Beautiful. We are out for an hour and a half, spot silver leaf monkeys who spook and run quickly. Flying foxes spar overhead on their way back in. Macaque monkeys don't care whether you're there and hang around so we watched them for a bit. Saw a few groups of female proboscis monkeys with babies. On one sighting, we spent 20 minutes with the engine off and observed about six of them feeding with the little ones jumping all over the place. Super cool. The morning gets even better when we have a fantastic breakfast with the resort to ourselves. Fresh brewed coffee (not instant!!), French toast, crepes, poached eggs and sausages. The best breakfast we've had in Borneo. And with such good service. A perfect morning. Back to KK and we have an afternoon to kill. I have a manicure, of course. Nice one too! Only 40RM = ￡8. Our last meal in Borneo is at Texas restaurant near the waterfront. We have dinner then stay to smoke a shisha while it pours with tropical rain. It has rained every single day we've been in KK. Not that it's a big problem when it's so warm out and there's a bar to sit at.

July 22: We only fly to Manila at 1:30pm so we get an easy morning to pack and go. Here's a weird run-in we had at the check in counter at the airport: we're in line at the bag drop counter and while we do some last minute zipping and checking of bags, we let some space in the line. A Malaysian dude from another line swoops into the gap so we make a bit of a fuss. He goes ballistic completely unprovoked! "Fuck you! This is my country! Queue up!" I was stunned. I wanted to yell back "We LOVE your country so don't be a dickhead!" Ha! We've met nothing but really nice Malaysians, almost always smiling so this guy comes out of nowhere. I've really loved Borneo and Malaysians. Hotel operators, restaurant staff, taxi drivers, dive guides...we've had some really good luck where we've been. We will definitely be back for the diving, jungles and beaches.

The flight to Clark in Manila is only 2 hours. Easy. But getting from Clark to our hotel in Makati takes considerably longer. Once we're off the plane we have to catch a 300peso bus (the taxi would have been 4000pesos). The bus takes a little over 2 hours + another hour stuck in Manila rush hour traffic in a taxi from the bus drop off point. So we saved 2500pesos but probably took an hour extra. But we got a taste of Manila rush hour. Insane. 10 lanes across of cut throat bumper to bumper traffic that almost never lets up. There were still traffic jams at 10pm. On the taxi to the hotel, I spot a Tony Romas. Mmmmm ribs. We head there for dinner. Love their ribs. Off to bed with full bellies for our short flight to Boracay tomorrow.

Our trip so far -Kota Kinablanu, Kuching, Semporna, Sandikan

2010-07-17T05:49:00.004+01:00

July 5: Up at 4am. We are so tired! Arrive at Tune Kuching hotel at about 8:30am. Pete is so out of it that he dropped his camera at the hotel and is wide angle lens broke. Tragedy but at least the camera still works. Drop our bags and set off to find the Bako park tourist office to see if we can stay in the park. We can't. :( We grab a cab and are there in about 40 minutes for 40RM. Then a boat to the park. Arrive at the mangroves where the tide was out and the mud was covered with mudskippers and wee crabs. We do 3 of the shorter hikes since we're pretty tired from getting up so early. We spot our first proboscis monkey proudly on show in a tree near the HQ buildings. The first hike was short but straight up to a viewpoint. The second was the busiest trail as it's on the map as the 'best' trail to see the monkeys - we did see a few. The last trail was to mangroves and we ran into about 30 macaque monkeys on the way back. Got some great shots and video. Feeling tired and lazy after our park day so we ate in chinatown for about £5 and went back to the hotel to crash at 9pm.

July 6: Bako Park again. This time the longer waterfall trail.

July 7: Sleep-in free-day in Kuching. Breakfast at the After 2 Kiosk where we can get dim sum buns. Found a good bookshop in the Tun Jugah center called Popular Book Co. So picked up the next 2 'Dragon Tattoo' books. Did some general looking around for a wide angle lens for Pete but no luck. Wound up back at After 2 for beers. The cafe was over the road from a cinema so we figured sitting in A/C would be good for a couple of hours. Saw 'Knight and Day' for 5RM each. Cheap! It was better than a UK cinema experience which isn't really hard to beat anyway. Then had dinner at the Living Room for thin crust pizza and a bottle of sauv blanc! Cool restaurant with a really chill back garden area. Hooray!

July 8: Back to KK. Arrive around 2pm and head out to find the Mt K office and look for a lens for Pete. Turns out climbing mt k is about £200 per person and it's booked up until the 25th of July which we don't really want to hang around for. We'd rather spend the money on diving. Tour books say you can do the climb on your own for cheap but it turns out the 'cheap' parks passes are sold to tour companies who sell them on to tourists like us for 100-200% markup. Forget it. (im kind of relieved anyway since mountain climbing is not my thing.) So next we go shopping for a wide angle lens. Pete picks one up for £70 cheaper than the one he bought in England. Result! Off to Texas for internetting and beer.
July 9: Free day in Kk. Turns out not so free as we spent from about 9am to 1pm reserching and booking flights around the philippines. It wasnt as easy as we thought to get the route we wanted but we booked flights to boracay, malapascua and Bohol (Cebu city), Palawan and back to Singapore via manila. We do a little shopping later in the afternoon where I pick up a couple of cute tops for £20. Ate super cheap BBQ pork on rice for dins.

July 10: Wake up super early for a flight to Kapilai dive resort. After a flight to Semporna and a 45 minute boat ride out, we arrive at the resort around 10:30 and are diving at 12:00. Nice! Got 3 dives in that day. The first reef dive was great. They've sunk wrecks around the reef and we saw batfish, parrotfish, eels, loads of butterflyfish, giant cod and grouper, pufferfish, boxfish, you name it. Second dive at Mabul island was full of turtles. They were everywhere. Third dive was on our own on the house reef. More of the same. We are schedueled for Sipidan tomorrow 5:30am start. Our room is huge with a big balcony over water. We open up all the shutters and windows so it feels really airy. Nice big bathroom too. Best part of our 'floating' bungalow is the huge green turtles that grazed under our balcony every night. We went to sleep to the sound of the ocean and the turtles coming up for air. The resort is first class. Food is good and the dining room has a cut out section down to the sea where there are tons of lionfish and blue spotted rays having their dinner.

July 11: Up at 5am for Sipidan. First dive is at 6:17am. Unbelievable day of diving. Dozens of shark on the first dive at 25m. Turtles everywhere as well. The amount of fish is amazing. Huge schools of batfish, bannerfish, angelfish. As we come up to the reef, as massive school of bumphead parrotfish move through our dive group. It's like a rush hour highway of huge parrotfish. So glad pete has pics and video of it all as the abundance and beauty of so many fish is hard to describe. The next 3 dives at Sipidan are just as exciting but not as dramatic as the first dive. Was very difficult to get out of the water when I still had 70-80 bar left and could have stayed in for 15 more minutes. The reefs at the end of each dive in just 5m of water were amazing. Gorgeous, colourful coral, loads of fish and turtles just hanging out. Even the photos and video won't do it justice.
July 12: More diving! This time a sleep in until 7am. 3 dives on Danawan, Mabul and Siamil islands plus we did a house reef sunset dive. Our guide is San-San who is really good at spotting the micro stuff + he has a magnadoodle slate so he writes down what to look for. The first dive is a sandy reef where we see a sea moth (didn't know they existed!) and an octopus really flashing its colours. Our next dives he finds us a flamboyant cuttlefish and I spot a horned cowfish. We also see loads of turtles and the othe usual suspsects on the reef. On our sunset dive, San finds a mandarin fish for Pete. He is so small and beautifully colourful. Got lots of pics.

July 12: Our last dive day :( but we still get 3 dives in as we're not flying out right away. Our early house reef dive isn't very exciting as we were just trying to go for depth and somehow after seeing so much great stuff in the past two days i think we've become harder to impress. We do see the biggest potato cod ever and lots of harlequin sweetlips. But the odd batfish, titan triggerfish or moorish idol just isn't as exciting after yesterday! Our second boat dive to Mabul was great but we missed seeing a few things due to a very beginner diver with no skill or buoyancy control who would just kick up sand and ruin all the spotting for everyone. She kicked a ribbon eel that we all wanted to see. She was a total liability and were happy to see the back of her. Our third and final dive of the trip was back to the house reef which turned out to be fantastic. After not seeing a turtle all day, we had one last one to see us off. He was coming in for a sleep. We also spotted a giant banded sea snake, loads of eels, a small clown triggerfish, all the usual beautiful reef fish and a pair of differently striped butterflyfish which are my favourite. So long Kapilai, we miss you already! So we wouldn't have to cut our diving short due to flying, we tranferred to Singamata resort. Basically it's the low-rent backpackers version of Kapilai. No big beautiful rooms with big bathroms. Singamata is shared bathrooms in small but tidy rooms. Our first dinner was a laugh in comparison too - fishhead curry! Ewwwww.

July 14: Lazy day at Singamata. We find the floating hammocks and chill out reading. Pete started the second dragon tattoo book yesterday and is almost finished already.
July 15: Another lazy day. Started out nice enough weather but soon turns stormy by lunchtime. The rain is so heavy that it fills up large plastic garbage cans in just a few minutes. It's still warm enough though. We spend the day reading, watching movies on iPods and snorkeling.
July 16: More laziness at Singamata. Hot sunny day. Pete and I are both engrossed in our 'Dragon Tattoo' books. Joseph has been watching movies on the ipods for 2 days now. We're all chilled and happy.
July 17: Leave Singamata on 10:30 boat to head to Sandikan and Sepilok orangutans. Arrive in Semporna and do ome internetting and get some lunch before our 2:30 bus to Tawau airport. We get caught in a MAJOR mid-day tropical rainstorm. Mega thunder and lightning. We are drenched!We only had to walk about 3 block but got so soaked we actually had to towel off and change our clothes before getting on the bus. Arrive at the Sepilok Jungle Resort in plenty of time for dinner. We can't get over how tired we are considering we've only been lazing about in the heat for the past few days. I can now understand how tropical third world countries are very s l o w and sleep a LOT! We eat and get to bed by 9:30. Party animals!

