Perth Archives - Escapes From The Little Red Dot

Perth 2015 Day 5 – Home Sweet Home

Posted on August 10, 2015September 22, 2019 by ziyi

Alarm sounded at 7am to trigger a rush to pack and get ready. There was still breakfast to eat, food to clear, bottles to wash, baby to clean up, car to repark and pay and things to pack.

The weather wasn’t good, with some sun early in the morning which was quickly replaced with dark clouds and frequent on off showers. By the time we left the room at 10mins past nine, it was trickling.

Parked at the front of the hotel while I settled the remaining bills due to the in room dinner before moving the fatter luggage into the car. The road to the airport was easy most of the time except that there could be some new roads that weren’t updated on the GPS and that caused the GPS to go crazy for a bit.

I dropped off my wife and son together with the luggage at the new drop off point because there was some construction going on. As I wanted to push all the luggage to the airport first, I was informed by one of the ground staff that I couldn’t leave the car unattended or else risk towing off. I couldn’t leave my wife to push the heavy luggage while carrying my son either. So I pushed the luggage to the front of the departure hall and asked one of the security to help look after it before going back to get my wife who was waiting at the car.

This was kind of frustrating since we were on our own with no empathetic help. There was also an instruction on how to return the car and I was trying to key into the GPS the location but was again chased off by the same staff. No choice, I drove on with only the uploaded map on my phone, which thankfully worked.

The nearest carpark was carpark H and luckily enough, there was already one spot empty beside the opening to the walkway back to T1. Left the key, carpark ticket and the GPS in the hand glove compartment, manually locked the door and took a picture of the car before taking the 5mins quick walk to the terminal, which was really really far. Thankfully the rain wasn’t there to make matters worse.

Perth International airport. Renovation ongoing.

Checked in was done rather quickly even at 1hr 45 mins before fly time as the queue was short. Went to the departure gate quickly and before entering, spent some time on filling up departure cards. Then as we proceeded to the immigrations, there was just a short queue too, which was done rather smoothly.

Immediately after that was the TRS where there wasn’t a queue at all. I got my refund on the credit card itself by showing the MacBook and the receipt, which should end up at least 5% cheaper than in Singapore, if not more.

The final hurdle was the scan and as usual, I was required to go through the X-ray scan. 2 tries and there was unusual stuff detected on my right foot. I gave up my right show for the Xray scanner. There were some issues with the ice packs for chilling the milk that we brought as well, which we only had one pack returned to us.

Then it was the gates, shopped some souvenirs and bought some food back, got ourselves a Morish macadamia nuts as it seemed like a popular brand in Perth.

The plane came in late and the boarding was pushed back by at least 30mins. As they called for passengers with children to board first, we went ahead but in the end had to wait in the tunnel to the plane.

This Qantas flight was a much smaller plane 737 compared to the Scoot that brought us there. As we were also given the window seats, it felt a lot more crammed up with the 3rd

passenger locking us in.

When the plane took off, baby K who was watching out of the window then fell asleep and it was a deep sleep amazingly. We thought all was good for at least an hour but after he awoke, it wasn’t that good anymore. There was at least another 3hrs of flight to take and he was cranky when he got bored. That became quite challenging especially we weren’t readily available to move onto the aisle which was perpetually full of people queuing to use the toilet and we were seated near the tail end of the plane with the toilets there.

The baby food that was given consisted of 2 packs of puree, a pair of teething biscuits and a packet of juice. Baby K didn’t like it so we had to feed him with milk and even a little portion of banana that we brought on the plane.

Nearing the end of the flight, baby K was cranky and my wife carried him to sleep in the Ergobaby, which he did very quickly. But as she sat back at the seat, the air stewardess informed that baby K had to buckle up and could not be in the Ergobaby. That was again quite frustrating as it seemed like the infant seat belt was more reliable than the infant carrier which was clearly not the case. Anyhow, that movement out woke him up and made him cry a little. The. It was all about entertaining him before we landed safely in Changi.

Nothing more interesting as we got out luggage and exit.

This was a getaway that was meant to be easy for us as we had learnt from our Europe experience 2 months back. We had more time in the room but due to a change in appetite for baby K, there was also a need for more time for food preparation. Still it felt easier and less tiring and therefore more enjoyable. The next trip could be even more challenging but still we looked forward to that.

