Friday, December 17, 2010

Sandton Exploration 2010!

Thursday was such an adventure day!

It started out looking very bleak, It was the third day of solid rain here and the third day of me having no walk at all, which meant that I was three ways to totally and utterly loony from lack of exercise. I was… yes, I’m afraid this does happen…grumpy!!!

So Rob, my esteemed housemate, suggested we go to Sandton mall for a walk. It’s nice and covered and large enough to get the kinks out of twitchy, twitchy legs. Needless to say I was in the car so fast we were half way there before the engine even started!

[So many BMW's! this was taken at the petrol station before the mall! Sheeple car of choice ne? ^_^]

Sandton is another world. One of which I must say makes me a tad nervous. The area is all full of funky looking statues and clean lawns and unnecessarily tiled buildings. I always get the feeling someone is going to stop me there and tell me to go home.
[The view from the parking section! Look at those buildings!!]

And what a mall!! Oh my word! It’s freaking huge!! I had no idea! And the shops! They sell all those ghastly, hideous, tummy churning stuff only rich people want to buy! "Why yes we must have the 100 year old, gold plated yak poop for the guest wing bathroom dah’ling!"

It’s also fully decorated for Christmas in the usual garish way that only a mall can pull off without being burned to the ground by right thinking citizens.
[I donno, somehow, if you don't think about it too much, it works!]

The highlight was definitely the Checkers there. Usually a somewhat dodgy store, this one was Fruit Mecca!!! Seriously and no jokes, by the end of it I was so utterly hyped that I was trying to keep tears back behind my eyes! So many goodies! If civilization is ever subjected to chaos or zombies or anything that in anyway requires rioting and looting, I’m so going back there!!
[OH!!!]

There were also two huge book shops – Oh my! And a giant music and video shop, and, and, and!! You really can find anything there! (That Yak poop will be mine dammit!)
[Jo making new friends!]

Still it was also awfully overwhelming! People, noises, smells, shoves, sticky dead things in the middle of the walk way, small elevators… < - - Jo’s hate elevators and only use them under duress, but I was transporting a watermelon and for that…
(Rob once ‘joked’ that I should have the classic 2.5 kids and train them up to walk with me to the fruit shop and carry watermelons. The 0.5 kid can carry one on his wagon…)

In the end, it was fun to visit but I don’t think I’d want to live there. It’s too much, and me in my jeans and hoody with excess paint splotches on it, well, we’re not too keen on socializing with the tie and heels crowd.

Still… wow.