Our trip so far - England to Kota Kinablau

2010-07-04T15:03:00.005+01:00

The itinerary: Singapore, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Malapascua, Boracay, Palawan.

18 June: depart heathrow 12:05
19 June: arrive Singapore Studio M hotel around 9am. Go up to room, sleep till 2pm. Shop around for a backpack for me. Drinks at chijmes. Dinner @ sushi accross from Clarke Quay

20 June: Day in Singapore. Pack up our stuff and go to storage place but oops it's closed. Lunch at Maxwell food place. Dinner @ Clarke Quay mega expensive and puts Pete in a foul mood cause he feels ripped off. (3 beers and a shishe pipe cost S$68 so fair enough for feeling ripped off)
21 June (Monday): Day in Singapore. Take our stuff to storage. Go to buy ferry tickets but forgot passports so had to come back. Dinner in Chinatown.
22 June: Check out and up early for a 7:50 ferry to Sumatra. There's only a 15 minute connection between the boat from Singapore and the ferry to Sumatra and we missed it. It was supposed to be a larger boat with a bit of room to move about and get air. so we are told that there's another ferry we can take thats 4 hours followed by a 5 hour bus ride all on the same ticket. Seems fair enough but we wind up on a much smaller ferry with 100 Indonesians crammed in 80 seats inside the boat for a 6 hours in a stfling hot airless cabin. Ouch. The last few hours on the boat were bearable as lots of people got off at the first stop and it was way less packed. So we had more room and could move outside to ride on top for a while. It was still mainly a boat ride from hell. AND this 6 hour boat was followed by an 8.5 hour bus ride where at the transition point, we are the town curiosity. Don't know if these Indonesians rarely see white people or some other reason why we were so fascinating but they all wanted our picture and crowded around us with camera phones. One cop even came to the bus depot where we waited for the bus to get his picture taken with pete. We asked at the bus depot when the bus was coming, the guy just held up 5 fingers. 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 o'clock? The bus ride wound up to be 9 hours in a minivan and we arrived in Pekanbaru at 1:30am. The hotel i had booked with gave away our room but there was one across the street that took us. Painful! So we were told 4 hour boat + 5 hour bus all included in the ticket but instead got a 6 hour unpleasant boat + 8.5 hour minivan that wasn't included. And the hotel lied to us about keeping a room for us. So far after 1 day in Indonesia, I feel ripped off, lied to and completely put off the country.

23 June: Try to get out of Pekanbaru - there is really nothing there. First we hit a travel agency who tell us that there are no flights to Padang and that all the flights to Jakarta are full. So we go to the bus station to find no buses until 7pm. We dont want to wait in the heat that long. We hire a guy to drive us to Padang but when the car arrives, its a 4x4 with a 3rd bench so we'd be in super cramped seats for hours with no AC in 40 degree heat. No way. So we get out of the car and think wed rather take a proper coach on the overnight trip to Padang than sit in that cramped thing for hours. Then I have a revelation. Let's go to the aiport and roll the dice on a flight to Jakarta since we've got nothing to lose since we can't fly to Padang anyway. So we head to the airport and we can get 2 business class flights on Garuda to Jakarta but no third seat. We tell them that we'll buy the seats if they can get us another seat. I guarantee we bumped someone from their economy seat so they could sell the other 2 more expensive seats. So long Sumatra, you difficult sonofabitch. We are off to Java so we can climb Krakatoa. Arrive in Jakarta and get a taxi. The driver wants to know why we'd go into jakarta just to drive out again. So he offers to drive us straight to Carita where we can get the Krakatoa tour. He also quotes us a price lower than any we'd been quoted to get there. An honest man in indonesia? Amazing! He even helps us find a beach bungalow to stay in when we get there. Beach is nice with white sand. Aso is a super nice guy that helped us out. But we get ripped off again later that night at dinner. Our bill is 210k (£18) for a few nasi and mee gorengs. We were taken for 4 times the price we should have paid. Indonesia is doing my head in.

24 June: in the morning i work out that we're not properly in Carita but in the beachy bit called Anyer. About 1/2 hour away. We want to get closer to Carita so move to Sunset View hotel (which you can't see the sunset from!) for Krakatoa tour. Beach in Carita is busy and filthy. The tour company try to rip us off but the tour price goes from 4M to 2.5M for three of us. (£292 to £183) Pete has to get a moped pillion ride to Lubuan to go to ATM as the tour is cash only. The funny thing is that it's torrential rain. He says it was a dodgy ride but I know he thought it was good fun. Found some cheap dinner and the hotel brought beer in for us.

25 June: Krakatau tour. Boat to island only takes 1.5 hours. Volcano is amazing. Steaming and hot and we get to climb all over it. Pete wanted to go to the top and the tour guys wouldn't have stopped him. Then we go to a
black sandy beach but it's filthy with garbage. Snorkling ok but garbage in the water. Indonesians just don't care about the garbage situation. It's everywhere and they just chuck plastic wrappers and bottles out of cars, boats and in their backyards. I just don't get it. We have another dinner in Carita at our new favourite hawker. We are paying 24k for dinner now. (£2)
26 June: Get woken up at 6am by Aso to take us back to Jakarta so we can fly to Kota Kinabalu. In hindsight, we could have stayed in Indonesia longer if we stayed near the beach in Anyer and used the little silver buses we could have enjoyed cheap food and beaches. i think we were really traumatised by our first 2 days of travel in Indonesia. Oh well! Off to Kota Kinabalu. It's immediately better! KK is a bit of a tourist town and much easier to manage. At around 11pm we go out for dinner. We SMS a dive company to see if we can dive in the morning from the Texas restaurant as they have internet and computers at the tables. Staying at Summer House backpackers.
27 June: The dive place phones us back at 6;45 and we can go diving! Great day, good lunch, met some good people. We're doing it again tomorrow.
28 June: More diving in KK. Another good day. After, we head out to book our next moves and go to the seafood market on the waterfront in KK. Fantastic dinner with a whole grilled squid, a whole grilled fish and a couple of plates of noodles. A total feast that comes to the equivalent of £11. Met a cool retired couple at our backpackers that are from Sydney and travelling the world for 5 years. They've highly recommended we check out Kuching and Bako Park as well as Sri Lanka for a future trip. They also recommended a floating hostel called Singamata that we're putting on the list.

June 29 - July 4: I booked www.Manana-Borneo.com for 5 days. A bit of a leap of faith, their website looked good and it got some great write ups on the Lonely Planet website. It's cheap, on a private beach and we get our own bungalows. Perfect. Yam picks us up at 10:30 for the ride there, we stop at a market to get some fruit and we're at the 'resort' by 12:30 or so. It couldn't be more chilled. No phone, no tv, no Internet. 5 days of quiet and beach. We've had perfect beach weather coupled with stormy days where it's still 30+ degrees with amazing electrical storms and insane rain. At least we could watch with a beer in hand from our hammocks. The mornings are so calm and the sea is so flat you can't tell where the ocean ends and sky starts. The butterflys are huge and beautiful plus there are so many of them! A leaf fell on our table at breakfast and it turned out to be a giant moth. Amazing! In the 5 days we've been here weve seen kingfishers at the beach, loads of huge butterflys that make monarchs look small and ordinary and macaque monkeys in the trees right behind our bungalow. The snorkling is good too where we saw butterfly fish, anemone fish, nudibranches, gobies, brittlestars and an octopus among others. Bit of a worry when pete and i both spotted a box jellyfish at the beach. (How long has it been there?! We've been in and out of the water. Scary. ) It's been a bit of a struggle with Joseph and hygeine. He's just not grasping keeping things from getting swampy in the tropics. But we are all getting along well on our deserted island with cards, pool table, beach and snorkling. Food has been good considering its basically cooked in a camp kitchen - but the Bbq dinner was terrible with blackened meat and oily sides. We were a little worried theyd run out of beer but they never did. It's been a super chill 5 days at our own private beach.
July 4: Back in KK by 2pm. Pick up some deet and cold medication as I've picked up a stupid cold. Found a place to get a 45RM pedicure. Booked a few things at Texas then went for sushi. I'm going to bed early! We have to wake up early and I'm feeling a bit ugh.

So long England

2010-06-18T15:00:00.000+01:00

I'll fill in all about our British exit later. But the house finally sold, we quit our jobs and we're off!

A few things I can tell you about April

2010-05-03T19:52:00.005+01:00

Selling a house in the UK is insane. Especially when the house is about 180 years old. We got the perfect offer about a month ago, then it's been sitting with lawyers ever since. Apparently we have to cough up pretty much every shred of documents referring to planning permissions since 1821. OMG we could die waiting.

The 'no spend April' went pretty well. I really only bought some hair products at Sally. A girl's gotta colour her hair right? I also went through Belgium to Amsterdam so spent some money there but didn't put a thing on credit cards and only took about about 120 Euros. All up, I probably spent £200 that I didn't need to this month. That's amazing for me. Money in the bank at the end of the month? Check!

And the third thing, um, damn I forgot.

I am weak

2010-04-02T11:55:00.003+01:00

I caved last week and bought a couple of things: A pair of Jimmy Choo flats on eBay for £51. A return ticket from Amsterdam for £130 - I'm road tripping there. An iPhone app for £5.99. I couldn't make the week.

