A spaza shop

Combined, imagine what buying power they would have!

Verbatim Books

Verbatim Books is a quaint old-style second-hand bookshop in a quiet and shady part of Stellenbosch (here’s a map to their location).

If Kerry-Anne were made of iron, books would be like magnets. The moment she saw Verbatim Books, and the old bicycle parked outside, with flowers, my fate was sealed, we just *had* to stop in to explore. And explore we did. The bookshop isn’t very big, but is filled mostly with second-hand books that are in pristine condition. They have everything from traditional old story books that you’d read to your kids at bed-time, to old classics like Kerry-Anne’s favourite book ever, Jane Eyre (2006 movie), which I ended up buying because she hadn’t ever seen the French edition and just *had* to have it.

If you’re a book person, you definitely should make a visit to Verbatim Books an item on your long to-do list. Kerry-Anne says it’s the best bookshop she’s ever been to. And she should know, I guess.

Old weighing scale

I’m a bit of a sucker for antiques and retro housewares. I spotted this old scale hanging in a lovely little gift and décor shop in the Cape Quarter, called Baraka. If you like unusual curios, antique kitchen utensils, handmade leather-bound photo albums, and brightly coloured cushions, then put Baraka on your list of places to visit. I hinted an awful lot while we were browsing around, but unfortunately all Paul got me was this photo.

I guess I’ll have to go back on my own one of these days, armed with my credit card and a very large shopping bag. Also, comfortable shoes, because I could be there for several hours. And Paul doesn’t need to know, okay?

Shopping for clothes

In addition to the inevitable madness of Christmas shopping, it’s summer and a huge proportion of us are on holiday. Shops are overrun with large families shopping in troupes, girlfriends shopping together for summer fashion, couples walking slowly from store to store and (of course) tired-looking shop assistants.

It’s certainly not a time to be spent in the shops. As Christmas draws close the madness will cease – for a day or two – and then it’ll be back to large families shopping in troupes, girlfriends shopping together…

As a side note, I’m interested to hear how this December’s retail earnings compare to those of the last few years. Perhaps it’s just that I’ve avoided the shops as far as possible, but it seems to me as though spending is somewhat depressed.

The Book Lounge in Roeland Street

We popped in to The Book Lounge on Tuesday for my first outing to a book launch ever. The Book Lounge is one of those traditional book shops with authentic dark-wood book shelves and comfy couches, and it’s perfectly situated on the corner of the city’s well-known Roeland and Buitenkant Streets.

The shop became very crowded and a little stuffy a few moments after I took this shot, as the book launch guests streamed upstairs for the evening’s formalities. It seems as though The Perfect Weekend by author Dominique Herman and photographer Brett Florens drew more attention that I’d anticipated! Unfortunately we had to leave just as the talks were starting so that we could to make it to the Silicon Cape event on time.

Vivacious Hair

I have the impression (right or wrong) that guys in many other countries visit “the barber” to get their hair cut, beard trimmed, and nose-hairs snipped (*eeuw*).

For a few reasons, I’ve never visited a “barber”. The one is that the thought of having a stranger who’s a guy so in my personal space is a little weird, and the other is that there are very few men-only salons around these days. Apart from these reasons, given the option of a guy tending to your needs versus a beautiful woman… erm, don’t you think the latter wins hands-down?

Kerry-Anne and I have our hair snipped and trimmed by Mariechen-scissorhands, the owner of Vivacious Hair in the Willowbridge shopping mall. What’s cool about Mariechen is that she’s down-to-earth, unpretentious, and snappy with the scissors.

Our local Kwikspar

I’ve found myself buying more bread from the Kwikspar’s bakery lately. For the last few years we’ve been buying a brand of “toaster bread” that’s manufactured in bulk by large manufacturers. What started to concern us about this bread is how long it lasts… I mean, is it normal for bread to last 2 weeks and still be soft? When we thought about it we remembered that when we were kids bread bought on Monday was stale by Tuesday… and I think this is the way it ought to be, else there’s something terribly wrong with the substance we call bread.

As I said, lately I’ve been buying fresh rolls and bread from the Kwikspar… and I can definitely say that it’s way better than the artificial bread we were previously buying. I mean, what’s better than a thick slice of warm bread with a chunk of butter? Yum!