Perth 2015 Day 4 – Caversham Wildlife Park and King’s Park

Posted on August 9, 2015September 22, 2019 by ziyi

The sun rays peeked into the gap between the curtains and the wall and I woke up quickly to close it up further in order not to wake up the baby. I proceeded to the living room and welcomed the sight that we had wished since the day of arrival – clear skies. That meant a beautiful sunrise as well. Shot some photos before going back to bed.

Didn’t really sleep long before I got up and started preparing baby K’s pasta for the day. Learning from the previous day, I prepared all the ingredients quickly and started to cook them too. Also, make used of the dishwasher to make cleaning easier.

Wife woke up next while baby K continued to snooze. We got ready whenever possible and ate our cold sandwiches bought from the day before. When baby K woke, it was only just the bathing required and then we were good to go. Today was the earliest that we left the hotel, at about 11am.

Our destination for today was Caversham wildlife park, at swan valley. It was a 30mins drive but was pretty straight forward. The park was actually located within a village that had a couple of other attractions such as museum. It was also quite a distance from the main road, almost 3km after turning in.

There were quite a number of carparks but those nearer to the entrance were full. Parked the next nearest one available and bought the 2 tickets for $26 each.

The impression of the exhibits here was that there were many birds. Maybe we have seen too many of these sanctuaries so it didn’t impressed. What was different were probably the animal farm show that was pretty good. It showcased sheep herding by sheep dogs, wool shearing, cracking the whip and milking the cow. There was another koala photo taking exhibit that showed a number of them sleeping and of easy location for photos. Then there was meeting the other animals in a huge barn where there was a quoll, possum, some birds, a python and main star, a wombat, for photos.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Snoozing Koala.

Feeding a 2 weeks young lamb. — Bottle feeding a 2 weeks young lamb.

Meeting the friends of wombat. Birds on stand in the distance.

I was wearing just a polo Tee thinking that the sun would hold up and the temperature would become warmer and nicer. It didn’t. In fact, it went the opposite and it got really cold. Luckily we did dressed the baby up with multiple layers. After taking some wefies with the free roaming kangaroos at the field, especially with a white colour one, we quickly left.

There weren’t anything to eat at the center itself so we went back to the car first, fed baby K while my wife got busy with expression before leaving for the only cafe in the area, Village cafe. Ordered All day brekkie and wife had a fish burger and we left with some cakes for possible picnic later.

Next stop was Kings park and I pumped gas enroute. Pumped once and the nozzle sprung back, so I thought it was full. After paying $16 for it, I only found the tank less than 3/4 and I had to return at least 3/4. Pumped again with the nozzle slightly withdrawn and it was another $17, this time it was full, more than I needed to return. Too bad.

Entering Perth City, the drizzle started to come again and we thought it was really bad luck that we couldn’t visit the park and have a picnic there. After reaching the carpark, the rain was still coming down. As the sun started to set, a rainbow came out over Perth city. It was not too bad to have that drizzle now it seemed.

We moved on to another carpark that had a better viewpoint of the riverside. While baby K was being fed in the car, I explored the area and taking photos of the war memorial that was there. After baby K was done, we went around again, without the rain and with the sunset giving a nice hue to the clouds, it was indeed a nice view to bring home for us.

King's Park and Botanical gardens. — King’s Park and Botanical gardens.

Left after a short walk as it was really cold and then an easy 10mins drive back to the hotel. Unload the family first before going around to park the car. I was unable to buy parking tickets. Maybe it was Sunday.

We ordered in room dining to avoid thinking where to get dinner or how to cook one, it costed $71 for a chicken schnitzel and a duck confit. We cooked our own salmon leftover from baby K’s food preparation. Then it was the same routine plus the packing of everything including the purchases that we had for the trip.

Tried to sleep early but we couldn’t get baby K to do so. He fell from the bed after climbing over the pillow wall we made around him on the bed and bumped his head but was lucky that the carpet cushioned the impact. He wasn’t crying a lot so it seemed ok. Still concerned, we might get a brain scan once back.

Another sleeping at 12midnight routine, but it was going to be a early wake up call tomorrow as we would be heading home.

Perth 2015 Day 3 – Perth City shopping

Posted on August 8, 2015September 22, 2019 by ziyi

Day started like yesterday, with the only difference of myself preparing baby K pasta. The most difficult of the task was to slice and dice the salmon, carrots and vegetables into small enough size for baby K. Wasn’t too difficult chopping the frozen salmon, and easier still for the other 2.

We didn’t had breakfast today so we settled for the cookies we bought the day before. Usual work of bathing baby K and changing into a long sleeve polo and a long pants, against the cold if we were having a picnic out in the park. After everything was done, we ended up leaving at about 1230pm.

