Good on ya Perth: Sept 2015

First steps in Australia.

We arrived in Perth around 1030am. Our host was going to meet us at the apartment between 1-1:30pm. She had given us very detailed instructions on how to get to her place via public transportation, which would require us to change buses twice, but it was all very simple and easy. The most difficult part, the sudden, intense, downpour. We had come from hot, sunny, Bali, to cold, rainy, Perth. 

Perth has free public transportation in the city center. The city is not that big, and the infrastructure was great. Perth immediately reminded me of home. It’s a young city. Younger than most of cities in California. Therefore, the building looks similar, even the “old” ones. The city is also diverse, although I noticed that there weren’t very many mixed-race couples or people. Everyone was nice. It had a small-town feel. 

Our neighborhood. West Perth.

We made it to our host’s place in good spirits. It really did feel like home, and I think it altered my mind to the point that nothing was going to bring me down. I was happy. I was singing. Our walk and wait became a music montage. Javier would say something and I would break into song. It was ridiculous, but made us both laugh and happy, which we needed while we waited for 45 minutes in the cold rain for our host to arrive. Once we settled into our place, we set out for food. We were both extremely hungry, which usually spells disaster for this duo, but thanks to the above mentioned reasons, we were still in great spirits.

Perth CBD.

We stopped by for a cup of soup, and made our way to some real food, only to find out that by 2:30pm, most places have either closed (yes, closed for the day) or had stopped serving lunch. We found lunch in an outdoor outlet center, which meant that we did some window shopping to walk off our massive Aussie lunch. We walked to the city center to take care of business. We were on a mission. We knew we needed wifi for our road trip. Javier had done all of the research, and found a company that offered the only coverage in the areas we would be traveling. The problem was…we wanted an unlocked device so we could use it again in New Zealand for that road trip, as well as other destinations in South America. Finding an unlocked device proved to be very difficult, and actually impossible unless you had days to order it online and wait for delivery, which we did not. We visited many carriers and learned more about pocket wifi (bandwidth, coverage) than I ever needed or wanted to know. 

Free transportation. Perth, WA

We did a bit more window shopping and decided to walk back towards our home and find something to eat there. Little did we know that 99% of the restaurants in our neighborhood close by 5pm. We were left with three options: a fancy-looking gastropub, a thai restaurant, and a greasy spoon. We didn’t want to spend the money at the gastropub, and we were done eating food from southeast Asia at the moment. We opted for the greasy spoon, which turned out to be quite delicious and nothing like we anticipated. 

When we arrived home, our host had bought a little cake for all of us to share. We had dessert together, and spent some time talking. She had so much information on Perth and the surrounding areas. It was incredible. We told her about our road trip, and she gave us as much information as she could. 

Perth, WA

The following morning, we had breakfast on the go, and walked back to the city center. We were planning on taking a free walking tour of the city, but Javier wanted to go to the Telstra (pocket wifi) store. After finding out even more information, we had made a decision that this was the carrier, we just needed to figure out the details. The night before, Javier had gone online and found a girl who was selling her Telstra pocket wifi device. She and her friend had bought it new, used it during their 3-week road trip, and were leaving Australia in the next couple of days. We talked about it, and I left it up to him. He had done the research on the different devices, and knew much more about them than I. In the mean time, we went on our tour and learned about the young city.

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Our guide. Perth, WA

Our guide was an older British gentleman who has been living in Perth for over 40 years. You could tell he enjoyed his volunteer job, and we learned that Perth has many volunteer jobs and many volunteers! They have a city herb garden that is kept by volunteers, and it is allowed for people to come and pick whatever they would like to use for that night’s dinner. He said there had not yet been any vandalization, and the space was used for social gatherings as well. We walked past two different large groups of young people who were preaching on the street. This was not something we had seen yet, and surprised even the local tourists, as they claimed Australia was “egalitarian” and this was not something they had seen in their home cities. There was an outdoor stage in the cultural area of the city where several singing and dancing groups were performing. Mind you, this was almost midday on a Friday. Why weren’t these kids in school???

