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Time for some well needed travelling again?.
? Yep, I will be on the move again in just a few days. I will be saying goodbye to Sydney, friends, colleagues, Sydney Terraces and my job! At least until I am due to come back at the very end of October!
So guys, I expect you want to know where I am travelling to, and who I am going with! OK, Sydney to Adelaide, Adelaide to Melbourne, Melbourne to Cairns and Cairns to Brisbane. I will be having a big reunion with? Beth!!!! I really can?t wait!! It?s time again to do more of what I am supposed to be doing this year? TRAVELLING!
However, I don?t deny that I have had a wicked time here in Sydney, met some very different people! Met and made some good friends in my job! I handed in my notice last week and was given a ?big head?, I was told I am one of the best and will be missed ? ?Ahh?! But luckily they?re going to keep me on the ?books? so when I return I will be able to work for them again! I have also saved a bit of money? yeh! This is mainly due to the fact that I have been a bit of tight ?backside? with my spending. I have spent many evenings in with the company of my house mates watching Australian Big Brother? sad I know! As we are all kind of saving money too! But I haven?t sacrificed all of my socialising; as usual I have been burning the candle at both ends. My manager asked me the other day ?So are you still sleeping on your feet?? But yeah, a lot of my time since I wrote my last essay has been spent working! But I will now try and give you a brief low down of what I have been up to since my last instalment!
I think instead of my usual day-by-day account I am just going to let you know all about the interesting things I have been doing other than working.
So, a few days after I emailed you last Ray one of our house mates was moving on to go and work on a farm in Queensland! So Ray, Pete - another house mate, and a couple of our neighbours and I headed into town for a ?few? drinks! We got home at around 4am ? and Ray?s train was at 7.30am and I was due in at work at 7.00am! So we both headed back into town the next morning with no more than an hours sleep each! So now I had only been living in the house for 5 weeks and I had seen 3 people move on!
I stayed up with Chris and Pete (housemates) a few weeks ago to watch the last England game of the World Cup (no comment!). Yes, I was at work in the morning? another 1 hour sleep, and had a split shift at work this day! On this evening I said goodbye to Claire a good friend/neighbour I have made over that past few weeks! She was leaving the next morning so I called in to her house for an hour or 2 after work!
I have been on a couple of short strolls around Newtown (where I live) on a couple of days off ? to save money basically ? and not to be sitting in the house! I have been to the local pub a couple of nights during the week with Claire and some of our neighbours.
I have had a mini career in fashion. Yes, I had a 4 hour session in a men?s and women?s clothes store! What? I here you all cry!!
Well basically weeks ago I applied for a job as a full time sales assistant! Out of the blue I receive a phone call asking if I would like to have an interview for the position! So I being all open minded and that? said of course. So a week later, I had the interview, and was offered a trial session for 4 hours (paid for of course!).
Now I guess you all want to know what retail chain it was for?. well my trial was in the store I chose to be based at? Sydney?s top No.1? signature?.. French Connection Outlet!!! Yes, I have worked for FCUK for 4 hours! It?s nothing to be crazily thrilled about, but it?s something I can say I have done!
I had the trial one Monday afternoon between 2 and 6pm! I was told to wear a top, jeans, and trainers! So I thought I would go kind of smart-casual! But it turned out I actually wore a shirt that I wore when I went swimming in rivers, and elephant riding in Thailand ? surreal ? or what?
So I arrived into the store at 2pm! Was introduced to Miranda (store manager), she practically immediately says; ?Weren?t you supposed to be here at 10 this morning?? I was thinking whoa! And explained to her that Toby at HQ had given me a start time of 2pm at the interview! So after all the confusion of my start time? I wasn?t exactly all relaxed for the start of my trial!! (BTW ? I actually was due to start at 2pm ? just typical lack of communication!).
So Miranda takes me into the back office and gives me a little FCUK badge to wear (which I kept as a little souvenir!). She gives me a brief low down of the store, explains that she is aware of my little fashion experience! Miranda tells me that she will be mainly looking out for my customer service skills! So she tells me to look around the store and to become familiar with the clothes that are being sold etc, and asks me to cover the lady?s section for a while! At this time in the afternoon the shop was slightly quiet, so I did find myself sorting clothes on the shop floor, and helping Andy (from UK on a visa too!) he had been working there for 3 weeks.