So for April, I'm going to make some changes:

I'm putting a few things on eBay tomorrow so some of that money can come back.

I have nothing on my eBay watch list and won't for the month of April.

I will not buy anything in Amsterdam + we're going in a camper (free accomodation but will have to buy a couple of tanks of gas)

I will not buy any lunches for the month of April (inlcuding fridays at the Borough market)

The month of April will be about clearing the closet for eBay or charity shops. Not buying any cosmetic-y crap and going through what I've got. And saving calories and money not eating out. There I said it, so will that make me stick to it?

7 days in ...

2010-03-28T19:16:00.003+01:00

And I haven't bought a thing. It's only because I was away skiing with a bunch of folks and the village was pretty small with no real shops to speak of.

Fun pics here:

This week will be the real test.

Not allowed to shop

2010-03-20T08:47:00.004Z

I got firm talking to the other night (by the husband of course) about my spending. Which can be a little excessive, even though I make perfectly decent money. This all has to be taken with a grain of salt as the very next day he went out and bought new Quicksilver snowboard pants. Hm.

Anyhoo he might have a point. We've been travelling a lot lately and I do get pretty spendy. PS - just scored an amazing looking Stella McCartney tuxedo jacket on eBay for £99. And I've got trips lined up for Italy, Amsterdam and maybe even Boston in the next month or so. So!

My pledge: no spending for 30 days. No clothes, beauty items, shoes, gadgets, inatimate shit of any sort. I'd take the AA method of 'one day at a time' but that's not my issue. I'll go a week without buying anything but then I gorge. I almost never buy one thing...I make up for lost time. So that's the challenge. A bit of a cheat as I'm going away for a week and under the watchful eye of the husband I won't get away with anything. The rest of the 30 days? Say a little prayer.

The cool think about the UK - leaving it.

2010-03-16T02:51:00.000Z

A week ago today, I was in Paris with the husband. The neat thing about living fairly close to the Channel Tunnel is being able to be in France from about 2 hours from leaving our door.

So we went to Paris for lunch. On a Tuesday.

Last year we went in June for the French Open tennis and it was very much his trip. We went to his favourite spots, watched the tennis and drank many beers in cafes and brasseries all over town.

This was *my* trip. Collette, Rue Saint-Honoré, Place Vendôme, Hotel Costes and up the Eiffel Tower. For all the times I've been to Paris, I've never been up. Pics and videos here.

One thing to keep in mind if you want to shop properly at Colette: you have to be minted. There were very few clothing items under 500 euros. Dresses and coats? Forgetaboutit. But the upside is that there's a very cool CD and book section. (I discovered the Two Door Cinema Club whose CD I can't get enough of.) Also, the small perfumes and beuty section feels exclusive and very well chosen. I got a small set of Juliette Has A Gun perfume that I'd been coveting in Selfriges for a while. But I'd never seen it in bullet form before. Score!

One thing to keep in mind at Hotel Costes: you have to be minted. Costes in Paris is supposed to be lengendary. So we go for a drink. Sit down at the bar and get completely ignored. The cheapest glass of wine is 16 euros and the cocktails run about 20 euros. So we left. (Maybe we didn't look like we were made of money?) I may have nicked this from the loo on the way out. Bonus that it's completely full. Apparently worth about $45. Score!

Haven't posted in 2 years

2010-03-14T14:55:00.004Z

Weird.

Here's what's happened + some random facts in point form:

Was happily living in Sydney, Australia
Met my husband March 27, 2008 while he was visiting from the UK
Decided to move to the UK June 2008
Got married in Greece July 2008
Economy collapsed August 2008
Started job search October 2008
Found job to start in January.
Christmas 2008 in Vancouver and Whistler
Started job January 2009. Hated it. Lasted 2 weeks.
Found new job April 2009. Love it.
Have been working, travelling and generally enjoying life
Christmas 2009 in Thailand
January 2010: coldest, snowiest winter in UK history
January 2010: decide to get the 'f' out of the UK and back to Australia. And have been trying ever since. See 'economy in toilet' bit above. Our Brighton apt is on the market. Need a taker!

Random facts:

I'm 37 and a half
I lost 20 lbs last year and feel pretty damn good about it
I was taking some great pics last year and wish I could get back to that
I hate the UK - happy for someone to change my mind
When bummed out, I shop and eat. More on that later
All of the above will have something to do with future posts

So I kind of regret not documenting what's been happening the past 2 years as there's been lots on. But regret is for dummies and let's just look forward.

Dear Blogger

2008-11-19T09:35:00.000Z

This isn't a spam blog...I just haven't decided whether to keep going with it or not. Please don't delete me.

Thanks.

Singing the praises of...Kmart?

2008-03-29T04:31:00.002Z

Been to Kmart lately? Since needing to set up in a new apartment, I've stumbled upon a cheapass alternative to Freedom and the likes. Plus Kmart rocks on Ikea cause you don't have to go to the burbs and battle the crowds. All the housey organizing gear you need, branded as Homemaker.

My tower of shoes - $39 for the rack.

Cool outdoor lighting, if I had a backyard I'd love these:

Cheapo lamps galore - nothing over 50 bucks:

Mucho cheapo organizo:

Ebay giveth and Ebay taketh away

2008-03-17T11:37:00.003Z

Giveth:
I'm cleaning out my perfume stash. I'm pretty consistently wearing Flowerbomb most of the time and Badgley Mishka for evenings/once in a while.

So buy some of my stash! LINK HERE

Taketh away (my money I mean):
Scores of the weekend - 2 tables, which I *needed* I tell you. This super cool dining table for $230 from Nick Scali. They said they paid $599 for it, which from Nick Scali I believe:

And this little cafe table for the balcony - I'll bet the guy stole it from some pub but I don't really care. He lives near my work so it was cheap and easy. $40!

The goodness of the roundness of the tables balances out all the angles that are otherwise in my place. Happy happy joy joy!

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It's been a while

2008-03-11T06:41:00.003Z

It's been a while since Feb 21st and much has gone on!

I've been to NZ and back for work. Got a mediocre pedicure in Takapuna Beach, Auckland:

Had crazy houseguests for almost 2 weeks:

Shopped in Perth, Freemantle and Margaret River and bought a boatload of wine. When people tell you it's wine country with beautiful beaches, believe them! It doesn't get better.

Moved apartments and haven't had broadband for a week now. Fingers crossed it's on when I get home tonight!

Bought a new dress and got a new haircut last weekend in Double Bay:

So the shopping for the next little while will be focused on getting my new place in order. I'm looking forward to finding a bit of new funky furniture. And maybe doing a little DIY in the new place.

I never thought I'd be blogging about...

2008-02-21T09:42:00.005Z

...pantyliners!

But seriously, aren't these cute? They come in a little tin! I'd totally have these in my bag.

(Found at the Bi-Lo in the Broadway.)
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Glebe!

2008-02-17T10:51:00.002Z

Maybe cause I work there and get my delicious morning coffee on Glebe Point Road everyday, I love Glebe! I'm there all week, then I want to go back once in a while on Saturdays to check out the markets. Tops!

Had a great day with Zil at the Glebe Markets and guess what? I. Bought. Nothing. Seriously!

She did awesome tho and got 3 tops, a chunky necklace and a pair of sunnies for under $100. Sweetness!

Than we drank beer. Yay!

Tap my veins...

2008-02-15T00:23:00.004Z

...and Sauvignon Blanc will flow.

Zilya is here! We were each others' dates for Valentines Day yesterday! We are eating and drinking up a storm! And we're not stoppin! No sirree!

(If I was more organized, we'd be going to PJ Harvey tonight. Damn.)
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The Weather Outside is Frightful

2008-02-09T01:16:00.001Z

It's been raining for ages....I feel like I'm in a crap Vancouver summer. And it's bumming me out.

But the upside is that Zil is coming to visit on Monday. So what should we do in Sydney?

Pubs: Dolphin, Whitehorse, Tilbury, The AB, Opera Bar, Argyle, The Oaks, Mosman RSL, Bondi RSL, Kirribili Club.

Sightseeing: Botanic Gardens, Circular Quay, Rocks, Northern Beaches, Watsons Bay, Shopping Oxford St, Taronga Zoo, ferry to Manley.

Not sure what else to do! Help!
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Buy my stuff on eBay!

2008-01-29T07:57:00.000Z

Please! You'll be enabling me to buy more.

LINK!

My Babies

2008-01-27T03:46:00.000Z

I need to figure out how to store my shoes...they're getting dusty on the floor. I'm a proud owner of 3 pairs of Prada, 2 pairs of Jimmy Choos, 1 each of Kate Spade, Miu Miu, Marc Jacobs, Manolos. And loads more. I didn't realize I was building such a collection.

I'm a bit of a nerd now

2008-01-24T01:39:00.000Z

I got glasses yesterday. My eyes are going, the end is near I tell you.

But here's the best part...I got Gucci glasses super cheap! And they threw in a pair of Michael Kors sunnies. Both pairs came to $325 and my medical fund paid for $200 of it. Nice!

So if you're in Sydney and need glasses, head to Urban Eyewear in the Broadway Shopping Centre - it's near the medical and dental offices. Most frames are 1/2 price, lenses are only $125 and they throw in a brand name pair of sunnies for free. Love it! (Don't go to OPSM as they are lazy and unhelpful!)

