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Archive for August, 2008

Street shopping

August 27th, 2008

In South Africa, you can buy pretty much everything you need and definitely don’t need on the road side. The sellers sell their hand made crafts or skills.

Handmade crafts are generally the African arts like soap stone statues of animals like elephants, hippos, lions etc or beaded art works and clothing with a distinctive African design flavor.

Skills are often an uninvited windscreen wash, parking security ‘officer‘ or even a new exhaust – no guarantees though ;-)

Years ago, big vendors in South Africa did pretty much the same putting their goods on the sidewalk in front of the shop and people would later walk in and pay for the item. As the crime rates have increased astronomically, this action is now a distant memory for South Africans.

South African shop behind bars

South African shop behind bars

Typical South African bottle store

Typical South African bottle store

Down under in Australia, crime is not suffocating the street shopping experience. Below is an image of a forklift unloading a couple cases of Pure Blonde beer.

Forklift off loading beer
Forklift off loading a valuable consignment of Pure Blonde beer

The operator then went off on his scheduled lunch break. Do you think the cases of Pure Blonde beer would still there if he’d done this in South Africa? He’d be lucky if the forklift was still there!!!

If you’re ever in Brisbane, Angus & Robertson is one of those book stores that have pretty much every topic covered. Also visit Dymocks – another book store, just further up on Queen Street, opposite the mall.

Angus Robertson book store
Angus Robertson bookstore

Chalk and cheese, black and white – that is how the street shopping experience between Australia and South Africa compares. The difference driven by crime and the mentality of the people.

I don’t think Anubis would survive or help South Africa – probably be sold for scrap metal!!!

So very sad ;-(

bushy Brisbane , ,