European Trip 2015 - Day Fifteen

Still woke up early. Had to find a pharmacy that catered for Koreans. Some of the French staff even spoke Korean! The missus bought quite a lot of stuff but not quite enough for duty free status. Luckily it wasn't far from our apartment although she had the wrong metro station to get off at so it took quite a bit of finding.

After breakfast we walked down to the Seine and on to the Bastille monument before wandering around the Marais area. Lots of little shops, delicious gelato and outlet shopping at amazingly low prices.

Fuel is not cheap in Paris

The Bastille monument

Classical central Paris building

 Had lunch at L'Escargot. Fabulous snail, pork filet mignon, tuna and creme brulee. Set us back EUR38, including an expresso, but so enjoyable.

Down the hatch

L'Escargot - wonderful cuisine

Fill 'er up

Moving day

Academie Nationale De Musique

 Located Galeries Lafayette after some trouble. Quite a few Japanese stores/people in the area. Chinese doing most of the buying in this precinct - lots of shop assistants were Chinese too. Needed a Coke as I was tired and 500mL cost EUR3.90. Not everything was cheap.

Eiffel Tower from atop Galeries Lafayette

 Headed towards the Obelisk, had to backtrack due to heading in the wrong direction, and bought a macaron and choc croissant on the way. So good. Caught the metro home. Heaps of walking today, and woman shopping, so very tired.

The Obelisk and Arc de Triomphe

The Seine

2012 Holiday To London-NYC-Niagara - Day Twenty

The missus was up early for her trip to Woodbury Premium Outlet shopping for which there was a special bus. This gave me some time to plan our Jersey shore trip to meet up with fellow blogger Phil and his family. Spent a good 45 mins to an hour looking at train and bus timetables which wasn't ideal. One phone call to NJ Transit sorted it out - bus it was to be.

Plan for the day was for The Boy and I to visit Ripley's Believe It or Not (Ripley's Odditorium). Looked for some cheap tickets and spent another 40 mins signing up to a couple of sites before obtaining them.

Shrunken heads in Ripley's Odditorium

Spent three hours at Ripley's - not bad, quite weird. Not quite sure that it was worth the money. Had lunch at McDonalds, my first this trip, and bummed around the souvenir shops until 5pm waiting for the missus. Her bus got stuck in traffic and she was another hour late. Coupled with the fact that she hadn't picked up many bargains and had spent the whole day shopping, mainly for others, and hadn't had a decent lunch, she wasn't in a good mood. I bought some food at Food Emporium to make dinner.

Photo Album Vol I
Photo Album Vol II
Photo Album Vol III
Photo Album Vol IV (Final)

2012 Holiday To London-NYC-Niagara - Day Nineteen

Another late start to the day. Decided to visit MoMA. Walked all the way down to Broadway until we reached Macy's then went shopping at Old Navy. Picked up a few bargains. Had lunch at Pizza Hut. Then shopped at Macy's and the missus was actually treated well regarding her purchase and received the Macy member's discount on an item. By the time we finished it was 2:30 and too late to visit MoMA.

Went home for a rest. Later caught the subway to Brooklyn to visit Grimaldi's for pizza. Large queue, all of 8~10 people, which wasn't what we had expected. It was raining though. Service was quick, pizza was huge and tasty, Brooklyn root beer and ginger ale were nice and the desserts were great. Had no trouble leaving a tip at this restaurant. The place wasn't busy when we arrived but was getting so, and very loud, by the time we finished. Great meal which everyone enjoyed - and not expensive.

Me at Grimaldi's Pizzeria in Brooklyn

Yum!!

Walked down to the nearby park by the pier to look at the setting sun, under the rain, and the Manhattan skyline.

Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge panorama

Took about 30~35 mins to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan and caught the subway up to Grand Central for a look around. Got our crosstown bus and did some shopping.

Brooklyn Bridge, missus and The Boy

Not a hugely busy day but enjoyable just the same. Probably needed that.

Photo Album Vol I
Photo Album Vol II
Photo Album Vol III
Photo Album Vol IV (Final)

One Breast Please

Had to go to the shops this afternoon after work. The missus asked me to buy a chicken breast at the supermarket. Having a bit of time to myself I wandered around most of the shopping centre and came to the conclusion that there was nothing that I either needed or wanted on offer. Ho hum. It's not that I'm content with everything that I have in life either.

So I finally made it to Woolworths. Approached the deli section and asked for a chicken breast. You should have seen the look on the girl's face especially when she asked, almost incredulously, "Just one?"
"Yes please. Just one."
"Would you like a small breast or a large breast?"

I overcame the temptation to state that I like large breasts but simply responded that I'd like a large breast. Only once I explained that my wife was defrosting the freezer otherwise I would have purchased a number more did the girl start to look more comfortable and less as though I was some sort of weirdo. I'm a particular sort of weirdo not just some sort. And I couldn't find anything that needed to be purchased as we went shopping last night. Boy, did I feel like a dick at the checkout with my one breast.

Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Feb 1st 2010

Didn't do a hell of a lot today. Had a sleep in and after breakfast we went to purchase a netbook for Miky. I wanted her to have a look at one in the shop first to try it out. A new shop, iLoom, wanted W899,000 for the model that she had decided upon. Online it was available for W466,000. A difference of some A$430! Bit of a saving. Went to the nearby PC Bang and purchased it. I did some Internet banking to transfer money into my account. Then we had to go to a KEB (Korea Exchange Bank) so that I could withdraw the cash. Gave the money to my sister-in-law so that she could pay off her credit card at her bank. Bit of a process to purchase something online. And to think that shopping online is supposed to be easier.

All of the buildings in the area we went to the banks feature heavy advertising. And there were a few funny Konglish signs about too. It doesn't take too long to find them.