And to continue on the nerdiness, here's my list of books of books I read in 2007:
1. Left Bank - Kate Muir
2. Goodnight Nobody - Jennifer Weiner
3. Gucci - Sara Gay Forden
4. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal ~ Christopher Moore
5. The Rachel Papers - Martin Amis (only got 1/3 way through - I just didn't like it)
6. Debutante Divorcee - Plum Sykes
7. Barrel Fever - David Sedaris
8. Citizen Girl - Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
9. My Friend Leonard - James Frey
10. The Food of Love: A Novel ~ Anthony Capella
11. Any Place I Hang My Hat: A Novel ~ Susan Isaacs
12. Prep ~ Curtis Sittenfeld
13. You suck : a love story ~ Moore, Christopher
14. Angels & Demons ~ Dan Brown
15. JPod ~ Douglas Coupland
16. Shantaram ~ Gregory David Roberts (Took forever to read but was so good)
17. Naïve. Super - Erlend Loe and Tor Ketil Solberg
18. Cents and Sensibility - Maggie Alderson
19. Hello, He Lied...and Other Tales from the Hollywood Trenches ~ Lynda Obst
20. Anonymous lawyer - Jeremy Blachman
21. Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine (Interesting but doesn't make me want to stop shopping!
22. The Pleasure of My Company – Steve Martin

Not quite one every other week. Shantaram took ages to read but was made up for by some really trashy chick-lit beach books.

Can Feb 1 be the new Jan 1?

2008-01-22T12:08:00.000Z

I feel like this month is practically over. I haven't a clue where it went...oh yes I do!

Vancouver, Boston, NYC and Melbourne for the Aussie Open.

And I'm flossing more!
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Jan 15th is the new New Year's Day

2008-01-15T09:37:00.000Z

I get 2 weeks grace cause I've been away.

Here we go with the resolutions, never mind eating better and getting to the gym more:
1. Wear sunscreen more. I've had the worst sunburns in the past year.
2. Floss more. I am the worst!
3. Take more interesting pictures. I kind of stopped in the past 6 months or so.
4. Meet more people. It's a big city and there are lots of folks out there.
5. Buy and reupholster an old chair is some funky fresh fabric.

That's not so hard is it?

New additions to the family

2008-01-13T22:05:00.000Z

Just got back home yesterday. An unexpected trip to NYC was one of the highlights of my trip back. Caro and I got up to lots in our 30 hours in the city: shopping, eating, drinking and hillarious belly laughs. In a day and a bit we covered:

Got off the Amtrak and headed straight to Soho. Tons of shopping + a fab lunch at the Mercer Kitchen. Funny thing is that the busiest shop we went to was Caro's choice. Purl was packed!

After regrouping in the hotel bar, we headed to Ruby Foo's - total Vegas-y touristy restaurant but the food was really good.

We stayed up a bit late and it was totally funny when there was a 3am fire alarm and Caro sprang up and bolted to the opposite side of the room to try and turn it off. Best. Laughs. Ever.

Off to the MoMa in the morning, followed by midtown shopping and cocktails.

Best shopping experience of the trip - the super gorgeous Saks Shoe floor. They had tons of designer shoes 1/2 off. I still wasn't that inclined to spend $300 on shoes...but then found out they were an additional 40% off.(Now we're talkin!!!) Bought a pair of Pradas and a pair of Miu Mius. This was followed by beers in the Saks 5th floor cafe with a view of Rockerfeller centre.

We finished the trip with drinks and snacks in Grand Central Station.

I also picked up a super shiny Stella McCartney bag + an Alexander McQueen carry-on bag at Holts in Vancouver. I think I have a thing for patent leather, no?

Shopping moratorium starts now.
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Greetings from Boston

2008-01-05T22:29:00.000Z

It's effing cold. 15 below when I landed.

Shopping has been good and if the best way to learn a city if you ask me, and I know that you did. We hit the H&M, DSW and plenty of others. Best scores: $10 shoes at Banana Republic (marked down from $89.99 - how do they do it?!) and $15 black patent boots from Target. Nice!

Man I love how cheap North America is!

More to love in Vancouver

2007-12-28T20:51:00.000Z

Peanut Butter in little packages on the table in greasy spoons.

Snow on the windshield...and when all the roof snow slides down the windshiel when you jam on the brakes.

What I like about Vancouver

2007-12-25T22:43:00.000Z

Shopping in SFO was fantastic - I spent a bomb at Marc Jacobs on Filmore St (I think I bought one of everything), found a pair of used Ferragamo boots for $28 bucks in my favourite pre-loved clothes shop and spent a little time in Bloomingdales - picking up some gorgeous Juicy bracelets and earrings at a quarter of the price I'd pay in Australia. So much fun! But it really pooped me out and is heavily contributing to the jetlag I'm feeling.

So here's what I love about Vancouver - just some things I only noticed that I miss once I got back here.

Firstly - a white Christmas! It's snowing right now! It's wet heavy Vancouver snow but I don't care.

Pay a the pump - it's cold out and the less time I spend out there the better. Why don't we have this in Sydney?

My favourite, favourite Hot & Sour Soup from my favourite no frills Chinese restaurant at Main & Broadway. Used to be called Ho Tak Kee - now it's New Maple. Same food tho. Go figure. The soup is still $6 bucks! And plates of BBQ Pork on Rice are still $3.50. Sweet.

Cheap Coke. Seriously $2.43?

More later...

Shopping in San Francisco

2007-12-18T09:28:00.000Z

When Air canada hands you lemons, you make lemonade. The rat bastards changed my flights so I have a 10 hour layover in SFO. 10 hours!!!

So I'm going shopping.

I've mapped out: Sephora, H&M, Saks, Neimans, Ferragamo, Marc Jacobs, Ted Baker, Sur La table, Victoria Secret, Agnes B, Crate & Barrell etc etc Basically all the American shopping they don't have in Vancouver. Anything I've missed?

I must report back - I'm looking forward to marc jacobs the most.

(Don't know if you noticed I haven't posted much lately but between the silly season and working for a Christmas company, it's been pretty busy.)

I ♥ Melbourne

2007-12-08T22:54:00.000Z

Anytime there's an opportunity to go to Melbourne for work, I put up my hand. It's a cool town with great shopping and food plus is decidedly cheaper to get a beer. What's not to love?

So I've been twice in the past month...fave hotel? The Prince. Hands down. For the price ($195 for a basic room) it's perfect. It's a modern boutique hotel with a spa, pool, great pub and coffeeshop/bakery in St Kilda. Bliss!

But I couldn't get in to the Prince last week (horror!) PLUS couldn't even find a hotel I wanted to stay in for 2 nights in a row so I did a 'boutique motel' tour.

First night - the Cosmopilitan in St Kilda. It's the same price as the Prince for a basic room. The room had a kitchenette but the hotel doesn't have all the ammenities. Great location. Room was very nice and modern. The restaurant downstairs is good too. I'd stay again.

Then I stayed at the Albany in South Yarra. It looks cute on the website and you can see that they're trying to be modern and cool. But they've just put cheap modern furniture and a coat of paint on an old motel. This one just isn't as good at the Prince and Cosmopolitan plus doesn't have almost any amenities. For the money (it was only $139 a night) it just scrapes by. For the price, I'd rather stay at the Novotel in St Kilda.

Singapore: Food & Hotel

2007-11-26T11:11:00.000Z

Singaporeans love complexes - destinations for eating and drinking. And there's no end to them and theme restaurants and bars. I'm sure I only saw the tip of the iceberg...this is just a few of the place I loved:

Dempsey Hill: A park full of cool restaurants and a *giant* Jones the Grocer, transplanted form Australia. Cool!

Rochester Park: Went to Graze and hung out on the zen alfresco lounges at Da Paolo.

Clarke Quay: It's like Downtown Disney with booze! Feels like there are a billion bars there...Ministry of Sound bar, a Fashion TV bar and a bar called Clinic where the chairs are wheelchairs and drinks come in a drip. Weird!

Chijmes: Another complex in the city. It used to be an old convent but is now rull of place to eat and shop. Of course!

Sentosa: Reminds me of Vegas in that everything is man made...the beaches, the resorts, the whole tropical resort island feel. Hung out at Cafe Del Mar for a day. Could have easily spent a whole holiday there. It had pools, hot tubs, beach, and best of all, lounger-side drink service.

The hotel - the Scarlett: A-maz-ing. Modern boudoir chic. The website does not do it justice. Best part is the rooftop bar and restaurant.

SJP on PR4

2007-11-24T09:48:00.000Z

So they bring in Sarah Jessica Parker to be a guest judge on Project Runway...she's cute and all but she's so boring! No catty remarks, no insightful comments, no juicy bits at all. (Have you see her Bitten line...bo-ring!)

I know SJP is supposed to be a fashion icon and all that...but I can't help but wonder: who are all the people in the background getting her those looks and styling her? I guarantee it's not her!

I know I sound like a jealous bitch but I think people should get credit where credit is due. Seems like her fashion style is spot on (stylist) but when she actually has a hand it them, the things she puts her name to fall short (Bitten and the stinky Covet)
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Singapore: The Shopping

2007-11-23T10:53:00.000Z

If you only know 2 things about shopping in Singapore: It is not cheap. The range is amazing.

Staying at a hotel just off of Orchard Road is dangerous! Taxis are super cheap...5 bucks (tops!) to get anywhere. There is ridiculous amount of countless malls and shops.

I learned from locals that Singaporeans are really heavily in debt as banks will lend to anyone...there are ads for all kinds of credit cards everywhere. There were more than a few ads where they could just SMS their bank and they'd increase their limit. Crazy!

Do not miss:

Paragon For the best Miu Miu shop! Banana Republic (I miss this in Sydney)

Centrepoint For Marks and Sparks, Gap (Which is as boring as I remember)

Takashimaya The best Agnes b selection! Gorgeous Paul & Joe cosmetics counter.

Tangs Cheap shoes, great Stila counter.

Wisma Atria Huge Topshop and Forever 21.

Vivo City Zara, Bebe, Ted Baker.