Mainly for the first hour in the lady?s section I was doing what all of us hate when we go shopping! I kept greeting every customer that came in with; ?Hey there, how you going??, ?Hi, how are you today?? etc. etc. and ?Hi there, are you okay there? Do you need any help?? But after doing this for a little while into my trial session, Jo (Supervisor) approached me and said I was doing very well, and that if I wanted I could start looking around the shop and suggest items of clothes that would go with other items that people were looking at or holding!! But all the time Miranda wasn?t on the shop floor, a couple of times I kept thinking that she was watching me on CCTV!!! The funny thing is I kind of knew I would not take the job, when the money was about $5 an hour less than what I was earning at the hotel ? I just wanted to do it to see what it was like.
So even though I didn?t really want the job, I found myself actually really going for it, giving it 100%!! For me the customer service and interaction was a very familiar part, and luckily I didn?t get asked many opinions about clothes very often.
As usual with these things there were a few funny incidents with shoppers!!! The first was when I was in the men?s section at one point, and this French dude came in and asked if we had any FCUK tops (black) just with the logo on etc. so I show him around the different tops we had on sale! He takes a couple to try on, and walks up to what were the female changing rooms (but I hadn?t been told) I thought they were unisex!!! So he comes walking out of the changing rooms without ANY top on, walking across the shop floor back towards the men?s section to pick up another size!!! Embarrassment or what?? So Jo comes over and tells me about the male changing ? which are so close to the shop entrance that they use a key to open them ? security and all that!! Jo tells me she can?t really do anything about the guy walking around the shop with his top off ? she tells me it does happen but not often! So that was bizarre customer no. 1.
At one point I had a ?12 year old adult? walking in asking me if we had any T-shirts or shirts in his size! I explained that we have XS T-shirts, but not XS shirts! So I collect a few that he can try on? (And he comes across all mature about his fashion sense etc?). Realising that they are still too big, he asks me if we have any jeans that would be in his size! There and then I had to let him down, and basically tell him no!! He left the shop all collective and accepting that the store?s selection of clothes wouldn?t be fitting him for at least another couple of years!!!
Another time when I was working in the men?s section, a guy came in asking what bags we had and how much they were! I show him all the ones that we have on sale, and each time I tell him the price he asks ?what else have you got?? as the cheapest bag we had was approx $60! On his realisation he can?t afford any of the bags on sale, he shows me where the strap on his bag is broken!!! He asks ?Do you repair bags here?? Immediately I reply ?Err, no, I am afraid we don?t repair bags here sir, sorry!? So he then asks ?Do you have a pin?? By now I just had to say no, and I kind of walked away! Most of the guys working on the shop floor had seen this guy, and we had a bit of a laugh about him after he left! Apparently he goes in quite often!
Towards the end of my trial session I was back in the women?s section. A lady who had been in previously, maybe a couple of hours ago, comes back in. I greet her, ?Hi there, how are you today?? She replies ?You have already asked me that once today!? I apologise! The guys tell me it happens often; you sometimes don?t remember faces of customers and do ask them when they come back in the shop a few hours later! I was a bit like whoa, uh oh! Thought she was going to get really annoyed! Luckily she actually made a couple of purchases, so I obviously hadn?t deterred her from the clothes!!
Overall the FCUK mini career was funny and a different experience! I wouldn?t really fancy it as a full time job ? think I will stay with Hospitality for now ? especially when the pay is more (q. surprised about that too!! (?,). I did receive a phone call two days later, asking if I would like the job!!
I have met up with Tim (The Korean guy I met at the RSA course) and his other Korean friends a couple of times! We met up one Thursday afternoon, went for a few drinks, and played a bit of pool! And I taught them some English/Australian as they had mainly come to Australia to learn some English!! There are always more persistent that I teach them English than they teach me some Korean!! On this Thursday afternoon we got talking about different and favourite cuisines!! When they discovered I had never tried Korean food they immediately insisted that one night before I leave Sydney I go around to one of their flats and they would cook me some Korean food!!!
