Book Hunting

Today we stopped in Gould's Book Arcade, a huge second-hand book shop nearby, which has tons of used books stacked up everywhere.

Photo from planbooktravel.com.au

We're on a bit of a classic cocktails kick, so we dug through the cookbooks, and actually managed to find a copy of the Savoy Cocktail Book, in good condition, for $14! We felt sneezy and dusty digging through the books, but it's fun if you have time, and can wash your hands pretty soon afterwards!

Getting Closer to Fully Furnished

We're getting closer to having the apartment fully furnished! I've been scouring eBay and Gumtree (sorta like Oz's version of Craigslist) like an obsessed madwoman for the past several weeks. We've also gone into lots of vintage shops, but they're generally over our budget.

Soo, we've finally won 3 eBay auctions, in our price range! Missed out on the cool bookcases, but we were successful on the cedar-lined linen chest (Lane brand - came from the United States!), a 1960s square dining table (had to be square to fit into our small space), and a set of teak and black vinyl dining chairs.

The linen chest/blanket box will go by the front door to store our winter coats and also give us something to sit on while we take our shoes off. We've decided to roll Japanese-style and not wear shoes in the apartment. However, we both dislike wobbling on one leg right inside the door, so we're getting something to sit on while we Mr. Rogers it from our outside shoes into our slippers. I may even have to get Matthew a shoe horn on a stick so he can more truly emulate an old Japanese man.

The table is being delivered tomorrow, and we have to rent a truck to go pick up the linen chest and the chairs on Sunday. Yikes, our first time driving on the opposite side of the road!

Hopefully soon we'll have some new pics of the apartment.

P.S. Hours of trolling eBay has convinced me that the most overused and misused descriptors on eBay.com.au are: Eames, Parker, Kartell and Danish. A few Aussies use "mid-century modern", but thankfully not as many as Americans, who seem to tack on MCM to every single auction, even if if it doesn't apply in the least.

Weekend Update

Friday night Matthew and I went out to dinner with M’s coworker and their team lead, Jon, who is a really nice guy. We went to a good Japanese restaurant, where M was glad to see they have tako yaki on the menu – fried octopus balls. Also, the ruby plum wine was nice, and the prawn roll with avocado was yummy. On the walk home, we spotted an electric heater someone left out on the footpath, and we brought it home, since it was free, and our apartment has no central heat.

Saturday was a lovely sunny day, and we went to the Eveleigh Farmer’s Market, and then to the Glebe Market, which is less food, and more of a "stuff" market, with clothes, jewelry, secondhand books and cds, etc. We wandered down Glebe Point Road, which is the main drag of the suburb of Glebe, and went into Sappho Books, a cool secondhand book shop, which has a café and a nice courtyard out back. We also walked by Restaurant Atelier and looked at their menu. It looks good, can’t wait to try it sometime when we have a bit more cash.

On Sunday, we tried to go to a few vintage furniture stores in Surry Hills. One was really nice, but way over our budget ($7,000 dining sets, etc), and the other one had apparently gone out of business. As we were walking around, we were surprised how much is closed on Sundays. Campos Coffee, Mecca Espresso and Single Origin are all closed on Sundays – where do Sydneysiders get good coffee on a Sunday?!

We ended up in the CBD, and went to JB Hi-Fi and Red Eye Records to check out cds. JB Hi-Fi is similar to a Best Buy, and prides themselves on low prices, and even there, new release cds are $20. Afterwards we had a late lunch in the Food Hall in David Jones, the posh department store. For dessert, I had a profiterole and a raspberry macaron, so good. For dinner, we stopped at Guzman Y Gomez, a Mexican place near our house that’s always crowded. We got chipotle pork quesadillas and a salad with chicken, and both weren’t bad. The tortillas were a little strange, but the food was Mexican-ish, it’s affordable and nearby, so I’m not complaining.

