psychobabble

Hehe this is going to be an ultra long post with ultra many pix. I cannot be blamed because I haven’t had the time to blog! Between hanging out with the family, catching up with friends and having my ear glued to the phone until 2am, I haven’t had the time to sift through the billions of photos I took.

Highlights:

Perth city’s beautiful skyline from Kings Park
The evil kid who attacked me with cow gunk
The Sittella winery – beautiful scenery and good wine.
Peacocks at UWA Arts faculty grounds!
Near death experience on the highway back from Cervantes!

Jurien Bay’s very pretty sunset.

Day 4 – Perth City

Participants of the day: Kriss, Alexis, Rachel, my Mum and myself.
Weather: Sunny & Cool!

We covered the entire Perth city in one day. Kriss (Alexis’ man) drove us first to take pictures at South Perth foreshore before hitting Swan Bell Tower and my mother’s paradise, Harbour City, to shop.

We then hit Hay Street right in the center of the city to walk around and stuff like that. One of the highlights of Hay St. was a short strip in between buildings called London Court. Kriss was excited to show us London Court despite Alexis insisting that we’d seen the real thing. They recreated an old-time London street right in the heart of Perth! It was extremely cute.

We belatedly realized that we were supposed to be headed to Kings Park as well before I meet James for dinner so we rushed over before the traffic got heavy just in time for dusk and very picturesque shots!

Day 5 – Swan Valley and everywhere in between

Participants of the Day: Kriss, Alexis, Rachel, my Mum and myself
Weather: Sunny & Cool!

Today was the day Kriss ate & drank himself to immobility.

First stop of the day: Margaret River Chocolate Factory

Bought bags of chocolate here Very happy with my purchases! Chocolate buttons, Red Gum Honeycomb, hot chocolate and a Florentine cookie for morning tea yum!

Next up – Cuddly Animals Farm!

Kriss was more than happy to bring us here. This was his and Alexis’ second or third time at the farm. There were a LOT of kids and a LOT of animals. My favourite had to be the cute and furry bunny. Unfortunately, the photo sucked so no pictures of that cute bunny. It was here that the cheeky “gwailo” kid below smeared cow gunk (saliva / snot) all over me! That child is EVIL, I tell you. EVIL. His name’s probably Damian. He’s so adorable it’s deceiving!

Actually, we did a bit of beer tasting at MASH brewery in between but I forgot to take photos. MASH beers are pretty good. Especially liked the Mexican and the other one that I can’t remember. Their apple cider wasn’t too bad and their chocolate beer was… interesting.

After Cuddly Animals Farm we headed for lunch at a random cafe before going to Mondo Nougat to buy nougat for Su Yin and friends… I’m personally not a big fan of nougat. Did you know that nougat was pronounced with a silent ‘t’? I didn’t until I came here and heard my cousins talking… Hm..

The highlight of the day was Sittella, really. I love wine, so to finally go wine-tasting instead of beer-tasting was a good change. Alexis used to work at Sittella like, 2 years ago and she recommended their strawberry basket for dessert. Unfortunately the kitchen closed at 3pm, and we only got there at 3.30pm. So we just headed for wine-tasting and vineyard walking instead. Took a gazillion photos here! My fav wines were the Sittella Silk (Classic White – blend of Verdelho, Chardonnay, Chenin and Semillon) and their Shiraz.

That night, I also met up with Wei Zhi and Soon Theam for dinner! They took me on a walking UWA tour and my God… the UWA Arts faculty ACTUALLY rears PEACOCKS. I’m not kidding. They rear peacocks within the faculty grounds. Not just one or two – four! I was very, very surprised. Pity the pictures weren’t too clear. You don’t believe me? Read this!

Day 6 – the Pinnacles and Jurien Bay

Participants of the Day: Alexis, Rachel, Aunty Carol, Mum and myself

We took a 3 hour road trip to the Nambung National Park in Cervantes in Alexis’ very adorable Mazda 2 to see a bunch of rocks in the middle of the dessert. We weren’t too sure of the directions but got there safe and sound, even detouring to Jurien Bay. We expected a Stonehenge-like clump of rocks, just in a desert instead of green plains. Turns out, the rocks in the Pinnacles are extremely vast. We were pleasantly surprised that our 3-hour-road-trip wasn’t so wasted after all and ended up having pretty much a swell time taking photos and mucking around.