Shopping at the V&A Waterfront

This is the Barrow Mall on the first floor of the Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre at the V&A Waterfront. At these barrows you can buy anything from pet’s clothing to jewellery, and from sporting merchandise to mugs. This is presumably a slightly cheaper option for retailers, offering them a space to sell their products at a very popular mall, but without the high costs associated with renting an actual shop. Of course, it means they miss out on some of the luxuries of a shop too, like, say, a door…

As someone who used to sell products at a craft market, I think it would be awesome if these barrows were actual trailers that could be towed behind a car – you’d be able to sell your products anywhere you liked, without having to pack and unpack every time. Of course, with the way I take corners in my car, I’d have to tape everything down with duct tape, or stick to selling soft, non-breakable items like cushions.

The shop at Kink Bar

I mentioned in the previous post that we visited Kink Bar Boutique for a birthday get-together. What I didn’t mention though was that the bar’s name contains the word Boutique because, while most people socialise downstairs, some people wander upstairs to the little lingerie and… well… toy shop.

Before fully realising the nature of the shop I took a walk upstairs to see what it was all about. Needless to say I was quickly scared off by the beautiful garments and the ladies browsing them. I didn’t even have a chance to take in all the goods that were for sale. I’ve since taken a quick look at the catalogue on their website (rated 18+), so I have a pretty good idea of what I missed out on…

Lego, fun for all ages

Come on now, admit it, everyone loves playing with Lego… don’t they? After chatting with several friends who have kids I’ve decided that guys (and perhaps a few girls) have kids only so that they can justify buying Lego. I believe that our stand-in photographer Mandy has no kids and is unashamedly a Lego-lover (which is why we have this photo today!).

An interesting thing that I discovered from the Wikipedia article on Lego is that Ole Kirk Christiansen, Lego’s inventor, actually used a patented design by Hilary Harry Fisher Page called Kiddicraft. Kiddicraft was developed in the 1930s, while Lego materialised in the 1940s. Lego (due to its remarkable success) eventually succeeded in purchasing the rights to Kiddicraft in 1981.

Aren’t we all lucky that Ole “leveraged” the Kiddicraft design? Were it not for this small part of history, it’s possible that millions would never have experienced the joy of Lego!

These Four Walls fine art gallery

The idea behind These Four Walls is for it to be a gallery with a semi-informal atmosphere where “average people” are able to purchase original works of art at affordable prices. What I like about the gallery is that their website’s homepage has a link to photos of the works displayed in the current exhibition.

These Four Walls is at 169 Lower Main Road in Observatory, and is open Tuesday through Friday from 10h00 to 17h00, and Saturday from 10h00 to 13h00. Most artists don’t paint to make money, they paint to express something for others to enjoy. So, if you find yourself in the area, if you love art, and even if you’re not shopping, visit the gallery and stimulate your creativity.

Tyre swings for sale

I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should have asked the vendor (sitting in the far right corner of the photo) how much these cost. I can’t believe that they would be expensive, so if anyone is interested, leave a comment and I’ll stop by to find out for you.

If you’d like one for your kids (or even for someone else’s), you’ll find this vendor just up the road from the Stodels Nursery in Bellville. I’ve marked it here on Wikimapia.

Why not consider buying two of these and some tough rope, and then setting them up in a field or forest somewhere where someone would use them? You’d support the vendor and possibly make some kids (or skinny big people) happy at the same time… the butterfly effect, you know!

Charly's Bakery - new building

One or two of our visitors recently alluded to the fact that there has been some irregularity with our daily posts. It’s not your eyes deceiving you, or your RSS reader acting up; it’s indeed Cape Town Daily Photo that’s been in a little bit of turmoil for about a week.

Last week we had an incident with our hosting provider, with the result that I spent a large part of the week sourcing an alternative provider, setting up a brand new server, and migrating Cape Town Daily Photo away from the previous provider. Over this time, I have to admit that we slipped on posting for a few days, and so we’re currently trying to catch up the lost days (which is almost like trying to catch up on last week’s school homework!).

So, we’ve now found a new home in the Rackspace cloud and so far, so good. And, to be honest, it seems as though the site is just a tiny bit faster on our new server. Now, don’t you think some kind of celebratory cake is in order?

