A trip to the Young Shop

Wed. Oct. 25, 2006
At work today, Sophia, asked if I wanted to join her for lunch, she was going to the Young Shop & then grab a sandwich. Sophia is one of the local folks who came on board about a month ago. She lived in the States for about 10 years & she is wonderful. She is in her early 30's & has the classic thin Asian figure. She dresses really really well, very stylish & hip. It is always fun to see what outfit she & Ruby are going to be wearing. I will start taking photos of them so you can appreciate what I'm saying. Both of them are really fun & nice.
I figured this must be some trendy clothes shop & there wouldn't be anything that I would be able to get, but it would be fun to go out with her & get a chance to talk. She is a great source of local cultural knowledge & answers all of my questions with great patience.
We walked along the same street Ashley & I had ventured down yesterday, but this time we went in a different direction. We passed some more clothes shops like the one I describe yesterday - long & narrow with tons of cloths at very cheap prices. I joked & said that I bet Sophia never shops at places like that. She said "Not true". She explained that these places get seconds of lots of name brand products like American Eagle & Abocrombie. She says you have to search, but you can get great deals & some fun stuff at these places. Another lunchtime activity for another day! Today we are headed for the Young Shop.
I wasn't really looking as we walked into the shop, so I didn't notice the sign. Of course I was expecting the most trendy clothes & shoes to be on the shelves. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw skeens of wool & knitting needles????? I said to Sophia "There is wool in here." She answered, "Oh course there is, it's a young shop!" Then it hit me - it isn't a young shop, it's a yarn shop. We both laughed & laughed. She said, I never can pronounce my R's, I am very lazy when I speak English. Sophia for all of her trendy styles loves to knit & she is a regular here. All of the clerks knew her & they treated her like a celebrity. She introduced me around & said that when I come again I must get the Sophia discount. I did buy some yarn & Sophia is going to give me some needles to make a scarf or a shawl. I love to knit, so this should be fun & easy to start with. Of course the instruction & pattern books are all in Chinese or Japanese, so I'm going to have to look online to see what I can find in the way of patterns. A scarf shouldn't be too tough. Sophia got a bunch of yarn. And the Sophia discount was very good - about 50% from what I could judge. It as really fun.
We went next door & got sandwiches at Pret A Manager (I thought a strange name for a sandwich shop). Sophia explained that it is French for food in a hurry or something like that. She said English speaking people always think it is a strange name for a fast food place. They had premade sandwiches that were very healthy. All whole wheat bread & lots of veggies.
I almost forgot to mention that on Monday when I was looking for the cable store, I passed a Hardee's restaurant. They didn't have biscuits though, so not very authentic, but same big sign & fried chicken. Really strange.