We rented a movie from this tiny place near us called Red Room DVD. They have an indoor space with several browsing kiosks and one external kiosk, which is open 24 hours. You join and get a membership card, which you then swipe at one of the kiosks, browse for a DVD, press Rent, and then go pick it up at the kiosk on the outside of the building. The little elves in the basement load your DVD into the machine and it spits it out right there at the external kiosk. It’s pretty cool.

Matthew was off work today (Monday), as he’s switching to his new schedule, working Wednesday to Saturday. He works 10 hour days, but it will be really nice for him to have 3-day weekends.

Today we had a low-key day, just had breakfast at a new place, Café 2042 (which is the post code for Newtown, our suburb), went to the post office and the library, then went for a walk up to Leichhardt, another suburb near us. It was actually not very exciting once we got there, but it was good to get to know the area some more and always good to go for a long walk together. On the way, we saw a dirty, but nice wringer mop bucket on the side of the footpath, and we grabbed it on the way home. Kinda weird to carry home a dirty bucket, but the building manager sent a cleaning person to our apartment the other day to clean our balcony windows, and she’d suggested this type of bucket and said they’re usually $25-$30, so hey, we’ll take one for free! Apparently I’m becoming quite scavenger of beside the footpath free piles. ;)

As an aside, today is the 23rd anniversary of my father’s death. R.I.P. John K. Morrow - love you always, xoxo.

Shopping Centre

Yesterday I sat on the floor of our new apartment waiting for the rental furniture to be delivered. The relocation company is providing us with "furniture hire" because our shipment was inexplicably delayed by 3 weeks.

Finally they arrived and dropped off a bed with sheets and pillows, a love seat, a coffee table, a few lamps, and box of kitchen goods. After I unpacked the boxes with the linens and kitchen stuff, I realized they forgot to give us the bath towels and all they included in the kitchen box was dishes - they didn't provide the basic kitchen supplies set with pots and pans, etc. So, still more eating out for us for a few more days!

After I made the bed, I decided to walk to the giant shopping centre to buy cleaning supplies. I emptied a small wheeled suitcase and took that with me to haul my stuff back in, since it's 3.4 km round trip.

Who'd have thought finding the right store to buy cleaning supplies would be hard? First I went into Target. It has the same logo as the American one, but apparently it's not the same company - they settled a lawsuit and the Aussie one can still use the red and white target logo, even though they're a different company.

This Aussie Target had some clothes, toys, bedding, some things for the bathroom like shower curtains, kitchen stuff like dishes, toasters, etc and that was about it. They didn't have any cleaning stuff at all, and I don't think they had anything like a Health and Beauty section, either. So, they don't stock as many types of items as American Target.

Next stop, K-Mart. Again, the logo looks the same, but according to this article from Discount Store News, the American company sold its interest in K-Mart Australia in 1978 to Coles, an Aussie grocery store chain.

Sidenote, the grocery store market in Australia, or at least New South Wales, is basically a duopoly. There are a few smaller stores, but by far the majority of one's options for nearby supermarkets are either Coles or Woolworths, generally known as Woolies.

Back to K-Mart, it stocks a larger selection of types of items than Target - they also sell automotive supplies, camping gear, make up, some snack food, etc. However, the cleaning aisle only had laundry detergent (aka washing powder) and bleach. There were no garbage bags, no Windex type cleaners, no regular kitchen sponges (although there were a few scrubber items near the mops and brooms). What the ef?

So, off to Coles. Previously, I'd only been to the Coles Express in the CBD (Central Business District - aka downtown), and I'd never seen any cleaning supplies there. This was the big Coles, though, and they had a whole aisle with tons of different scrubbie sponges, garbage bags, floor cleaners, Windex, dishwasher detergent, etc.

Hooray, I finally found everything I needed. It only took me several hours and having to go to 3 different stores. And then walking 1.7 km home while wheeling a suitcase full of stuff! (Thank goodness all 3 stores were in the same giant shopping centre!)