Chinatown!

So I got home yesterday evening, spent about an hour or so at home before dashing off to a staff meeting at the place where I don't actually work anymore. There was some bad news, so we're all threatening to quit (in my case to quit again) if the owner doesn't start to realise what's happening around him. No more on that right now...

I got home and finally managed to sleep at about 1am. I don't have a problem with the light in the city - in the field I sleep with a light on so that the insects are attracted to something rather than dive-bombing me in my sleep. The light is around the corner, but being an open-plan area it's pretty bright anyway. My problem with the city is the noise. You don't realise exactly how loud it is to live here until you go away. I've had a headache since I got home - partly a result of pollution and partly from the noise which will probably start to fade in a few days, all part of the fun re-introduciton phase!

Once I fell asleep I stayed that way, through 2 alarms and my mother trying to wake me, until I managed to open my eyes at 8:30 - just half an hour before I had to be at work (at the place where I officially have a job). Work was tremendous fun, I was almost on time but got cut off by a non-functioning robot with a confused learner-driver, and as I hadn't had time for coffee I nearly died... I only nearly made one stupid mistake, but fortunately the client was awake enough to stop me from giving her a 50% discount (the joy of working with pet-owners is that they become all kind and caring in front of the people that care for their 'family members'). Once I'd finished the shift I was freezing cold, exhausted and starving, but I had to be at Joey's in less than half and hour so I had to mission, only to find that we had to wait for Nikki and her boyfriend to arrive to take us to Chinatown, down south where we could go SHOPPING!

It was so much fun! the place is awesome, all sort of dodgy and warehousy with stalls selling the most ridiculous stuff from singing clocks and lava lamps to feather boas and wigs and jewellery and and and... We only had about an hour before they closed, so Joey and I ran around like crazy looking through all the stalls and trying things on and just having fun. One of the things about not hanging out with girls much is that I really hate shopping, and take more of a 'make a list and then hunt it down and get out of there ASAP' approach. But today was awesome fun! when they started closing we ran around even more frantically trying to find the places that were still open and once that finished Nikki and Darren had to take us back to the car where we sat and planned our next trip and tried on all the stuff we got and then nearly fell asleep from the exhaustion!

It was totally not something I would do, but it was also one of the most fun afternoons I've had in a long time! and now I have sunglasses and a bracelet and a necklace and a whole pile of beading stuff, all for less than R150!

Now I'm off to the zoo. In theory I should be going out for dinner, but I think I might just go along for an hour or som and then come home to collapse. It's been a long day!