Shopping in Sydney

Autumn trees in Sydney

Kevin and I escaped the kids and headed up to Sydney for the weekend. We started by going to Westfield Bondi Junciton. I’d never been before but boy was I impressed. It is gorgeous, not crowded and has THE best shops – and nearly all of my favourites :-).

Westfield Bondi Junction

First up we went in search of lunch. I could not get over how fancy the food court was – I have never seen ANYTHING like it.

Food court for lunch

We opted for Salsa’s mexican. I had my usual (very messy) vegetarian taco.

Tacos for lunch

We then did a bit of shopping before going to the movies. There wasn’t a lot to choose from (that I wanted to see) and nothing suitable in Gold Class. We chose Hall Pass – which was funny (though bit much in a few scenes – definitely a movie for open minded adults).

Food court at Bondi Junction

Then more shopping. I got quite a few things – which I will share when we get home. Kevin got NOTHING!!

Bed, bath and table….

Easter decor Bed, bath & table

First ever visit to Lush…

Lush

My true love…Crocs… I was even wearing my “lovely” pink crocs (had no choice with my heel spur acting up again).

Crocs

Another first…new skin care products from Aveda…

Aveda

Kevin wanted to go the Max Brenner chocolate bar for afternoon tea. I wanted Gloria Jeans, but he said I could get that anywhere – which is true.

Afternoon tea stop

He had banana chocolate crepe. I had an iced chocolate which was far too rich and I didn’t end up drinking. Instead I had Kevin’s ice cream.

Choc banana pancakes Afternoon tea

Lastly we went to the Apple Store. Not to buy the new i-pad (Kevin has had one for a week) but he was insisted on buying me a new macbook air. We had to wait till it opened. Talk about craziness. I can’t believe how many people had lined up. Kevin says I just don’t get it. And no, I don’t.

Lines for new I-pads

Craziness at the Apple Store

When they finally opened the shop at 5pm (it had been closed all day) we were then told we’d have to wait a bit, after informing them we wanted to buy a laptop, not an i-pad. When I pushed for how long, he said about an hour!!! That’s a little bit? Maybe to those who waited days in line, but not to us who just turned up. Needless to say we did not hang around. Instead we went to Dick Smith, where there were no lines, no crowds and Kevin actually saved around $130.

Unfortunately we left around 5.30pm so hit quite a bit of traffic heading into the city. It was okay though as were able to do lots of people watching. Seeing men in suits on scooters or push bikes looks so weird. And I was amazed at how my cyclists there were.

Friday afternoon Sydney traffic

Eventually we made it our hotel – the Sofitel Sydney Wentworth. We booked another secret 5 star hotel and were very pleased.

Soffetel Sydney

Hotel bathroom

The view straight out our window is of another building but if you peer around the corner you can see the Harbour Bridge.

View from our room (kind of)

As soon as we were in the room Kevin wanted to do an unboxing of the new laptop. I do appreciate it but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t quite as excited as Kevin thought I should be :-).

Unboxing of my new laptop

Then he got to work copying all the info from my old laptop to my new one.

How many laptops do we need?

It was getting late by now and I was getting hungry. We went in search of dinner and was lucky enough (since it had just started raining) to find a little pie shop right across the road. We bought some and took them back to our room. My vegetarian pie was delicious. It was curry, which I wasn’t expecting, but really tasty and totally hit the spot. And I just loved the packaging.

Dinner Dinner

After dinner, with computers still uploading and transferring, we watched Going The Distance – cute movie with Drew Barrymore and Justin Long.

Summer Holiday – Salamander Bay to Home

Sadly after a week away, it was time to pack up and head home. We set off about 10am and stopped for an early lunch at my favourite spot on the highway. Oliver’s. We always stop here when traveling past.

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Amy and I shared a vegetarian korma, which was really yummy.

And I bought a lovely raspberry and white chocolate muffin – which I had later at home.

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We had to laugh when Dad took a wrong turn and we had to park with all the big trucks.

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We got home about 2.30pm to a big welcome from the pups. You could tell they were so thrilled to back inside during the day.

I have to say that I did miss this face….

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and this one…

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Summer Holiday – Salamander Bay – Day 7

A very lazy, relaxing last day. Mind you I did have a VERY early start when I woke up at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep. So plenty of computer time this morning. As you can see it was another magnificent day.

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The morning was spent reading with a late morning swim in the big pool, before we had lunch by the pool.

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Then it was time for some more bowling – this time with Nan & Pop. We all had fun.

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But no luck with winning for me :-(. I was really hot and cold with my bowling today.

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I did better in the second game, which Pop won and I came third.

Then one last swim for the girls and I in the big pool. I’ll miss this pool. It’s been lots of fun.

Dinner tonight involved another BBQ using up most of our leftover food.

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Unfortunately we couldn’t get channel 10 to work tonight so no Oprah. Probably just as well becuase all the adds and the announcements about what had been shown and what was going to be showed was starting to drive me mad. They could have shown so much more of our country!

Last night…. 🙁

Summer Holiday – Salamander Bay – Day 6

This morning began with…you guess it… tea and internet. The girls worked on the sand art they got last night.

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Eventually Nan & Pop got up, we had breakfast and got ready for the day. We headed into Nelson Bay for some shopping. As you can see it was a beautiful day with a brillinat blue sky and white whispy clouds.

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We eventually ended up at the Marina.

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Where we saw our little fairy penguin friend again :-). So cute.

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Shopping complete we headed back to the resort, where we had lunch at the restaurant. We even sat at the same table we did yesterday.

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There was nothing vegetarian on the menu but the chef offered to make Amy & I a pumpkin risotto. We quickly agreed and it was rather delicious.

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I didn’t want to be out in the mid-day sun so I took the girls to the shopping center to get their new school shoes. They also got new joggers and some teva sandels so it was a very expensive trip. Thank goodness they only start school once a year !!! We bought a few other bits and pieces and headed home. Straight into our cossies and off to the pool.

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I took over Mum’s float and Christy pulled me around the pool. Eventually she decided that I was the Queen and she was my horse!!!

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I can tell you there were lots of jealous people in that pool :-).

There was also plenty of this….

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and this…

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And we ran into this cute couple :-).

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We laid by the pool for a little while but I didn’t want to get too much sun and it was still strong – even at 4.30pm. Spent the remainder of the afternoon reading some magazines and watching some youtube videos. After dinner Amy & I had another swim in the plunge pool.

I can’t believe how quickly the day seems to go. Before I know it it’s 9pm and I’m thinking about heading to bed to read.

Only one day left…. 🙁