We arrived at the airport at 5.00 am in the morning, the whole immigration process ran smooth. The counter to collect the car will only be opened at 8, so we chill. I went outside just to get the feel on how cold it is the weather, and it was freeeeeeziiiiiiingggg. 8 Celsius I tell you.
Cut short, after the long process of registering, at last we got our car. First destination, Kings Park. At first I had a trouble adjusting to Perth people way of driving, but I adapted fast. The GPS is very helpful in this situation.
Drove to Kings Park through the city. Not much different from our city, except for the less busy road of course.
The War Memorial, one of the park's many landmarks. I guess it is the same thing like our Tugu Negara.
Without much trouble, we arrived at the Kings Park around 10 am. It was, breathtakingly beautiful. The weather is nice and cold, we had to put on our jacket to warm ourselves. We could see some old people walking by the road side, Some people jogged, some did some exercises, others, just mingled around and took pictures, like us. It was quiet and peaceful.
You know, the thing that you always saw in brochures from oversea's universities where students do some study groups under the tree in the middle of the field, this is absolutely possible here.
So we walked around the park, and I told my wife if the weather is like this in our country, I would jog to the office. And my wife with a sly told me Malaysians will never jogged or walked. We will drive even if the distance is 50 meters.
Anyway, let me put some pictures here and describe it a little bit, that will be more interesting rather than me blabbering around.
Yes, you read that right. That tree with the white trunk is planted by Her Majesty herself. Look how tiny the tree was when she first planted it.
This Giant Boab tree, known as 'Gija Jumulu', is a 750 years old tree. The thing that make this tree interesting is, the tree was found in Warmun, Kimberly WA, 3200km from it current location. It has to be moved to make way for the new highway project. The tree is some sort of iconic to the WA people and the aborigines, represent their historical culture or something. Just google it and then you will know.
Western Australian Museum
By noon, we moved on to our next location. My wife is a fan of museums, and we read in some blogs Western Australian Museum is a must visit if you really into local history. But we need to take a lunch first. We didn't eat anything heavy yet since we arrived and we were starving. Tried to look for a halal restaurant, and finally we found one just near the museum. It was a veges restaurant operated by some of the PAWS volunteers. And of course they will never served meat there. I didn't quite remember what we had, but it tasted awful and costed us around AUD30. That's more than RM100. We can get a decent meal for 2 at a decent hotel with that price. By that time we figured we need to stop converting the currency or else we will not be able to eat anything.
The museum, well, not that interesting though. Maybe because I was tired, been awake since yesterday. But we did enter though, the entry is free anyway.
That my friend, is a police station. Just across the road from the museum.
Told you nothing interesting there.
Somebody going to be eaten alive.
Harbour Town
I was told that Harbour Town is a good place to shop. I was told right. Harbour Town is much like our own JPO, minus the high end products. That means there are no Coach, Burberry, Prada yada yada. But Adidas, Nike, Levi's and equal to that, you can find it here. And the price, some are cheaper, some are more expensive. Perfumes are especially cheaper here. You can get a decent brand perfume for AUD10. How cheap is that? But we didn't do much shopping that day. We were tired, and seems to lost the appetite to shop. That is weird considering my wife lost the appetite to shop.
Reduan's house
So then we went straight to Reduan's house. It was located in Crawley, near the Kings Park. Got no problem at all to find the house. Being greeted by his wife Masdiana, sister in law, and 2 kids. Have a chat a little bit, before we ask for excuse to go to bed. It was 4 pm by the way. Hehe. Damn tired.
Our host for the day.
Dining hall.
We woke up around 7, it was already dark. Apparently the sun set earlier during the winter, around 5 pm. At 7 pm it already felt like 9 in Malaysia. And it was freezing, the temperature reached 7 Celsius that night.
Mas served us a delicious dinner, and then we watched the tv for a while before continue our journey, in bed! at 9 pm! I never slept that early back in Malaysia. The earliest will be around 11. But you know, when it is cold you will always feel sleepy, I read about it somewhere and that writer was totally right.
End of 1st day.
End of 1st day.
