It's 5 o'clock Somewhere

There's a TV commercial on these days saying, Australia doesn't close at 5 anymore.

Apparently it closes at 5:30.

I spent a lot of my first few weeks waiting for stores to open. Sitting on benches, doing laps around the mall, checking the clock for the minutes to pass until 10 am. Or 11 am. Or I have run down the street, husseling to get to the store before it closes. Too often, feeling like I'm in prison with all the boars covering the storefronts.

There's a pedestrian-only mall in the Perth CBD. Usually it looks like this.

But by 6 o'clock at night, it usually looks like this.

(And yes, we do have Target!)

And it used to be worse. Late night shopping is a recent thing. Stores in the city are open later on Friday, and outside of the city Thursday is late night shopping.

Ok so the grocery stores are open until 9. M-F, but they close at 5 on the weekends. So once again, I am confronted by prison bars. So much for Sunday night grocery shopping! And I thought it was bad in South Carolina where some stores didn't open until 11 on Sundays.

 Since I work during normal business hours, and Sunday night is not an option, shopping and running errands cuts a bit into my relaxing and adventuring weekend time. Good thing I don't need much, and I can at least get my groceries or last minute baking ingredients at Wooly's after work (however, as I learned yesterday, even if Wooly's is open, it does not have applesauce).