Boxing Day

Time to hit the shops and skiing is booked! Accomodation, lift passes and lessons, yippee.

Blue MountainHorseshoe Resort/ St. Louis MoonstoneHidden ValleyGatineau Park
Blue Mountain
Ontario's largest winter resort, Blue Mountain offers great skiing and snowboarding, just a little more than an hour's drive from Toronto.  Activities: Alpine skiing, half-pipe, terrain park, night skiing, tubing, cross-country, snowshoe trails  Skiable Area: 102 hectares  Annual Snowfall: 279 cm  Longest Run: 1,219 m  # of Lifts: 13  # of Trails: 37  Trail Ratings: Easiest (17%); More Difficult (42%); Most Difficult (41%)
This is where we're going....

Blue Mountain Ski Resort

Blue Mountain 

We went to Fairview Mall to check out the ski wear in Sears and The Bay.... Boxing Day sales, I was expecting hoards of people in both those departmental shops, but they were surprisingly quiet. Quiet in terms of shoppers and shop assistants. We were trying to get Dave a ski jacket and snow pants and looked at the racks for bargains... prices ranged from $89.90 to $480- which was the bee's knees.  Not having gone skiing or bought any ski wear apart from when we shopped for the kids, we looked out for labels that had thinsulate, water resistant, breathable, wicking etc.  Some of the jackets did not have any such labels, we then questioned whether they were ski jackets.  We were like the blind leading the blind!  After checking out what was available in both stores, we decided to see what else was available in the mall.

Here were the shoppers... they were queueing to get into certain shops, namely Hollister and Aritizia, shopper control was in place and shoppers were being allowed in only when someone exited the shop! The queues were easily 100m long, snaking along the mezzanine floor above, people looking down on us as they queued. I have not shopped in there before, and was wondering what the attraction was, ok, great 40-70% off, but to queue for more than 30 mins to get in? This was at 10 am as well, and the shops opened at 7am.  Gap had an interesting concept, if you bought before 12pm, you got 40% off, 30% before 3pm and 25% after till closing. A lot of shoppers in there.

The girls were queuing for this, I guess

Clothes from Aritizia

We went to Aeropostle as I knew what I wanted to get, it was buzzing, with shoppers and staff. Queues for the till were reasonable for a sale day.  The thing is with the more popular shops is, if you are queuing up to an hour to get in, what are the queues for paying going to be like?? Is anything really worth waiting all that time for? It reminded me of people queuing for food aid... those people have no choice, queue or go hungry, but queuing for a clothes shop?? Not me, I'm glad to say.  I can live without material things.

Snaking queue to get into a shop!

I hope one day I will be helping out in queues like this one

There were no ski shops at the mall, so we decided to go back to the Bay and finally found something suitable price and utility wise, got the jacket, pants and gloves. The Bay was having an additional 40% off all sale items, so it was a good time to buy essentials and maybe some treats, but having treated ourselves to a night away at a ski resort, we stuck to the essentials till we got to the cashier.  He was a lovely man called Nigel who was serving at the Polo Ralph Lauren department, and so Dave had a Polo jumper and I got a Bay Credit Card... I need to build up my credit history so, applied for it and got an extra 10% off my total bill.  The receipt said, saved $188.20 today, and the total to pay was $250.40.... not bad, not bad at all.  Still I could have saved $250.40, had I not stepped into the bay at all, but Dave did need the ski things. The credit limit on the card was $300, so I think it will be my coffee credit card, one that I use to pay for coffee. The APR on it?? 29.9%, so, no leaving any balances on this card! The card earns points to be redeemed later alongside other benefits, but am not sure it's worth the 29.9% interest on balances......

APR of 29.9%, yikes!

Similar to the outfit Dave got, the man was not for sale!