day 2

i know i need to expand my culinary tour of cape town, but i adore spill the beans. there are pancakes on the menu, British style with lemon juice and sugar, and scones with jam and cheese. i chose my all time favorite, poached eggs on a bed of sauteed spinach and toast. i asked for rye and it tasted a whole lot like sourdough. either way, it was delicious. from there i mapped my route to the second mall on the list, blue route. i need nothing now and i have been to the mall before, but i needed one more mall fix. i know it is horrible to come to such an amazing place and hide away in a mall, but i needed one more day without having to think or plan or talk. all these new places i want to see, i know so little about, they need a little research and planning. a mall needs no introduction. i needed to walk around invisible, in a small sea of people, to look at pretty things, to practice walking in closed-toe shoes. also Woolworths has these amazing cotton blankets and lovely beach towels and i need one of each. 

apologies to all my South African friends but the mall was just lame. we Americans live in total retail heaven, other than maybe an outlet mall in Italy with 90% off handmade shoes, i cannot imagine any place better to shop than Buckhead, USA. we have it all.  it is such an injustice to open a lame mall. the mall in Lusaka, Zambia was the absolute worst. it is a massive elaborate, expensive structure, with pitiful retail stores with cheap, overpriced made in China inventory. this mall was markedly better, but still so disappointing. the shoe stores sell pleather shoes. proudly. really? there was not a leather handbag in the whole entire mall. the leading department store carries not one single designer label. the whole mall carried not one article by Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, Armani, Gucci, or even Burberry. except for the perfume counter. the women’s shoes and handbags in these stores look as if they came from Fred’s Dollar Store. i know i am being a bit cruel but you must be warned. come here for incredible food, wine and the most resourceful, kind and loving people you will ever meet. but don’t come to buy a new wardrobe. Woolworths didn’t have the towel or blanket i wanted. they must have been last season. i left the mall shocked that everyone in this entire city shops at the same little places and all wears fashions chosen for them by those same little stores. it was sad. i know you think i am joking but i really do think it is sad. i am enamored by the study of fashion and the things people wear. it was a beautiful case study even on the plane here. a photographer sat beside me perusing pics on his Canon in khakis and hiking boots, Timex watch. the African businessman beside me in square toe shoes that only a black man can pull off. which photographer wore the first pair of khakis? which black man wore those dress shoes and thought they looked so dapper? who set those trends and why are similar people drawn to similar fashions? like mom jeans. i don’t know why i am a missionary. i really would be better at studying what people wear. wouldn’t it be so crazy odd if that photographer with the lowepro camera case were wearing wingtips instead of those rubber-soled hiking boots? and that Brazilian girl with the heavy eye makeup bearing her midriff were wearing pearls and a cashmere sweater set instead? i know what you are thinking, “really, this is what this girl thinks about all day”? the answer is, “yes”. 

so after i left the mall, defeated and sad for all the people in this country deprived of beautiful things at their fingertips (i know they exist, i just don’t know where yet), i met a friend for sushi. 

the sushi place was in THE most inconspicuous shopping mall ever. it was old and again, offered absolutely nothing a snobby missionary from the United States would ever want to buy (except a car charger for my phone $10. oh and an espresso pot from the grocery store $8). but this little place is a sweet oasis. lovely sushi at great prices and wonderful service. i’ve had sushi here at the local place in simon’s town and this place was much, much better. my friend Lisa invited me and apparently she is a regular. i would be too. she brought two friends and it was fun to meet new people. i still feel so inept at conversation. her friends work in prisons, had both just come from trips abroad, so we all kinda instantly got each other. it still feels odd, to be talking to people in English, in a clean, modern restaurant, with chopsticks in my hands and a bottle of Champagne on the table, but it also feels so good. it’s hard to explain. even i don’t understand.

i’m home now and it’s been raining. it’s dark now. i made a huge salad for dinner despite not really being all that hungry but just wanting fresh raw greens in my veins. tomorrow involves more shopping. apparently it’s a designer label sale at up to 80% off. Lisa is taking me. i sure hope South Africa redeems herself. but shopping is followed by lunch, which i already know will be perfect. it will be the perfect menu, in breathtaking surroundings with two or maybe more of the world’s most amazing women i know. and thus, South Africa remains stunning and wonderful and i am honored to be so welcomed.