Perth, WA

Most of the buildings in Perth have no distinct look to them. Many were erected during the 20s-30s and are art deco, but Perth was, and still is in many ways, a wealthy city, built on mining. Our guide told us that people were allowed to build whatever they wanted, and since many of the inhabitants were from Europe, they built according to their tastes and preferences. So, you now have an old Victorian English building sandwiched between an art deco building and something that has no real era or look, but just came out of someone’s imagination. Our group was small to start with and people were falling off here and there to see a museum, catch a flight, or meet people for lunch. At the end, it was just me, Javier, and our guide. When he finished, we thanked him and went in the opposite direction to take some pictures. The rest of our day was spent shopping and figuring out what type of pocket wifi to buy. On our last of many trips to the Telstra store, we received some information that we hadn’t before. That made our decision. Javier emailed the German girl and told her we would meet at the Telstra store and purchase her device. Our walk home was cold, bone-chilling cold. We didn’t have proper outerwear, and were both freezing. When we arrived, Javier mentioned that he was so cold that he was unable to warm up…uh-oh. 

Perth, WA

Javier was starting to feel sick. Our only objective the next day was to meet the German girl and connect the wifi. After a leisurely breakfast, we made our way to the city center. On the way, we stopped by an antique store. We looked around and spoke with the owner. We were in search for something specific, a ring actually, and while he had many replicas, he didn’t have anything that matched what we were looking for. He recommended a couple of other reputable antique stores in the area that had larger selections. We met with the girls and connected our wifi. It worked! We were in business! We had the rest of the day to walk around, and there was a wildflower festival going on in King’s Park, so we decided to check it out.

Perth, WA

Before leaving the city center, we decided to check out one of the other antique shops. Lo and behold, they had something that caught our eye. We spoke to the owner, took down as much information as possible, and decided to have lunch and think on it. Most of lunch was spent researching the antique store, the appraiser, and the price she was asking. In the end, everything checked out as much as it could, and we went back and made our offer. On the walk back, Javier looked very distracted. We stopped to talk about it. Turned out, Javier already had a ring. It wasn’t supposed to “thee ring” but a special ring that he was going to give me until we returned home and found our own ring. He wouldn’t flat out tell me any of this. It was all very cryptic. In the end I told him that it was up to him. I really liked the ring we saw, but ultimately, I wanted the ring that he wanted to give me- and I meant it. I was teary knowing that he had been carrying a ring for months and was just waiting for a special time to ask. At that moment, I didn’t care about the ring in the shop, I was so overwhelmed with emotion. He debated with himself. In the end, he looked at me and said, “You deserve your own ring. We would have found one later, I just didn’t expect to find one on our trip. But it does kind of ruin the surprise.” In the end, we went back and purchased the ring. It is beautiful. It’s not what I expected. It’s much more. He tucked the ring away in a safe place for the right time, and I tried not to think about it too much. 🙂

Perth, WA

We ended our day at the park. On the way, we were lost and a sweet older gentleman offered to help us. He was walking in the same direction, so we walked with him. He had a grocery bag full of bread crumbs and ground meat. We walked around the lake and he tossed our bread crumbs to the ducks and birds, and ground meat to the herons. There was such a variety of birds. He knew all of them, pointed out different nesting areas and even a black swan egg nestled in the reeds. He said that he comes out every weekend to feed them.

Perth, WA

They all know him, and it was really cute to watch all of the different birds walk behind him in almost single-file. He pointed us in the direction that included a several-story stair climb up the hill. We said thank you and good-bye and left him there with his birds. We walked around for a short time and saw the flowers. It was raining off and on, and very cold and cloudy. Javier was feeling worse, so we went home early to rest for the start of our long road trip the next day. 

To see more pictures of Perth, click HERE.