Saturday Downtown

A couple of us went downtown today to shop for some things. We chose the Harbour Town outlet mall as our venue, hoping to get some good deals. Me and my friend Piyush went looking for football cleats, while Andrew came along hoping find some snorkeling gear. We found the mall fairly easily (we are getting better at this TransPerth stuff) and I was really impressed with the atmosphere of the place. It was a two story outdoor mall, and you just can't find those in a place like Michigan. One of the stores we found was the ultimate Australia paraphenalia giftshop. They had everything there. The shop would have any die hard cheesy tourist foaming at the mouth. I spent a great deal of time there looking for something really cool to buy, an outback hat, an Australian flag, a stuffed koala, but those had all been bought before by other Notre Dame students. Finally, I found the perfect item: a boomerang. I had completely forgotten that the boomerang was an Australian native until I saw the boomerang rack in the giftshop. I guess you don't really ever see them anywhere else in Australia anymore. Nonetheless, I had to have one.

Now I didn't know this but apparently there are two different kinds of boomerangs. The first ones were not quite as curved and on the back they said hunting boomerangs. These were actually the weapons the Aboriginals used to hunt animals with. They are supposed to be thrown low and parallel to the ground to take out an animal's legs. The other kind of boomerang was the throwing boomerang. I am not sure where this kind came from, but it is the kind that comes right back to you when you throw it. Seeing as I didn't expect to be hunting any animals anytime soon, I went with the throwing boomerang. They also had some nice hand-painted boomerangs, but those were pretty much the display only type, and being a wreckless young lad, I needed something I wouldn't be afraid to destroy. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to try out my new boomerang as it has been raining all day. That might be a good thing though, considering the directions appear to require multiple, well-calibrated engineering measurement tools. Here are the directions:

Hold the boomerang flat side to palm with the end about the middle of the palm. Face directly into the wind. Turn 45 degrees to the right of the wind. Raise boomerang above right shoulder and tilt 20 degrees off vertical. Throw boomerang at an angle of 30 degrees above horizontal. Release with a spinning motion as the boomerang leaves the hand.

Sounds simple enough right? I don't know if I'll be able to do all that or not, but for now it makes a great lively decoration in my entirely bare room.


Also Piyush and I managed to find a good deal on some football cleats (I'll explain what those are for later). Andrew found a great price for snorkeling gear and we all bought our own set so hopefully we'll be snorkeling soon. We also found a Gelato stand with some interesting flavours. Andrew had Red Bull flavor, and I tried the tiramisu flavour. Needless to say it was amazing. Overall, despite the rain, it was a pretty good day downtown.