So a couple of Sunday nights ago, I met up with Tim and we went over to his Korean?s friends flat in Pyrmont (area of Sydney). I offered to help with the cooking, but was told to sit!! Some of us watched a movie, while the others prepared the food! About 2 hours after arriving, the food was ready! Smelled v. good! So the dishes included Kim Chee (a spicy pickled cabbage and garlic ? a very common Korean side dish). A spicy beef dish, a seafood dish and of course accompanied with rice. Also we had Gyeran-tang (like a scrambled egg soup), and a miso soup! My first experience of typical Korean food was v. nice, v. similar to other Asian foods, but maybe more bitter and spicy!
A very big tradition in Korea, especially when you have friends and/or family around for meals is to drink ?Soju? very similar to vodka, made from rice! But basically you have a shot during your meal and you can have not just one but many!! Because we were eating fairly early we just had one shot each! As more people were due to arrive later, for a fake Birthday celebration! After the meal we sat around and talked a bit, and a couple of hours later the other few people arrived!
We were sat around the lounge table, half of us on the ground, and half on the sofa! More food was presented on the table, some being the other half of the dishes we had eaten before. A massive chocolate cake for June?s ?fake birthday? which was being eaten with chop sticks ? (something new ? I never seen before). Tim had made his speciality dish; I can?t remember the name it was quite hard! It was made from beef on the bone, which had been marinated and then made into a casserole/broth/soup with lots of sesame seeds and new potatoes!! It is a very common meal accompaniment with Soju, which by this point there were many shots of Soju being done!
We stayed up drinking Soju and beer, and eating lots more food until around 4am!! Lucky I wasn?t in work until 3pm the next day ? yeah! This was the last time I would see Tim and his friends for a while, we plan to meet again when I come back to Sydney!!
I have also said goodbye to Kelly and Grace ? in a typical big way! We (Kelly, Grace, Bridget, Rita, Pat and a couple of K&G?s friends and I) went out in town a couple of Saturdays ago! We had a couple of drinks around Darling Harbour, headed into Scruffy Murphy?s (Irish Bar) and finished off in Side Bar!
We met up with Tom and Gareth (new house mates of mine) and Pete! But we lost Pete and Tom (? v. drunk!). And as usual I was working the next morning (rather same day!). This was possibly one of my worst hung-over/still intoxicated shifts at work! Was a good shift though ? those are always the shifts that I will remember the most! (This was the shift where my boss got the idea from of me sleeping on my feet!). So when I got home at around 2pm!!! I went to bed at 3pm and didn?t wake until 2am when my room mate Gareth had just come home! I was much disoriented and didn?t know what, where, when, how and why!!! So once I realised everything? I decided to sleep another few hours before work (so in total ? slept for 15hours!!!).
A couple of weeks ago I had a night out in the Rocks for the first time! I went to an Irish Bar ? Mercantile - with Bridget and Rita! It was a good night ? good to go somewhere different! Next day as usual ? work again ? then sleeping!
I had my last big night out in Sydney last Saturday! And it was big! I wasn?t working the next morning, so we went for it big style! Arrived back home at 10.30am the next morning! Met up with Bridget and Rita, a couple of their friends and made a few random friends too!! Was good to party hard one last time in Sydney (for now) and not have to be at work!!
I had my last shift (for now) at work on Monday! Said my goodbyes to everyone (for now)! Will be good to go back and work somewhere where everyone is really cool! And on my return we have all promised to make more efforts to go out, as we are all always working different shifts (especially during the weekend), but I am pleased to know I will be welcome to go back to work there!!!
So today is Wednesday 2nd July! I am flying from Sydney tomorrow night, and just doing a few last minute things, including writing this ? I am abusing the free internet access at the office of where I live! As I doubt I will be able to keep in touch with you all a lot while I am back on the road ? unless Beth and I find some really cheap internet places ? but I won?t be able to spend as much free time on the net as I have done here!
I told you a lot of my time has been spent doing mundane things (home from home ? working, sleeping, eating, occasionally venturing out and partying!!!). But now I am free, but feel slightly insecure on the income front, I have to be careful with my spending even more now ? Whoa!!!
So I have tried to tell you about the few things that I have done over the past six weeks (six weeks since my last instalment). I hope you find it a good read, and I can just about hear all your cries of relief that it?s no longer than 5 pages!!!
Hope you are all well!!! Let me know what you?re all up to!!!
Steve!
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