Monday, February 12, 2007
PERTH - aftermath
Well, basically for the Perth trip, the first day was the most drama of it all. The rest of the week was pretty relaxing. Which allowed me to recharge my batteries.
One day was spent at the Swan Valley area, where we visited a wild life park and the Jane Brook wine estate. The wild life park was ok, loads of native marsupials. There was even a whole enclosure where the kangaroos roamed (or rather, jumped) free. You can feed them and pet them. Most of them were quite docile. Probably due to the heat. They just lay in burrows in the sand to keep cool. Also saw a real Tasmanian Devil for once (the last time I went to Tasmania, I didn't even see a bloody one!). Went up close to touch and smell a sleeping koala (fun fact: male koalas mark their territory by rubbing themselves on trees. They smell like smelly socks!). They also had a farm animal section. Kids were in the enclosure, both kinds of kids. The goat and human variety. But it seemed that the human variety were more afraid of the goat variety. And the sheep, for no rhyme or reason just kept bleating... That amused J a lot becos he loves sheep.
We then went around the area to look for a vineyard to stop for lunch and do buy some wine. That wasn't too hard a task since every couple of yards, there was one. But it was more about the question of price. We stopped by one of the vineyards, looked at the menu.. and scooted off (A$50 per pax!!!!). We finally settled on Jane Brook. The wait staff were friendly, who kept asking which wine we wanted to try. They literally went down the whole list of wine, letting us test it one by one. Before you say we are kiasu Singaporeans, we didn't even request for it! They just kept going, " This wine won blah blah award, it's excellent"... "This one is even better!"... " you really have to try this one" ... Can we say... no? Unfortunately, i was the driver, so i had to keep my alcohol intake in check. We had lunch there.. and i tasted the best pate. The mostest, delicious, heavenly, smooth pate!! It's called chicken cognac pate (Do I hear a unison of voices saying "why am i not surprised?") Ha ha ha ha.. but it was the most fantastic pate i have ever tasted. We literally scooped the whole bowl clean! Too bad it was impossible to bring it back with me....sigh....
A trip to Perth cannot be complete without a short trip to neighbouring Fremantle! And with fremantle = fish and chips! The problem was.. with so many claiming to be the best and most famous in Fremantle, which one was the real deal??? In the end, we decided to go to Kaili's. With the huge size, we figured that it must have some standard there if not it wouldn't be this big... And we had a fantastic meal.. golden fried fish, grilled fish, grilled calamari, lobster, prawns, seafood chowder.... delcious to the last bite. We wanted to try Yabbies too... but they weren't available. And if I weren't so full, I would have ordered shark meat to try... After, we took a stroll along the pierside and had Baskin Robbins ice cream. Yeah.. 31 flavours!ha ha ha ha. Black adder literally went insane there.
And the last day was spent doing shopping around Perth. Pretty convenient since Hay street, the equivalent of Orchard Road, was just around the corner. Unlike my previous trips, I didn't buy much this time. The only things i bought for myself were a tee, shorts and some accessories. The rest of my moolah was blown buying for others. personally felt that there wasn't a lot of things to buy, and even if there were, it was expensive.....
So that was my Perth trip. I'm just glad that my cousin and her family enjoyed themselves, esp J. He hasn't travelled for the past 5 years. No doubt the initial day was frought with anxiety and edgy tempers, but thankfully everyone settled down and enjoyed themselves. It's also a first for my cousin's family. It shows that with proper planning and teamwork, travelling is still possible. I hope there will be many others to come. And for Black Adder, I hope she got a great sense of satisfaction from it. She planned it all, fretting over whether the places we were visting were accessible, worrying about budget etc. I know she tried very hard. And it was worth it :) Cos up till now, J raves on how much he enjoyed Perth!
One day was spent at the Swan Valley area, where we visited a wild life park and the Jane Brook wine estate. The wild life park was ok, loads of native marsupials. There was even a whole enclosure where the kangaroos roamed (or rather, jumped) free. You can feed them and pet them. Most of them were quite docile. Probably due to the heat. They just lay in burrows in the sand to keep cool. Also saw a real Tasmanian Devil for once (the last time I went to Tasmania, I didn't even see a bloody one!). Went up close to touch and smell a sleeping koala (fun fact: male koalas mark their territory by rubbing themselves on trees. They smell like smelly socks!). They also had a farm animal section. Kids were in the enclosure, both kinds of kids. The goat and human variety. But it seemed that the human variety were more afraid of the goat variety. And the sheep, for no rhyme or reason just kept bleating... That amused J a lot becos he loves sheep.
We then went around the area to look for a vineyard to stop for lunch and do buy some wine. That wasn't too hard a task since every couple of yards, there was one. But it was more about the question of price. We stopped by one of the vineyards, looked at the menu.. and scooted off (A$50 per pax!!!!). We finally settled on Jane Brook. The wait staff were friendly, who kept asking which wine we wanted to try. They literally went down the whole list of wine, letting us test it one by one. Before you say we are kiasu Singaporeans, we didn't even request for it! They just kept going, " This wine won blah blah award, it's excellent"... "This one is even better!"... " you really have to try this one" ... Can we say... no? Unfortunately, i was the driver, so i had to keep my alcohol intake in check. We had lunch there.. and i tasted the best pate. The mostest, delicious, heavenly, smooth pate!! It's called chicken cognac pate (Do I hear a unison of voices saying "why am i not surprised?") Ha ha ha ha.. but it was the most fantastic pate i have ever tasted. We literally scooped the whole bowl clean! Too bad it was impossible to bring it back with me....sigh....
A trip to Perth cannot be complete without a short trip to neighbouring Fremantle! And with fremantle = fish and chips! The problem was.. with so many claiming to be the best and most famous in Fremantle, which one was the real deal??? In the end, we decided to go to Kaili's. With the huge size, we figured that it must have some standard there if not it wouldn't be this big... And we had a fantastic meal.. golden fried fish, grilled fish, grilled calamari, lobster, prawns, seafood chowder.... delcious to the last bite. We wanted to try Yabbies too... but they weren't available. And if I weren't so full, I would have ordered shark meat to try... After, we took a stroll along the pierside and had Baskin Robbins ice cream. Yeah.. 31 flavours!ha ha ha ha. Black adder literally went insane there.
And the last day was spent doing shopping around Perth. Pretty convenient since Hay street, the equivalent of Orchard Road, was just around the corner. Unlike my previous trips, I didn't buy much this time. The only things i bought for myself were a tee, shorts and some accessories. The rest of my moolah was blown buying for others. personally felt that there wasn't a lot of things to buy, and even if there were, it was expensive.....
So that was my Perth trip. I'm just glad that my cousin and her family enjoyed themselves, esp J. He hasn't travelled for the past 5 years. No doubt the initial day was frought with anxiety and edgy tempers, but thankfully everyone settled down and enjoyed themselves. It's also a first for my cousin's family. It shows that with proper planning and teamwork, travelling is still possible. I hope there will be many others to come. And for Black Adder, I hope she got a great sense of satisfaction from it. She planned it all, fretting over whether the places we were visting were accessible, worrying about budget etc. I know she tried very hard. And it was worth it :) Cos up till now, J raves on how much he enjoyed Perth!
# posted by Xallista @ 9:40 PM 
