Boxing Day – the only holiday when people wake up earlier than working days and willingly commute to in traffic to the city. It happens one day after Christmas day every year. Urban people go out of the way to enjoy the best of modern day consumerism: To amplify the meaning of shopaholic, shopaholic: Buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have.
Shopaholic: Buying things we don’t need with money we don’t have.
With the intention of grabbing a bargain, we started our journey with my sister booking an affordable parking space near Emporium, Melbourne. Paying only $4 parking fee for the entire Saturday, we happily parked the car at a hidden parking spot off Queen St.
The first thing we did after reaching Emporium was getting lunch. People were already queuing to enter Branded Stores as we sidewinding through the crowd to get to the food court. We were really hoping to have Sushi Hon, one of our favourite sushi train restaurant. However our hunger was greater than the willingness to queue for great sushi, so we settled with Sushi Sushi instead.
Everywhere we went, people were queuing up to get into stores. The thought of modern consumerism keeps going through my mind. Thinking how our modern culture dictates how we work our lives for money to trade for physical goods. Every business in Emporium and Melbourne Central were packed with shoppers hoping to score a real bargain on Boxing Day. Retailers promote “unbeatable” deals on their windows, enticing onlookers and serious shoppers alike to enter their stores. By the time we were there, most shoppers were already carrying at least one of two full shopping bags with something in common: A big smile, the joy of spending money, or scoring a bargain.
Miin and I did not manage to grab anything except a handy battery pack from Dick Smith. We are not vivid shoppers anyway. The main reason we went to join the Boxing Day shopping crowd is for us to experience the shopping atmosphere. Plus we also promised to meet some friends at the city (this is more of Miin’s point though).
We then made our way to Federation Square, were looking forward to see the Lego Christmas Tree. Made from millions of Lego bricks, it looks marvelously amazing.
