Shopping mall hell.

I finally got round to visiting my local Fitness First gym last Saturday. I must say this one is much friendlier than the one near the hotel, and it's much bigger too. Had a good work out but then again it has been over a week since I've done any serious exercise.

I'm surprised how much the walking around everywhere in the city has tired my legs sometimes. I knew that I didn't walk around much in the UK, but having to walk just about everywhere here has made me realise how little walking I really do. I may be quite fit and do at least a good hour or two of exercise five times a week but walking everywhere has surprised me. On the plus side me left arm which has been suffering some RSI recently appears to have stopped hurting. I'm guessing the lack of driving and lack of Squash and Badminton games in the past month has really helped.

I went out to walk around The Rocks on Saturday as it's virtually on my apartment's doorstep. Visited the market stalls around the area and also went to a couple of the free galleries there. I didn't think that much of the place though, it was a very different side of Sydney but was much to tourist orientated for my liking. Too many tourists and also stalls selling 'authentic' Australian boomerangs and the like.

Allen had hired a car on Sunday to go and fill out a two bedroom house as he and Deirdre had rented an unfurnished house. They planned to buy just about everything as it apparently worked out slightly cheaper than renting it for a year. I decided to tag along to help them move stuff and I also needed some minor items for my flat too. We ended up going to two different Ikeas and also two shopping malls!

Even for me who likes to go and shop it was quite enough. I guess I only bought a few items and they were household items rather than more exciting items like clothes and toys. I was very glad to have rented a furnished apartment though. There is just so much stuff that you take for granted around a house that if you had to buy from scratch would take quite a lot of money.

The Ikeas here appear to be attached to one end of the shopping malls so you can walk straight from one to another. I'm sure you could almost buy and walk out with a sofa from Ikea into a shopping mall wheeling it about on the trolley while you shopped.

It's good to know that some things don't change throughout the world as the Ikeas here are identical to the ones in the UK. The shopping malls are much the same too except for the labels on the shops.

While driving around the outer suburbs of Sydney I noticed how very American like the place is. Most of the streets looked so much like American streets with very wide roads and large blocks of even larger shops. On the whole I didn't really like it, I guess it's true in what some people say that Australia is like America with an English twist.