Got a business to advertise?

Korean apartments.

I-Brain. Koreans are not immune to fads.

Kim-Chi Lice. Sounds derishus.

Is this a building or a billboard?

The kids had a doughnut and hot dog whilst they were waiting for the banking to be done. We had decided to watch Avatar in 3D at the cinema and I only just had time to grab a bulgogi burger set from Lotteria for lunch. Passed the World Cup Stadium on our journey downtown. Could believe that we were parked at the 4th level below ground.

World Cup Stadium in Daejeon.


Cool parking attendant with nice dance moves at the entrance to Lotte's underground parking in Daejeon.

Tickets were W13,000/adult and W10,000/child when a normal movie cost W7,000. Still pretty good value. I must say that it took a bit of getting used to the 3D effect but I think that it will catch on. Enjoyed the movie even though it was my second viewing.

All set for Avatar in 3D.

For dinner The Boy preferred shabu shabu and we located a restaurant that served it. Poor fella has waited all holiday for this meal as he loves it after having tried it at home. Between the five of us we had two mimiwoo shabus, a spicy shabu with horrible tasting leaves (my choice) and sukiyaki shabu (delicious). Ate yoghurt ice creams afterwards and went downstairs in the Lotte department store so that I could purchase a pair of jeans.

Mimiwoo Shabu shabu.

Sukiyaki shabu shabu.

Something spicy from the Shabu shabu range.

I then caught the underground home with The Boy and his cousin. Obviously my niece doesn't use the underground much as she was worried about getting to the correct stop. Bit strange as everything is in her language but we played some cards to keep us amused. Had to have a bit of a guess which direction the apartment was from the station but chose the correct way. Loved all of the different spellings of "information" on signs around the place.

INFROMATION

INFOMATION

INFORNATION

INFORMATION - at least one signwriter spelt it correctly.

Frugal The Checkout Chick

I noticed a few nights ago that my local Woolworths has opened six self-service checkouts. The thought of being responsible for doing the checkout job myself with the obvious scrutiny scared me, a little. I'm not going to pinch anything but the thought of people thinking that I might try to steal something worries me.

Perhaps that goes back to when I was about 10 years old and went to the supermarket by myself when my mum was at a fabric shop run by a friend of hers. I spent a lot of time in the lollies section considering what to spend my money on and in the end decided that nothing offered good enough value. As I went to leave through the checkout, which was manned by the daughter of the shop manager, she tried to check my pockets. She said, "I know you took (or stole) something." Being accused of shoplifting horrified me. After informing my mum about the incident my parents accompanied me to the shop that night and confronted the manager and his daughter over it. I received an apology as I hadn't done anything wrong.

So, with slight trepidation, I went to the shop a couple of nights ago and served myself. After finishing checking the groceries I placed my mail that I had collected in one of the bags. The machine said, "Unexpected item in bag. Please remove," or something similar. So it obviously measures the weight of your goods. Interesting experience and no false accusations.

Now I can add checkout chick to my resume.

Frugal Bastard's Hawaii Trip 2007 - 31/5/07

Spent the day at Ala Moana Center buying clothes. Lunch - Yu-Jin had a McDonalds cheeseburger Happy Meal (TM) which I purchased with a travellers cheque. Miky had Japanese food I had tacos from Taco Bell.

Yu-Jin and I went to Office Max so that I could check out some 4GB flash drives. They had the Internet available so I set up some games online for Yu-Jin. Bit surprised to find the cheapest 4GB flash drive was US$89.90. I checked on the Net back home and could pick up something similar for A$54. Very disappointed in the prices available. Caught a couple of buses to return to the hotel.

We had a swim in the very cold hotel pool. After tea we went t-shirt and leather goods shopping. Bought a few shirts, a wallet and a handbag (not all for me). Bit of a late night with Miky packing most items which, quite surprisingly, fitted reasonably well into our luggage.

Boxing Day Sales Shopping

The Boxing Day sales have begun in WA, which stands for "Wait Awhile", after having started in the rest of the country the day before. Perhaps we have no right to call them Boxing Day sales as Boxing Day is actually the day previous.

With a forecast 37 degrees and thousands of shoppers looking for bargains it was never going to be too comfortable. I've changed a bit over the years and dipped into my pocket to pay for parking. Astounding isn't it how some people change? Marriage, and the need to maintain it, does that to a man sometimes. We slept in a bit and the sales had been on for two hours before we arrived at the six storey car park. I didn't expect to get a spot and that we would be driving to the top and back down again and have to chuff off looking for another car park. Plenty of spots, to my surprise, on the fourth level.

Man, the shops were busy. And most of the shirts and nice trousers in my size were already gone. Did manage to get a few bargains that were on our shopping list. After three hours Miky was buggered and we had to find somewhere for lunch. Jaws was the place and sushi was on the menu. They make some nice Japanese food there.

Bit of a surprise waiting for us upon our return to the car park. There was a very long queue to pay at the ticket machine. Nowadays you validate and pay for your parking prior to returning to your car and you have about another 10 minutes to leave the building without getting charged any extra. Twenty five minutes I queued up in the sun (with a little bit of shade depending on where I was standing), 37 degrees it was, only to find that of the two payment machines one was broken and the other was playing up. An angry lady, whose money the machine wouldn't accept, was informed that if she had a credit card she could make payment upon exiting instead. That was fine by me and I'd wished that I'd heard that 25 minutes earlier. By this stage the queue must have been well over the 100 people. Who'd have thought that the parking would be easy but leaving the parking would be so difficult?

Miky has, once again, become a coffee addict and we had to stop at McDonalds on the way home for a coffee. That did mean that I missed the cricket on the telly and the Aussies were pounding the Poms again.