Australia, Perth :)

Flew to Perth with my mum and Jinhong to attend my cousin's wedding during 24 May - 2 June 2008 :)

Wasn't keen on going initially, especially after a series of events that preceeded the trip, such as expensive airfare on Tiger Airways, lousy exchange rate, winter season, heavy workload etc, but God turned everything around for good! :)

1. Expensive Airfare
Paid an extra $600 on airfare. The following Monday after I booked my tickets on a Saturday in Feb/Mar 08, there was a promotion on Tiger Airways tickets to Perth. If I had booked my tickets just 2 days later, I would have saved $600, and shortened my trip from 10 long days to 6 days. Also, it was only a very long time later that I realised my mum didn't mind the extra $100/pax to take Quantas instead, while my mum had the same misconception towards me. *sigh*
On hindsight, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. The plane that we took wasn't full, so there were quite a few seats for us to space ourselves out, and my mum got to sleep lying down on the seats during the trip, which eased the toll of the long trip on her legs.
Further, in the end, the first few days after the wedding were spent on visiting our relatives in Perth, so if we had booked our return flight on Thursday/Friday, we would only have had 1-2 days left to visit the tour spots in Perth, which by the way, was the case for my aunt and her family. So much for the long pukey flight to and fro, right? =p

2. Lousy Exchange Rate
For the first time in my whole life, I started tracking the Auzzie dollar from mid April 2008 all the way till the day before our trip. I was usually unconcerned with the exchange rate prior to trips, but I didn't really know why I was suddenly reminded during mid April to start tracking the exchange rate. Silly me witnessed the Auzzie dollar climbing up all the way from S$1.26=AUD$1 to S$1.31=AUD$1, waiting hopelessly for it to come down. A stronger Aussie dollar of 5c would mean losing out on $40 for every S$1K one trades. Despite prayers to bring the Auzzie dollar down to S$1.27=AUD$1, the Aussie dollar peaked during the week we were travelling to Australia, due to the holiday season and an announced high interest rate in Australia. Winz right?
However, miracles happen in unexpected manner. For some strange reason, the shop that we went to exchange our currency had a miscount and gave us an extra $50, which we only realised later. This brought our exchange rate miraculously to S$1.27=AUD$1, what we prayed for!

3. Rainy Weather
The whole week that we were in Perth was supposed to be rainy rainy rainy, with heavy rainstorms peaking during the weekends. However, we were caught in heavy rain only on one day when we were at the Perth Zoo on Wednesday afternoon, and that was after a river cruise that day, with the witnessing of two wild dolphins visiting the dock where we got off from the cruise, frolicking and entertaining us for some time with twin stunts and fast swim! By the way, going south to view wild dolphins in action would cause us AUD$50/pax just for the entrance fee, not to mention the additional cost travelling all the way down, and having to wake in the wee hours of the morning so that we will be in time for the tour at 8.30am. Praise the Lord for sight-seeing wonders at a more accessible convenience :p
In addition, that cold rainy day was more than made up by clear cool cloudy skies the following day when we went to the wildlife park. We even got to rub kangaroos and koala bears! 幸福 ^_^
There was very heavy rainstorm on the Saturday when we visited the aquarium up North, but we missed all the destructive action in the safe refuge of the underwater world! :p Only knew of the extent of the destruction made by the rainstorm when I was watching the news at night. Smashed houses and squashed cars loh... *shivers* Praise the Lord for safety!
Sunday was supposed to have heavy rainstorm too, but we were supposed to go to Fremantle that day, so God blessed us with clear skies that whole day. Absolutely no rain at all, it was even a bit hot that day, HAHA, praise the Lord! :D

4. Wilful Action
On the last day that we were supposed to come back, Jinhong went to Perth City in the morning, while my mum and I met up with some relatives for lunch. Didn't know that we were meeting them initially, only thought we were out shopping, so I only brought my money pouch with me. Didn't bring anything else, no umbrella, not even my handphone. I was quite fed up with all the neverending talk-cock at the eating place (which lasted like 1h after we were finished eating?!!), and told my mum I would walk back to my aunt's home first while they continued talking. Pride comes before a fall.
Singapore is really puny in comparison to Perth. I thought the house wasn't that far off when we were driving out to the tim sum place. It seemed like just across the road. In the end, I spent almost 1h walking back. The park that is just beside my aunt's place is bigger than Singapore's Bukit Timah nature reserve! Shouldn't it be called a nature reserve or something instead of a park? Initially asked for directions to the park, but after walking super long around the park edge still didn't see any familiar landmarks. *Faint* Asked some passersby along the way and somehow got my way back to the house. From what one passerby remarked when I was asking for directions to some landmarks near my aunt's house, I must have walked a few km. Australia's housing proportion and Singapore's housing proportion really cannot be compared. The residence area that I was living in must be quite a few km in size... Jinhong was shocked after he returned from Perth City, when I told him I walked back =p Thank God for safely, and for kind people who directed my path, else I might not be able to catch my flight back to Singapore that night.

5. Relatives' Driving Blessings
Really blessed with relatives who drove us around, so that we were able to cover areas that we would not have been able to cover by ourselves. Visited famous places at the Swan Valley such as the Caversham Wildlife Park (where we rubbed the cute huge sleepy koalas), Margaret River Chocolate Factory (yummy!), and Mondo Nougats (yummy yummy!). Relatives also drove us to the Aquarium up North in the rainstorm, and thereafter brought us to the King's Park, where we took photos of the Perth riverline and walked the famous Glass Bridge. These were places we had considered cutting back on due to the limited time we had and the inaccessibility of travelling by public transport. How much we would have missed if we had really forgo them!

Perth's pace of life is more relaxed than Singapore. The people there are also more friendly, and they are more ready to offer a helping hand when one is in need. I really need to do some soul searching to walk more slowly and extend a helping hand with a smile from now on too :)