Sim Lim Square 8 floors of electronics extravaganza ...mobile phones, computers and digital cameras.

Charles & Keith This shop is in most of the malls. No pair of shoes is over $60. No designer trend is sacred as everything seems to be a knock-off.

I surprised myself at how little I bought...price was the deterrent. Don't know why I thought Singapore would be cheaper, but I'm better off saving my fun money for my trip back to Vancouver and the US next month.

I bought a few cheap pairs of shoes at Charles & Keith's. A couple of pieces at Top Shop and a few odds and ends at Agnes b. Not much else really. I'm saving myself for Marc Jacobs in SFO! More on that later...

Singapore: The Flight

2007-11-18T10:11:00.000Z

How lucky am I to have been on an Airbus A380? It's everything you've heard about...roomy, quiet, comfortable. Singapore Airlines seems to be very proud to be the first to fly these things...it's written everywhere.

The flight was delayed about 45 minutes...first they said it was because the incoming plane was late, then they changed their story to a fault with the plane, then they loaded us up. Getting everyone on didn't take anywhere near as long you might think it would. The takeoff was easy as. It barely feels like it's trying to get off the ground...it just does.

Best part? The entertainment system in the back of the seats. I could choose from an amazing selection of 100 movies, hundreds more TV shows and tons of games and CDs. I had my own French film festival of Hors de Prix, Paris Je t'Aime and Odette Toulemonde. Eight and a half hours flew by and I didn't even look at the British Vogue I had bought.

One word of advice if you're on one of these flights: Check in online to secure your seat. I only checked in at the airport on the morning and could only get a middle seat. Luckily, I was between a tiny German backpacking girl and an equally tiny nerdy looking guy who let me check out his iPhone (I hadn't seen one in person yet)

Off to Singapore in the morning!

2007-11-08T09:01:00.000Z

The land of shoes and bag and shopping and chilli crab and shopping! Yay! Will post a full report upon my return.

The real land of shoes and bags is here next February, if you're in the trade.

3 more sleeps!

2007-11-06T10:36:00.000Z

3 more sleeps until I go to the land of bags and shoes...

10 more sleeps!

2007-11-05T09:58:00.000Z

Uniquely Sydney Experiences

2007-10-31T08:16:00.000Z

First of all, Bridgeclimb! So worth it. So touristy. Check me out rocking the jumpsuit last week with my Mom!

Then last weekend, I was supposed to be on a booze cruise at noon on Saturday. But I though it was at 1pm. Whoops. So, after rushing down there, I got to Pyrmont just as the boat was pulling away. I'm no quitter so I called a water taxi to take me to meet the boat. (If it wasn't a 4 hour cruise full of cheap grog I never would have done it.) Needless to say, I got a good cheer from the folks on the boat when I arrived. And the rest of the day was fantastic: sun, friends, cheap sparkling, cheesy cover band...good times! Fun!

Approaching the boat:

My arrival (note the yellow of the water taxi in the background):

Next Obsession

2007-10-27T02:00:00.000+01:00

Chandeliers!

If you're a reader of design sponge or Apartment Therapy, they've made many mentions of vinyl wall decals. I've always thought they were pretty expensive from places like Blik and Domestic considering how much they cost to ship to Australia. I saw the Domestic ones in Auckland they're gorgeous but were $300 and up even on sale. Spendy!

Chandeliers seem to be everywhere right now so of course I lemminged on. Here are 2 cheaper alternatives to get your decals...and to Australia!

Etsy Shop: One Up Wall Graphics $12 shipping to Aus.

Creatively Named Website: Vinyl Wall Art. I bought from their site..$3 shipping! What do you think?

Latest Shoe Obession

2007-10-25T09:29:00.000+01:00

Somewhere between being flat out at work and having dodgy internet connectivity, it has been 2 weeks. Where does the time go people?!

But I can usually keep up with what's in the shops...latest obsession: Marc by Marc Jacobs nude patent pumps...$500 in Myer in the city right now.

They're $363.95 at Zappos in the US...with exchange and shipping via Kim, they'll only wind up slightly cheaper than the $500 here. (PS I don't care how uncomfortable the reviews say they are...that's practically a challenge to me!)

So here's my question: who knows when these will go on sale at either Myer or Zappos? I want em!

More Shopping this Weekend

2007-10-11T04:39:00.000+01:00

Click on it for a clearer view...I am *so* going.

My love of markets

2007-10-09T04:21:00.001+01:00

After posting about 3 really good markets last weekend, I only got to one. The Pyrmont Good Living Growers was busy and there was much sold out by 9:30 am. Mmmmmm Chili Jam.

After the plethora of markets last weekend, I'll be enjoying the Night Noodle markets for the next couple of weeks...I'll be going a lot so here's my rule. Never eat at the same stall twice. There's too much to sample. And I just noticed that the listing says no BYO. Whatever!

Shopping this Weekend

2007-10-05T00:50:00.000+01:00

I'm excited for the markets this weekend! And haven't been to the Good Living and Surry Hills markets in a while.

But also this weekend are the Hope Street Markets in Surry Hills. Looks like it's going to be a real life version of shopping etsy or madeit. Woo hoo!

Victoria Beckham's feet are messed up

2007-10-04T03:32:00.000+01:00

I am quite proud to say that my feet are recovering from the shock of the last few weeks...I am wearing my highest heels in moderation and my tootsies are thanking me for it. I don't generally have problems...I'm a perfect size 8...I never get blisters...I can order shoes online and they always fit. Yay me!

But poor Victoria Beckham...has to wear designer shoes all day and her feet are paying the price. I caught that show that she did a little while ago...was rather entertaining as she's pretty funny and cute. But her feet are deformed!

Check these screen caps - sorry for the low res but I do what I can...more closely now...owie!

And check out what she usually wears for outings...oh how we suffer for fashion.

My feet are confused

2007-10-01T10:44:00.000+01:00

In the airport last week, I bought crocs. It was a moment of weakness cause my feet were killing me and a 3 day work trip was looming. Who knew I'd give in to this hideous trend? Allow me to explain.

Remember this pic of the super fabu shoes that I raked in over the course of a single weekend? They are all beyond gorgeous but I think I've destroyed my feet. They are thoroughly confused and I don't blame them.

I've been going between the black sparkly super flat ones and the purple snakeskin super high ones. Somewhere in between my feet have begun protesting which has manifested in a sharp pain under my right instep. Ouchies!

So the crocs purchase was made because I heard they are the most comfy shoes on the planet. Let me tell you this is utter BS. They are no better than the flat shoes with no support and are going on eBay tout suite. My feet hang their toes in shame to have given in to the hype.

Airport impulse shopping? Lesson learned.

LOLFrenchVogue

2007-09-30T12:21:00.000+01:00

I like LOLCATS but somehow this is more my speed. lol fer sher!

Wanna go shopping in Bondi?

2007-09-29T10:24:00.000+01:00

I like these guides...Gould Street in Bondi is the place to find your new bikini or a super cute maxidress.

New Favourite Place

2007-09-19T11:30:00.000+01:00

Slick, inventive sushi. This is my Hapa Izakaya replacement. Finally!

We likey.
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I like to rasterbate

2007-09-17T12:28:00.000+01:00

How cool is this...take a tiny photo and turn it into giant oversized wall art. It turned a tiny 150 x 215px image into a 1.5m X 2m poster. Nice!

Look familiar?

I miss Clinton and Stacey

2007-09-13T12:02:00.000+01:00

I've been in over a year of What Not to Wear withdrawal. (And yes I know the BBC one is better in it's own way.)

This made it worse:

I love Tim Gunn but he should be the brains behind the design school on Project Runway, not a makeover guru. The man can't carry his own show. He's way too dry, which is usually what I love about him. Works on Runway but not his own show. I'll only suffer through one episode...can't wait for Heidi!

No one posts WNTW online so I took matter into my own hands. I weaseled a US iTunes account from Australia. It's dead easy...I just got a friend in the US to get me a US gift certificate and voila! I have a US account so I can download the show. I'm back in the game and it's almost legit! Here's why I love them:

Watching the screen...
Clinton: Oh, that's cashmere.
Stacey: How can you tell that's cashmere?
Clinton: Are you kidding? I can spot it a mile away.
Stacey: Really.
Clinton: You know if I were a super hero, I'd be Cashmere Man.

I am a Sydney girl

2007-09-07T07:38:00.000+01:00

Along the way of my trip back to Vancouver a bunch of people asked me which I prefer....Sydney or Vancouver. I thought I'd really feel pangs for Vancouver when I was back there but I didn't. I definitely felt awful leaving friends and family behind especially when flying out on Sunday. Bittersweet is a clichéd term to use but works here.

Honestly it's not that easy to choose. How can I deny a city where I grew up and I know all the ins and outs? And how can I not choose a city with so much to offer that I've barely cracked? (Never mind a country I've barely explored.) So instead of declaring which city is better, I'd rather decide by...which one feels like home now. Sydney.

I've checked off a fair bit on this list...here are some of the things I wanted to do just before we moved:

Surf well. Not just flail and settle for just being able to stand up. OK. Haven't tackled this one yet depite living near Bondi.But having just lost 10 pounds (with more to go) and joining a new gym I'll feel up for it this summer!

Ski in NZ or AUS. This is on the books for next year fer sher. I dug through the ski gear and we're all set for NZ next July.

~~Buy a hot little convertible.~~ Check! I loved my little Puegot 206cc but it was *too* small.

Visit Nonna. I am very upset with myself for not seeing her before she passed away. It was 3 months after we got here and makes me realize that we shouldn't really put anything off.

~~Trip to Adelaide & Barossa Valley.~~ Half check! Went to Adelaide and mcLaren Vale (close enough!) for Easter. Brought back great wines.

