New Cardiff...

This weekend was the first weekend home from uni, and I didn't think I would have missed it quite as much as I have.
However, I was also quite surprised at just how much Cardiff had changed in the few months that I have been living away. On a shopping trip into the city centre I was amazed at how a place which I had known like the back of my hand could have changed as much as it has done into something that I barely knew at all. However, I must make it clear that I am most definitely not complaining.
The new shopping centre, St David's 2 had opened and it was full of new and exciting shops which we had previously never had in Cardiff before, like Radley and Kurt Geiger. It was beautiful and spacious and I was extremely excited looking around. However many of the shops from the other end of Cardiff had decided to move into this centre as well which made me wonder what was going to happen to all the empty spaces. Were they going to be filled with cheap shops that try and sell knock-off versions of designer items? I hope not as we have enough of those already and in my opinion its these shops that ruin the town.
The new centre is definitely worth a visit and with a new John Lewis which also opened a few months ago, Cardiff is now one of the best developed cities in the whole of Europe.
Coincidentally this weekend was also the launch of the Jimmy Choo range for H&M, and to be honest I couldn't have picked a more exciting day to go shopping in the "new" Cardiff. Although the weather was havoc, with the wind blowing so strongly that you couldn't actually put up an umbrella to shield yourself from the rain, this all added to the sense of home which I had greatly missed. After all you don't expect great weather when you come to Wales.
As we reached H&M (which has also moved to the new centre) there were massive ques of people waiting to step into the sectioned off area especially for the Jimmy Choo collaboration. These people had been queuing outside for hours and managed to snag themselves wristbands to be the first to buy a pair of Jimmy Choos. However, this isn't as great as it seems. Looking on, I could see that the people let in through the barrier only had 15 minutes to find what they wanted and go before they were told to leave by the staff who were waiting to let the next number of people in. Everyone was grabbing whatever they could and taking it to the tills, where one of the staff mentioned to another colleague that they had already taken over £18,000 in an hour from Jimmy Choo alone. No doubt that these people are going to sell these things on e-bay as they probably don't even fit.
When coming back a few hours later to see for myself what the shoes were like, I was greeted with empty shelves. Just my luck.