Glaceau Vitaminwater

I first heard about Glaceau Vitaminwater a few weeks ago, when one after the other my Twitter friends began saying that they’d received these promotional suitcases from the company. Look, I’m not going to lie to you – we were pretty envious. I watched at the window day after day, wondering when my suitcase full of (apparently awesome) vitaminwater would arrive. But alas, it never did. The life of a B-list blogger is filled with disappointment.

I have to say though, their stealthy launch campaign has been really well-executed and clearly very effective. I was visiting one of my clients in Loop Street yesterday, when someone in the office spied this truck downstairs, offloading crates and crates and crates of something liquidy. As soon as I saw the truck, I exclaimed, “Glaceau Vitaminwater!” with perhaps a bit toooo much excitement, considering I haven’t even tasted it yet. It turns out their store/office/temporary home is right next to my client’s offices, on the corner of Loop and Bloem Streets, and they were preparing for their launch party.

Tahiera's Superette

In South Africa we have several names for a convenience store. A cafe (pronounced ca-fee), a superette and a corner shop are all small convenience stores selling everything from sweets and milk to detergents and candles. Prices are normally a little inflated – irrespective of what Tahiera has written on the wall – and as a rule, we NEVER buy meat from this kind of store (even if it is an emergency) as one can never be sure how long the meat’s really been in that fridge!

Chrisna's Olives at DelVera

We happened upon Chrisna’s new farm-style shop at the DelVera estate (just outside of Stellenbosch) today. While Kerry-Anne was tasting all the pastes, olives and flavoured vinegars I got chatting to one of Chrisna’s assistants who was busy with the laborious task of removing all the pips from a HUGE bucket of olives. As we chatted, this is what I learned:

Chrisna started her olive business more than ten years ago as a home “project” while tending an old lady’s olive tree. Soon word about her amazing olives spread and Chrisna started selling olives, olive oil and olive paste to friends. Things started to snowball from that point leading to her moving her business into her garage at home and by the end of last year Chrisna and her small team were processing about 10 tons of organically grown olives each year! Chrisna and her staff make the pastes and pickled olives, while they outsource the pressing of the oil from the fruit to local… well… olive-pressing-people. (Say, what would you call people who press olives?)

It seems as though Chrisna’s made a roaring success from her one-tree beginning. If you love olives and feel like chatting to friendly locals, make a point of taking a drive along the R44 to DelVera – you won’t regret the trip.

Lingerie Shop

Yesterday had most of Cape Town celebrating Valentine’s Day – restaurants were fully booked, and parties all over Cape Town were buzzing. While we were driving to the friend’s party that I spoke of yesterday, Kerry-Anne spotted this lingerie shop in Kloofnek Road. Isn’t it an awesome display?

To get back to the title of this post – and for the sake of those who are single – did you know that in South Korea there’s a tradition that on Black Day (14 April) single people get together for a meal of noodles with black bean sauce? That sounds like an awesome idea! Just imagine, a room full of single people… a room full of possibility.

Greenhouse at Montebello

This is the greenhouse at the Montebello Design Centre (have a look at yesterday’s post to see the signpost that points visitors here). It’s apparently one of the oldest greenhouses in South Africa, and is now home to a nursery.

Do click on the photo to enlarge it so that you can see all the tiny treasures filling the greenhouse.

Parking paid

The blurry sign that you see in this photo reminds clients of this shopping centre to pay for their parking before exiting to the boom-gates. I still remain unconvinced that shopping centres aren’t ripping us off by forcing us to pay for parking. Certain centres provide free open-air parking and paid undercover parking, leaving customers to decide whether or not they are prepared to pay for some shade from the African sun. This particular centre has no free parking.

I find paying to spend money at a shopping centre much like being charged to walk into a restaurant and look at the menu. I guess the shopping centre wins though – I still shop there regardless.

Woolworths

While visiting Australia a few years back we discovered that Woolworths in South Africa is quite unlike Woolworths in other parts of the world. The South African Woolworths started off as a upmarket clothing store – not like the Woolworths food shop that non-South Africans know. Slowly over the years it’s become more affordable, and today caters for middle to high income groups.

I mentioned that the store started off as a clothing store; they then later branched out into homeware. A number of years ago the company introduced a food department supplying carefully graded, high-quality foods. These days we even have petrol stations (service stations) with small on-site Woolworths convenience stores that are open 24 hours a day. They’re awesome – and a great step up from the often-dodgy convenience stores found at many other petrol stations.