~~Christmas on the beach.~~ Half check! Went to Adelaide for Christmas and although it was unseasonably cold, went down to the beach anyway.

~~Find new favorite shops, beauty products, cool neighborhoods. This will be the funnest!~~ Super check! If you read me, you know. My favourite thing here is the market and festival culture.

~~Live in an apartment with a view and hopefully a pool.~~ Check again! We have a view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. No pool, but 11 blocks from the beach is AOK.

~~Feel like I'm really 'at home' aformentioned apartment.~~ Check! After living in thig apt for 10 months, it's time to spend some money on a bit of paint and organization so it really feels comfy.

~~Live near a park or seawall so I can find a good walking route.~~ Check! can you say 'Bondi to Bronte'?

~~Find a new fave cheap Chinese noodle house.~~ Check! Not a noodle house, but BBQ King is the closest thing to Vancouver Chinese food to be found. Best Hot & Sour Soup in town.

Figure out how to get Tivo working in Sydney. I don't really care for TV here - free-to-air is pretty limited and I can't be bothered getting FoxTel when I have a good internet connection.

Go to the movies at a La Premiere theatre. (Just to see if it's worth it.) Just can't bring myself to pay $25 for a movie ticket.

Find a way to turn Craig into a food and wine lover. There's so much food and wine to explore. Still working on this but can't complain cause he's easy to feed.

~~Work somewhere fun with people I really like.~~ Check! I like going to work every day and think it's pretty cool working in Glebe in a converted pub where we have happy hour plenty of days at 4pm.

~~Trip to Asia.~~ Check! Does Bali count?

Trip to the Whitsundays. Still on the list.

Watch a game of cricket, ~~Aussie rules, rugby.~~ (I have no idea how any of these games work.) 2/3 check! Went to a Swans game, loved it. Went to a Manley Sea eagles game, didn't get it at all. Not so sure about cricket...

~~Make a plan for networking to maintain contacts here and build new ones there.~~ Check! I'm doing a fairly good job of keeping in touch with Vancouver...need to meet a few more people here but doing pretty well so far.

~~Be in Sydney harbour for New Years Eve fireworks.~~ Check! Loved the fireworks, mayhem and everything.

~~Join some kind of group or class.~~ Does joining a gym and pilates studio where they know me now count?

Take tons of pictures to put on flickr. Check! Easy as.

~~Get a sweet new mobile phone.~~ I did and I hate it. I want to back over it with my car. I'll get a new one in Singapore.

~~Go to some Sydney Design Festival events.~~ Check! 2006 and 2007.

~~Go to the Australian Open.~~ Check! Watched in Rod Laver on a Saturday night to watch Leyton Hewitt. Not too shabby.

Here's what I'm adding to the list for the upcoming year:

Visit Laura and Travvi in Singapore.

Buy property in Sydney.

Check off more resturants from the Good Food Guide.

Go to the outdoor cinema at least once. I have no idea how I didn't do this last summer.

Dinner at Sean's Panorama as it's only blocks away.

Bridgeclimb with my Mom. Hear that Mumsy?

Get to Margaret River. Beaches and wineries? I'm in.

Ski NZ, beach in the Whitsundays, surf locally. (Holdovers from list above.)

This is just the stuff I can think of now. There's lots more to go here. Yay!
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Halfway through my trip

2007-08-28T23:23:00.000+01:00

Some first impressions being back in Vancouver...

Being in the 'summer' weather reminds me that I'm happy I left.

Having said that, I really do miss my Vancouver peeps.

My new little nephew is the most adorable baby on the planet. Fact.

Sake does not always turn me evil.

4-way-stops are retarded.

I don't really miss Starbucks the way I thought I would.

Sales tax and tipping is dumb.

H&M is worth the trip to the boonies. I mean suburbs.

The new paint job on Vancouver buses is serously depressing. Why grey in a city so grey?

I haven't downloaded any photos from my camera yet so H&M in Coquitlam is all you get from me for now.

Canucks new sweater launch

2007-08-21T11:14:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be in vancouver for the new sweater! Coooool.

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!

2007-08-19T03:05:00.000+01:00

Just got this email from Club Monaco. Not fall!!!

I'll be in Vancouver on Friday. But I want to come and shop for summer stuff...the stores will probably have loads of fall clothes. Good thing is I guess the summer gear will all be on sale!

The forecast form the Weather Network...bring on summer!

Sue me, noobs.

2007-08-14T11:32:00.000+01:00

I love Vogue Forums...those girls have helped me a lot in my past year here in Sydney. I've done a lot of exploring on my own but posting and getting answers there have helped me find my way.

Was reading through new posts last night and laughed out loud at this chick's user heading.

Noice!
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What I ♥ This Week.

2007-08-12T08:02:00.000+01:00

I ♥ New Shoes.
I ♥ Beans on Toast.
I ♥ Hot Chip.
I ♥ Hell's Kitchen.
I ♥ Sunny Winter Days.
I ♥ eBay.
I ♥ Spinning.

More Surry Hils Warehouse Sales!

2007-08-10T04:10:00.000+01:00

I just got back from the Cooper St sale. Good sale for basics...most pieces are between $25-40 with only a few at $50.

I got a black high waisted pencil skirt for $35, black wide legged pants for $40, a black & white patterned halter style top for $25 and a black swing coat with adorable heart print lining for $50. Woo hoo!

Also visited the Alice McCall sale - was super busy and there wasn't much range there. Although they did have a few of the dress pictured in the Missy Confidential link. Nothing that I really loved other than this stunning dress that was a one of a kind sample size.

The Cooper St sale continues on tomorrow but Alice McCall is one day today only.

Myer Fashion Show

2007-08-08T22:26:00.000+01:00

At Carriageworks last night. Very cool display with a moving lit up ceiling that changed for the different designers. Jen Hawkins came out in 4 outfits. I want every Nicola Finetti dress that they showed. Here's the last few minutes...a live singer above us in the wall singing Madonna, Jen's finale and all that.

Another post about ebay...

2007-08-07T09:25:00.000+01:00

I love my ebay scores so much I want to tell you about the latest...not buying - selling!

Remember how I bought 4 shirts for $40 at the Kirribilli markets? When I got home, I decided that one of them didn't suit me and that I probably wouldn't wear it very much. So I put it on ebay for the $5 I paid for it...I added a perfume sample I got for free just so I'd get a little more traffic. Guess what? It went for $31.22!! No kidding.

At the same time, I put on a 2/3 full bottle of Chanel cleanser that I bought off a gal on Vogue forums for $20. It went for $29. For real! (I was barely expecting it to sell.) And I'm selling more...so buy my stuff people!

Buy low, sell high? How do I do the same on the stock market?
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5 pairs in 24 hours

2007-08-04T09:02:00.000+01:00

It's called shopping and it's a disease. I'm sick and I have an addiction.

2 pairs of sparkly flats bought last night after work. 2 pairs of heels at the PeepToes sale earlier today. 1 pair of yellow wedges this arvo. I couldn't help myself.

This was a great sale! $220 shoes for $50-100. And held in an old church. Shopping as a near religious experience.

When nature calls while shopping...

2007-08-01T00:07:00.000+01:00

The new 3rd floor in the Broadway shopping centre has been open for a few months now. They've been having sales, handing out flyers and all sorts to get people up there.

What they should be doing is telling people how nice the bathrooms are.

It's all modern, clean and lovely. The handsoap is L'Occitane. The powder room is the best part. Need to make a call? Refresh your makeup? Change into your latest purchase so you can head straight out for drinks in a new top or shoes? This is the place.

Who knew I'd be blogging about the loo?
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Kirribilli Markets

2007-07-29T11:19:00.000+01:00

How did I miss this market for so long? After over a year here, yesterday was my first time. Kirribilli is on the 4th Saturday of each month and is fantastic. Big mix of vintage op shoppy stalls with a few stalls of new clothes. Tons of accessories...gorgeous necklaces, shoes, bags. There's a baby row of all kiddy stuff too. It's pretty big...200 stalls all through the Burton Street Tunnel and around the corner into Bradfield Park.

So the scores...2 fantastic necklaces for $10 and $20 each. 4 super cute tops for $40 from MinkPink. 4 tops! (One is a fab black sequinned cami that I'll get tons of wear out of.) And there was a stall with lots of nail stuff where they were selling bottles of Seche for $5. Had to pick some up. Good haul for $70 bucks!

This is one of my favourite markets now. 3-way tie between Kirribilli, Glebe and Bondi. Man, I love that Sydneysiders love their markets.

Vancouver in a month!

2007-07-25T00:40:00.000+01:00

I'll be in Vancouver in a month. I'm sooo looking forward to much eating, drinking, visiting and shopping! It's only a week long trip so the shopping will be turbo but I know exactly where to go...

1. Visit new Rick & Bonnie's new baby (and R&B of course)
2. Visit with Mum
3. Visit with Dad (BBQ required)
4. Visit with the Dores
5. Girls night/arvo on Earl's Robson patio - blended mojitos and chili chicken. Yum!
6. Coffee at Melriches, Artigiano, take a Starbucks and a cupcake down to English Bay beach
7. Shop Robson (duh) 'specially Club Monaco, Zara, Banana
8. Check out the new Urban Outfitters, H&M (How dare they open these stores without me there?)
9. Shop South Main St...I actually miss Front & Co and wanna hit Eugene Choo + Smoking Lily.
10. Dinner at Lolita's, Bin 941, Hapa Izakaya. Either or all?
11. All-you-can-eat sushi - Tampopo. Quantity not quality!
12. Patio times at Zil's reno'd place.
13. See what Stanley Park really looks like these days
14. Spinning class with Pat at Sweatco
15. Big come-one-come-all catchup night at some pub or other
16. Stock up on Bounce dryer sheets, Clean & Clear blot papers, Old Navy underwear (I love their cheap swimmers & underpants!), Kernels Salt & Vinegar popcorn powder...I'm sure I"ll think of more little things I miss.