Discovered that most of the eateries were closed, despite it being only Saturday. Drove some 10mins into town as the bleak weather didn’t provide for a nice weather for picnic. I was worried about parking and driving in town but it was quite alright, with quite a few parking options available. We ended up parking at Raine square, within walking distance to the main shopping areas.

First stop was to get lunch for ourselves and we found a small store called Ark Star Sushi. Ordered some ready made sushi and Teriyaki chicken rice with 2 drinks, came up to about $15. The food wasn’t really Jap standard in my opinion.

Left my wife to express milk while I brought baby K to roam around. The winter wind was furiously strong and I snuggled baby K a little more fearing that he might catch a cold. There were many shops around but I only went to Forrest place and snapped a couple of photos before heading back.

Wife was almost done and we went back to the info counter to enquire about the Apple Store. Went through the Piccadilly arcade and walked down along Hay street. Went into JR duty free but didn’t see the MacBook that I wanted and continued to Apple Store.

It was my first time at Apple store since there weren’t any in Singapore (only authorized resellers). And like my colleague described, they had the nicest of services, having one person to talk to you right from the entrance. Of course being hi tech, all the transactions was done through their on-hand iPod that had a credit card reader. The MacBook was delivered to where I was standing and there was even a staff that helped set it up. The intangible benefits of owning a Apple product was unfortunately not available to Singapore.

As we walked back to our car in order to help baby K sleep, we went first to the modern building Enex100 to use the toilet and it had clean toilets and even a nice huge parents room with a TV playing cartoons. Used the parents room to change diapers and bottle feed baby K. Unfortunately there was hot water dispenser like those in Singapore. There was a microwave that attracted some guys to enter and use, which could be a lost of privacy though.

As we went back to Raine square, it started to rain also even with some sunshine. Baby K had fallen asleep and as we bought some donuts from Krispy Kreme, we went down to the basement food court to sit while baby K snoozed.

As shops were closing around 5pm and worried that we might not be able to get dinner and breakfast for tomorrow, we brought baby K to Coles central for buy microwaveable food. Baby K woke up after about an hour of napping which was great.

Paid for the carpark at the payment machine and it came out to be about $17. The parking fees in Perth were ridiculously high compared to Singapore.

We drove back to the hotel to put foodstuff into the fridge. Then I drove towards Kings’ park. As we arrived, it was already getting dark and the rain started to come down again. There was an area with a nice view of Perth and so we decided to return the next day.

Driving back was pretty straight forward and I managed to park at the carpark on the side of the hotel, which was in fact further than the one I parked the night before.

It was one of the rare moments where we were back at the hotel so early (7ish) but because it was cold and dark out there, and no more shopping at that time, we had no where else to go. Spent the evening microwaving the macaroni and cheese and my wife’s green curry chicken and other stuff, fed baby K and entertaining him and cleaning bottles of course.

Pasta and cheese with pumpkin and veg mash.

Saturday night was sports night and mostly rugby was on TV. Wanted to watch the BPL but there weren’t such options on Fox.

Baby was cranky for no particular reason after waking up from a nap and that drove us mad. Had to take a while before both parents and baby cooled it off.

Ate the strawberries and cherry tomatoes we purchased from the markets in Fremantle and IGA correspondingly and it was really sweet! That made us think if we should buy more strawberries home. Baby K could only watch since we hadn’t try giving berries to him, fearing allergies.

Then nap time at 11pm while I blogged this till 12. Time flew past really quickly this National Day long weekend. The winter must had been the accelerant.

Perth 2015 Day 2 – Fremantle and Watertown

Posted on August 7, 2015September 22, 2019 by ziyi

Alarm went off at 8am but I only managed to get up 15mins later. The previous night sleep was interrupted by baby crying and waking up a few times, maybe due to unfamiliar available space on the huge King size bed. Left my wife and son to continue their sleep while I did some wash up in the kitchenette.

pano at Perth hotel_Fotor — View from our living room.

Sore throat was making me really sleepy and this frustrated me more when baby K woke up and required entertaining. While my wife heated up the pastries we bought for breakfast and prepared cooked pasta with salmon, carrots and vegetables for baby K, I bathed baby K in the tub. Now that he could sit upright, it was slightly easier to bath him. I was concerned he could catch a cold after the bath as it was still winter so I had to dry him double quick after coming out from the bath.

Went down to my car to move it and park at another location as the carpark was 3P 8am-6pm Mon-Fri. I only bought parking time till 10am so I had it extended till 1230pm, not knowing when we could be ready.

