The shopping antidote for homesickness

I need to start exploring further afield but one of my favorite places is Indooropilly Shopping Centre. To imagine Indooropilly you need to think Westfield Queensgate or Riccarton on steriods. Jon refuses to admit it but it's about three times the size! I think one of the reasons he disagrees, is the same reason I like it - we might be in Brisbane but there is so much that is familiar here. Pumpkin Patch, Portmans, Esprit, Just Jeans, Dymocks, Kikki K. - the list goes on. Yes there are three massive floors of Myers instead of Farmers, and there is Target and KMart rather than the Warehouse - but fundamentally it feels so similar that the "I'm totally new and lost" feeling fades away to "hey I know how this place works" The first time I walked in and saw the recognisable line up something unwound in me and I began to relax. The task of acclimatising to a new city and a new country suddenly seemed manageable.

Central city shopping areas tend to have their own character, and while I enjoy shopping there they are not always that effective for the typical parental/home management tasks. Today I needed a whole selection of useful things e.g. a couple of wicker baskets, a circuit board, some document boxes - a shopping centre with a substantial car park just is so much easier for that stuff.

Nick finds it extraordinary that he can walk into one of his favorite menswear shops and it is "exactly like it is at home"- I find it a relief! I also realised today that I could figure out the shops new to me by relating their pricing to the shops I know e.g. which is high end women's clothing and which is on the lower end of the scale. So while one could be concerned about the homogenisation of trans-tasman shopping and the economic impact the major Australian brands have on New Zealand ones (interestingly enough, here they are getting really worried about some of the big American brands encroaching) as an antidote for Kiwi homesickness ...it has unexpected dividends.