I might not have time for all this but I'm sure I can fit it in! I also want to but definitely won't have time:
* Whistler
* Seattle Premium Outlets

Michael Knight for Starbucks?!!

2007-07-22T07:33:00.000+01:00

When does Project Runway start back up? After Top Chef I guess?

Let's meet at Starbucks? What won't they get into?
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What are you doing this weekend?

2007-07-19T01:35:00.000+01:00

Go Bowling?

It's Lebowski Fest this weekend! Ok - so not everyone would be able to make it to Louisville Kentucky to celebrate the greatest movie of all time. But I might get down to Fox Studios and roll a couple of games and mark it 8, dude. Must remember to have a Caucasian.

Eat Drink and Be Merry?

I'll go anywhere that has 25 different coffee roasters and a Chocolatiers Boulevard. Yum.

Want Free Keds?

2007-07-15T01:23:00.000+01:00

Remember Keds Classic Canvas Champions from the 80s? Everyone wanted those white sneakers with the blue rubber label in the back. You could buy the real ones from Aritzia or Hills back then. I wore through a *lot* of cheap knockoffs from Le Chateau.

Get your free Keds here! What a cool concept for overstock that retailers just can't get rid of. Lots of good brands: Nike, DKNY, Sketchers etc etc. Thanks to Fabulously Broke in the City for the link.

Shopping to Save My Drivers License

2007-07-14T10:27:00.000+01:00

Curses! Another effing traffic camera ticket arrived in the mail last week. I try to slow down my roll but get caught in the stupidest places. Then I got in a taxi last night and the driver had a GPS that told him where the cameras are. It's a sign.

"Red Light Camera. 500 metres."

I ran out today to pic one up. This thing is going to save my bacon.
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Madonna rocks the Louboutins

2007-07-09T11:17:00.001+01:00

How amazing were Madonna's Christian Louboutins at Live Earth? How much does she kick ass by singing and dancing around in them? How much am I lusting for them?

She customised them a little with studs but man they are hot!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

2007-07-08T04:30:00.000+01:00

I can't wait for the designer fashion and all the cheapies stores that will knock it off!

More Online Goodness

2007-07-04T10:40:00.000+01:00

I forgot! I've also got 2 nail polishes coming from 8ty8 that I ordered the other day. The cheapest place to get OPI and Essie that I've found.

Slave to Online Shopping continued

2007-07-03T05:02:00.000+01:00

OK I couldn't resist naming all my conquests. First of all:

25% off everything! I got the Forest Flowers 3/4 PJ Pants and Circles Wide Leg Pant. And only $1 postage. Lots of smalls and xsmalls are sold out. Good thing I'm medium! My loungewear needs are covered for a while.

I've been on a bit of a spree lately. I'm also waiting for delivery of:

Wideleg Trouser Jeans from Urban Outfitters. (Forwarded from the US thanks to Tied Up With String.)

Heidi Klum Earrings - very pretty and I've been after them since I saw her wearing them on every ep of Project Runway. Love this shot of her!

A 50ml bottle of Euphoria from eBay. Seller has good feedback so I hope it's real!

I think that's it for now - 4 packages in the mail will make me feel like it's my birthday! (Except I paid for them...)

Happy Canada Day!

2007-07-01T08:13:00.000+01:00

This pic is from Hockey Night in Sydney which was goes on in North Sydney during the hockey season. Sorry that this guy is wearing a leafs jersey and drinking Blue. You work with what you've got.

On the shopping front, the only place I've seen to buy Canadian beer here is at 1st Choice Liquor Superstore. They only have Blue & Kokanee, neither of which I care to drink. But they do have the best beer selection I've seen in Sydney. It's the only place I've seen Sol, too. You've gotta love a place whose beer section is called...

Cool!

2007-06-30T00:36:00.000+01:00

I would actually pay for Tivo service this time around.

No Outlet

2007-06-29T09:50:00.000+01:00

I like to check in on Post Secret every week or two. Most of the postcards are really sad...I like the funny and uplifting ones best. This one made me lol.

An expert shopper from an early age, you would never have been able to pull the wool over *my* eyes for that long.

Slave to Online Shopping

2007-06-26T12:57:00.000+01:00

I knew I was an online shopping addict when a friend of mine emailed me yesterday looking for a pros and cons list on online shopping for an article she's writing. I already knew I was addicted much before this but the real tip off to me was that not only did I want to write the list for her, but I also wanted to tell her about all my recent conquests like the proud online shopper I am.

There were too many recent scores to list so here's my pros and cons list instead:

Pros:

eBay - deals, deals, deals!

No parking problems, no nosy salespeople, no crowds, no crappy music, no dressing up

You can spend as long as you like perving on a particular pair of shoes (if you stared that long at them in a store they'd think you were a little odd)

You can send links to all the friends you want to make sure you're making the right purchase (What do you think of this bag?)

Receiving packages is like Christmas all over again!

This one might only apply to Australia - $700 duty-free import limit so no getting stuck with a COD bill

Cons:

Red wine induced evening online shopping sprees (I'm guilty of buying a questionable purchase or two) The shopping equivalent to drinking and dialling

Can't try it on so you have to be pretty confident of your size/measurements

Loads of fake stuff trying to pass as authentic on eBay: perfume, jeans, shoes, bags (I've even heard about fake DiorShow mascara)

Returns are a bitch (if you even can)

You just have to hope the postal service doesn't screw up your delivery or lose your package

With ebay sellers, you just have to hope they don't screw up or screw you over

What's your damage, Heather?

2007-06-24T05:37:00.000+01:00

It's the perfect film...offbeat humour, murder and the 80s-ness of it all. Heathers still has heaps of rewatchability left. I still know most of the lines - it's almost like hearing an old Depeche Mode or Cure song after 15 years and knowing all the words.

The best part is the clothes - you could pretty much go out today buy all the outfits the Winona Ryder wore. Leggings, layering, tunic length tops. Check it out.

Here's todays' version:

New Shopping Guides

2007-06-12T02:17:00.001+01:00

The sun has come out and it's a short week, people! Get shopping!

The July Vogue has published a great little list of 50 fashionable shopping haunts. Nothing bargain here! I've been to most of the shops on the list but have been meaning to get to Bloodorange, David Met Nicole and Poepke in Sydney + Miss Louise in Melbourne.

Previous shopping guides here. (Woolhara, Castlereigh St., Paddington & Newtown)
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Storm Watch 2007 con't

2007-06-09T23:47:00.000+01:00

Continuing the marathon of TV and movies. Storm watch:

Caché - Slow paced but that's the point.

The Ice Harvest - I love John Cussack but hated this stinker.

Knocked Up - Cute and predictable.

Canada's Next Top Model ep 1 of season 2. This is so much better than last season. Only one girl representing tho - Jaqueline from Richmond. Love Jeannie Bekker! The product promotion was completely shameless.

Top Chef - Season 3 teaser show.

Entourage - Latest ep. I love Gold.

The Delicate Art of Parking - Mockumentary on parkies in Vancouver. Funny.

The weather sort of broke this afternoon and tomorrow is a holiday. I'll get out of the house. I swear.

Storm Watch 2007

2007-06-09T08:49:00.000+01:00

Didn't think it could but today has somehow turned for the worse with mega wind coupled with sporadic "raining cats and dogs" tropical rain, blowing sidweays of course.

Found our driveway is blocked with a downed tree. Good thing we can deek around the brick building next door to get in and out.

DVDs and TV watched so far:

Dreamgirls - good but I don't know what Eddie Murphy thought he'd get an Oscar for

Kenny - Love his weird lisp, lots of lol moments in regards to shit

1st ep of new Hell's Kitchen series - bring on Gordon Ramsay's abuse!

Iron Chef America Cowboy Steak battle - I always cheer for the contender esp if up against Bobby Flay

Latest ep of Entourage - this show is Gold

I wanted to head to the Glebe Markets today but it was too gross out so I stayed in. Seriously there is nothing else to do...wait, except shop at Bondi Junction. Maybe tomrorrow.
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It's the long weekend

2007-06-07T12:37:00.001+01:00

And the weather has finally turned to crap - that's OK I'll stay in and catch up on DVDs while it rains. I've never been a fan of going away for a long weekend cause *everyone else* is.

We just went on an overnighter to the South Coast last weekend and it was glorious. Blue sky and reletively warm for the first weekend of winter.

Had a picnic on the beach in the Royal National Park.

Then continued on the Grand Pacific Drive. Stayed in Gillingong. Cool hotel, great food.

Had the best brekkie on Sunday - it was actually hot out on the patio in the morning too! Friendliest folks at the Manning St Deli too. "First time out this way?" We said yes. "You'll be back - probably check the real estate too." We will and we did.

On Sunday, drove up Saddleback Mountain to look at the sweeping views, then to Seven Mile Beach, then down to Jervis bay before heading back to Sydney in the dark.

Why on earth did we not do this trip in the summer? I totally want to rent a beach shack in Gillingong and hang out and do nothing for a week when the weather gets warmer again.

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May Roundup

2007-06-05T07:31:00.000+01:00

I started out with a bang, I did. Wanted to vigilantly list all of my non-shopping daily and whatnot. Then I got bored of listing it all. And developed a slight Facebook addiction. So here it is - I'm quite proud this list is short.

