Uniforms

My previous experience in buying school uniforms involved driving four minutes to the Australian private school in question, lining up for our turn, then selecting and trying on whatever items we needed. The only communication problems I faced in that setting were when I tried to figure out from the shop ladies which uniform items were absolutely mandatory, and which ones I could possibly buy for cheaper at Big W.

Today was a whole new adventure.

The children and I took a bus and three trains to a suburb called Jordan. We then walked a few blocks in the hot sun to this street and hunted up and down either side for the particular Uniform Shop that sells clothing for International Christian School. Can you see it?

Here it is.

I was pleased that there were only a few other customers in the store, so we were served almost immediately. Jemilla and Keegan tried on the various shirts, shorts, and trousers required for students at ICS. The shop ladies could not understand many of my English questions so I pointed to the items on my list and wrote down clothing sizes to get the information across. You know my tightfisted frugal nature; of course I asked if they had any secondhand items, but the answer was no.

Result? Two happy kids with their complete summer uniforms and one unhappy toddler who got nothing.

Jemilla and Keegan had fun while I paid the money. By the way, the uniforms actually worked out cheaper than their old Kingsway uniforms. So maybe the difficulty in getting to the destination was worth the adventure after all.