from destruction to construction

to compliment the destruction from last week, on my way to meet Bertie for dinner on Tuesday I took some snaps of the construction guys hard at work on the new Canberra Centre extension - they had quite a way to go to get it ready for the (not so) grand opening today.

Bertie and I went to the new Labour club in civic for dinner. It's pretty nice - pokies are hidden away, no smoking inside and never has been so there's no smokey stench, and they have Pure Blonde on tap (yay). Unfortunately, some of the steps taken away from being a traditional 'club' aren't so positive - the first time I was there they had run out of schnitzel (at a club!!!), and bertie was informed they 'don't do mushroom sauce'???? These issues along with the lack of pool playing facilities and the fact that lame pop music (I don't know where they found lame pop - I love pop!) takes precedence over the sound of sports on the tv, could lead to a disappointing club experience. Fortunately, the company held no disappointment, and as always I had a great time dining with Bertie =)(I'm telling you, what this guy can't tell you about aardvarks isn't worth knowing!!)

As I was saying, part of the new extension to the Canberra Centre opened today. I'm amazed at how shopping malls here continue to grow exponentially - who is doing all the shopping?? Only about 4 years ago the Canberra Centre was nearly doubled in size, and here it is already approximately twice the size again. I'm pretty excited about parts of the extension.

There'll be a huge new cinema complex - 9 theatres and the promiose of a good variety of independent and international film as well as hollywood features. It was certainly time for the city centre to get a cinema revamp - the old cinema is really ordinary.

We're also getting a 'Borders' bookshop/newsagency/music/movies and anything else shop. Borders is great - they have such a huge range! Actually, it was at a Borders in Melbourne that I found Yarn Harlot's books - I hadn't seen them anywhere here!

What I was really excited about was going to JB hifi. Ok, I know I'm there all the time, but this time would be different. See, I have all these Canberra Centre vouchers that I haven't been able to decide what to do with, and now I was going to be able to go into jb and pick out more than $100 worth of stuff guilt free - woohooo!
For the past 2 weeks I have been planning what to get - and yesterday finally decided - I'd get the entire Roswell collection, the first season of 90210, and then to take a punt on an unknown - Hex.
I was planning on leaving work a bit early so I could swing by on the way home then looked up their website to see if they had any info about opening day, and found opening hours - open til 6:30, again with the wooohooo!!! This meant I didn't even have to leave work early. Imagine my surprise and disappointment to arrive at 6 to a closing store - ooooooh =( I tried to talk the security guy (who happened to turn up in one of my pictures later - whcihc hopefully blogger will let me upload later =s) into letting me just slip quickly in, but he wouldn't budge.

Luckily Big W were there to come to my rescue (again ahhh). We went in as an afterthought, after we'd done some grocery shopping. We were about to go wait for the bus, then I thought I might be able to pick-up some iron-on transfer paper. I was probably looking for about 2 seconds before someone came to ask if I needed help. Although he really had no idea what I was looking for, he was very helpful (and provided a much appreciated contrast to 3 circuits of the relocated supermarket on a fruitless search for polenta!) While I checked out the computer and craft areas, the Boy was looking for a bargain in the dvd section where he managed to spot Hex - saving (at least in part) my DVD mission after all (not to mention he had also bought American Dreamz -I love that movie- for me, having made it to jb in time and knowing how disappointed I would be about arriving after closing!!) The guy at the DVD counter was also unusually personable. I love Big W =)

In all, it was pretty exciting to see how the extension is shaping up, and to check out some of the new shops. I think its nice to see how our city is developing, even in such a material vein. Some of the areas look pretty schmick for now (let's see what happens when they're populated by some of our city's finest mall dwellers!)

Its been a mad busy week at work for me this week, so roll on the weekend (maybe I'll have time to drop by jb...)

Besos! =)