How did I do with my non-shopping for May? I only bought:

1 Aussie Bazaar magazine (I was stuck in Melbourne airport with nothing to do for an hour.)

1 Zimmerman knock off tee. It was only $39.95. It's in the daydreamer star pattern and is cute! Came from a shop in the DFO in Melbourne, again when I had a couple hours to kill but wasn't close enough to the city to do any real damage.

Cute black headband from Witchery in the same DFO near the airport in Melbourne. $4,95!

1 Real Living mag. I can't go without it.

1 Pair of Shoes - cute black pointy flats that have the tinest kitten heel. From Tar-jay for $27.50!!

2 pairs of Bonds daks - not for me obviously - $34.

That's it! I'm not keeping it up as the weather just turned and I needed to buy a couple of sweaters...I mean jumpers! I'll see what damage I can do here:

Bitten?

2007-05-26T00:38:00.000+01:00

On June 7th Sarah Jessica Parker will unveil her new Bitten fashion line for Steve & Barry's in the US. It's not being sold online so I thoght I'd be preparing to troll through eBay for it just like I've done with the Luella Bartley or Tara Jarmon for TargetUS, Karl Lagerfeld for H&M, Stella for TargetAUS.

Her line is perfect for my non-shopping spreee because it's terrible! Bo-ring!

After flipping through the line, I'm dissapointed but not surprised. SJP is a clothes horse and sure she has style but a designer? Clearly not. All the attention that she got came from being styled by Patricia Field. I'll bet the Bitten clothes feel even cheaper than H&M or Forever 21 pieces, the price is right. So it's cheap, boring and easy to pass by. One less thing I'll feel suckered into buying! Yay!

Paralyzed by Non-shopping

2007-05-20T10:01:00.000+01:00

I didn't realize that I shopped so much recreationally. The past couple of weekends I've been fairly busy. But this weekend I realized that I didn't have much of a daytime plan. Normally I'd head to the markets or over to Bondi Junction or Oxford Street.

Didn't do that this weekend and boy was I getting bored!

Could have gone to a gallery or two. Could have taken the camera out on an adventure. Could have gone for a drive. Could have phoned people and gone to the movies, out for lunch, coffee.

Instead, I've watched all of season 2 of The Closer. Being lazy rocks! And I spent $0 being a hermit.

Did manage to get another couple of things on eBay though - including my car!

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I like to own

2007-05-15T04:04:00.000+01:00

I'm not a fan of renting...my home, my car or anything. Wait, except books at the library. Otherwise, if I want something I'll buy it.

Guess what? I found my crush on a bag rental site! I'm very tempted. Quick! Where do I click?

But then I do the math.

It's only a $299 bag but it would cost me $125.75 to rent it for a month. That's 42% of the bag cost. I could buy this bag, use it for a while, then sell it on eBay and do better than this. The math: It will cost me $29.85 in membership fees + $15.95 delivery + $79.95 rent = $125.75!!

If I'm desperate for a Dior Gaucho bag, I'd *almost* consider it. A month of this $2500 bag would be about 10% of its value.

Would you rent a bag? Money out the window or a chance to have a super exxy bag?

Why we blog

2007-05-13T09:20:00.000+01:00

I got tagged by the yummy mummies at Fashion on A Shoestring...why do I blog?

I think mainly it started a few years ago in response to caro's blog after she moved to Austin. Basically to keep in touch. Hers has become the knitting blog, mine shopping.

My deal with shopping is that it's how I've learned to find new neighborhoods, new shops, new designers. I've learned a lot about Sydney thanks to shopping. When I travel, I find the shops I like and they usually lead to finding great areas, cafes etc. Favorite shopping places: Fillmore St in SFO, Chapel St in Melbourne and Sydney's Glebe and Paddington markets. I'm also a sucker for outlets in the US. Best ones: Desert Hills (has a Gucci), Waikele (has a Saks Fifth Avenue) and Austin (has a Neiman Marcus' Last Call)

So now I'll tag Caro just so she can confirm or deny my story. Also tagging Tom and You Wish You Looked This Good. Why do you blog?

Go Independent

2007-05-12T01:09:00.000+01:00

I'm already bored with the daily tallies. $3 coffees etc. So no more of that...on with the non-shopping.

So here's the update. 12 days and nothing. No-thing. Until today...I bought a magazine. An imported British magazine at that! I found a way around paying $17.95 for my coveted British Vogues and Bazaars.

Go independent.

The little newsagent in North Bondi is way cheaper than the newsagents in Bondi Junction or Surrey Hills shopping centres. Yay! $7 difference! I'm never going to those chain newsagents again.
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New crush

2007-05-09T10:18:00.000+01:00

The purse crush is still on but now I have another.

This is waaaay better than all those bird necklaces. I totally have the discipline of, um, whoever has really really good discipline. Cause I didn't clicked Add to Cart. So there.

Today was the usual $3 coffee...and $17 at Go-Lo on plant food, super glue, shampoo and hairspray. Could have bought all that at Priceline or Coles for more so I'm sure i saved a few bucks. I'm cheap!

And on the 8th day

2007-05-08T11:18:00.000+01:00

She bought a kick ass purse.

Kidding!

But I am in love. Here's my new crush:

So what's the standard wait time from crush to purchase? (For people with some self-control.) A week? 14 days? More?!!
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It's Day 7...

2007-05-07T10:04:00.000+01:00

And I haven't bought a single piece of clothing, any accessories, makeup, magazines. No hair products that promise to make my hair look fuller/messier/thicker. No new tops for the weekend. No new earrings that would look fab with one of my tops. No nothing people!

And all my stuff on eBay sold for $309.97 + shipping costs. And all I bought today was my usual coffee and a Lean Cuisine pizza for lunch (tasted like cardboard) = $7.50.

I rock.

Especially considering I am tempted at every turn...I drive right past Tuchuzy and One Teaspoon every weekday morning. What keeps me safe is knowing that they are not open at 7:30am ever.
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Cheap wine-o

2007-05-05T03:00:00.000+01:00

If I were not shopping, I would defenitely not go to 1st Choice in Sydney's West for cheap wine. And I certainly wouldn't buy the Vino Gusto Verdelho attractively priced at $4.75. But I were trying to save a bit, I might buy it. $4.75! Totally drinkable. Instead of $15-20 dollar bottle that I usually pick up in the Easter Suburbs. Let's call that at least$10 back in my pocket - per bottle. And a *cheap* drunk! Huzzah!

1st Choice is the only place I've ever seen a selection of Canadian beer. Too bad it's Kokanee, Canadian and Blue. What I wouldn't give for a 1516 or GI Pale Ale.

I am writing on a hungover sunny Saturday. I took wine to a BYO last night. Cheap night, really. $15 on wine (I didn't bring the aformentioned cheap plonk unfortunately), $22 on dinner and a $20 taxi home. *And* got breakfast and lunch paid for yesterday due to work functions. Nice!

The opposite of shopping

2007-05-03T09:56:00.000+01:00

Selling!

I buy enough on eBay, it's time to give something back.

Go buy my stuff!

I also got a cheque in the mail just today for a pair of Christian Louboutin shoes (they hurt like a mofo so I pity whoever bought them) that I sold at Belinda's Frock Echange. So I'm cashed up!

Today: $3 coffee, $8.50 Coles (rustic veggie pasta tonight) and $27 on a card + Mother's Day gift, including postage back to Vancouver. $150 cheque from Belinda. Sweet!

One day at a time

2007-05-02T09:57:00.000+01:00

I think that I'll be able to post about what I save by NOT buying something that I ordinarily wouldn't have thought twice about. If I add up these non-purchases, I'll think I'm pretty SMRT right?

K

Today: $3 flat white. You'll have to pry this out of my cold dead hands. Yeah I've read all about those psuedo accountants that have figured out that skipping the morning coffee = a billion dollars a year in savings (rounded figure) but I'm more concerned about those around me when I don't have the coffee. So it's $3 a day for the good of the planet. (Or the folks in my office) I also spent $12.08 at Coles on stuff to make a kick-ass chili beef stir fry.

So I saved: About $60 bucks on the dinner out that probably would have happened if I hadn't stopped for groceries. And about $6 that I didn't spend at the grocery store on the Shop Til You Drop magazine that I normally wouldn't think twice about buying. Savings $68. Woot!

Non-shopping

2007-05-01T10:39:00.000+01:00

It's May first. (A pinch and a punch!)

I'd like to try non-shopping for a little while. I'd like to say for a month or a week but, like an addict, I'm going to take it one day at a time. I'm going to cut out the unnecessary crap that I recreationally shop for. Stuff like lipglosses, lotions/potions, magazines, eBay/8ty8beauty.com/head2toebeauty.com, crap I pick up from Target or Priceline. I'll try. I'll see if the shame of posting about it will help.

So for today, 3 purchases - all food. $3 morning flat white, $7.50 Thai lunch special, $38 on groceries after work.

*So* not exciting. But so far, so good.

What I do other than shopping

2007-04-26T14:02:00.000+01:00

I {heart} the Canucks. (We are a few days behind due to having to d/l games.) And my boyfriend Luongo. (I'd learn to love that hair.)

We just finished watching Game 7. Ho-lee.

Notable parts of the game - other than Luongo's MASSIVE saves: Harry Neale's (or is it Tom Larsheid?) quotes such as "The ripest peach is the highest on the tree and the hardest to pick. That's game 7 isn't it?" in an extended icing call. And "1:03 to go and Vancouver can smell the Anaheim Mighty Ducks right now." Really?? Smell them?? Total comic relief.

I could watch the third period over and over.

I also love that there's a real AC/DC presence in GM place too. Aussie charm.

(I am kind of bummed that they're doing so well and I'm not there. (A good post on this here.) I'm also bummed that GM place finally put in those around the rink scoreboard thingies + the giant eff-off scoreboard and I haven't seen it in person yet.)