The difference between the Europe trip and this was that baby K preferred solids now. So preparation for his meals required more time and effort, rather than purely breast milk diet.

By the time we left, it was already 12noon and the sink was filled with used pots and pans for cooking and plates and cups from our breakfast.

Today our visit was to Fremantle. The GPS directed us to the multistory Queensgate carpark, right next to the Fremantle markets that we wanted to visit. We had to establish our bearings first and headed to the Town Hall where there was a map showing the various tourist attractions. Took a photo of it before walking towards the Fremantle markets.

It was quite a medium sized market with the fresh fruits near the entrance. It was interesting to realise that these stalls were mostly ran by Asians. Moving further in, we saw a mixture of foodstuff and crafts stalls and also souvenirs. It was also here that I met a friend who had also came to Perth for the long weekend.

Huge area selling a variety of stuff, from food to accessories.

Couldn’t decide what we wanted to eat, we left and ate at Fiesta cafe, ran by a Vietnamese family. Had burger and sandwich before going back to the carpark when it times for my wife to express while I kept baby K entertained.

Our lunch. — Tasty sandwiches for our lunch.

As baby K got cranky due to tiredness but refuse to sleep, there was no other choice but to wait till my wife was ready and strapped him onto the Ergobaby where he dozed off.

Next as we walked towards Victoria Harbour, we stopped by a shop Best & Less that had a wide variety of babies and kids clothing at very affordable prices. Continuing on, we arrives at the train station and took a picture of it. Then crossing the tracks, we visited another market, E Shed market, converted from previous warehouse buildings. Nearby there was the B Shed building that sold cruise to the Rottnest island, but we weren’t going though.

The E Shed looked bigger in building size but was in fact having less shops opened. We didn’t take long before leaving, having bought a baby tee for baby K. It had pretty clean toilet though.

View of the Fremantle port. — View of the Fremantle port, characterised by the cranes.

Fremantle prison was one attraction in Fremantle but I thought we wouldn’t be able appreciate fully with baby K around so I decided to give it a miss.

Drove to the last destination in the form of outlet shopping, at Watertown. As it was Friday, there was extended opening hours till 9pm, where the rest of the days had much earlier closing hours. Most of the shops there were sports brands such as Adidas and Fila. There was a Pumpkin Patch store but my wife didn’t like the stuff there. There was cotton on and Forever New. Disappointingly, no higher end luxury products. Quiksilver was at the usual 70% off for the broad shorts which I found the most worth the visit.

We returned to the car for milk expression and baby K dinner before deciding to eat at the Chinese Canton in Watertown. The “Cai Peng” was 3 times the cost in Singapore. I settled for huge bowl of wanton noodle while my wife had Phad Thai, for a touristy price. It was here that I met another friend of mine. Perth seemed like a perfect getaway from Singaporeans.

Chinese Canton selling mixed rice and Thai cuisine.

Shopped a bit more till the shop closed. Paid $10 for parking and took 30mins to return, having missed a few turns.

As I returned to the hotel carpark, it was fully occupied. Made a detour and parked at one of the smaller roads, not too far away from the hotel entrance and returned to our room, bags and all.

A nice surprise awaited us to find that all the dishes was cleaned by the service staff, with the exception of one bowl filled with leftover baby pasta. Then it was all about cleaning baby bottles, pumps and feeding and changing clothes for the baby. Lights off at 1230am, a little later than yesterday.

Perth 2015 Day 1 – Arrival into cold Perth

Posted on August 6, 2015September 22, 2019 by ziyi

Scooting to Perth for a getaway one day ahead of the super long jubilee weekend. We went earlier to the airport in order to get some photo moments with the food exhibits that Singaporeans love. In the public areas was a huge durian one that our family busied ourselves with.

Checked in at Scoot counter was fast as we have booked the Scootbiz. After we were done with makan session of baby K, which was porridge kept in a thermos, we went through immigrations. There were also smaller exhibits after that such as the chicken rice and the roti prata. Baby K snoozed in the Ergobaby till we boarded the plane.

Technical fault hit the plane and while the engineers worked on it, the electricity was out, leaving the plane slightly stuffy. Afternoon fly time was usually busy and we queued for take off before the showers could come down.

Scootbiz offered a generous amount of leg and butt space, perfect for kids towing parents such as us. The windows shade were even technologically advanced, dimming with just a touch of a button. Fed baby K with whatever was left in the thermos and some mineral water as he seemed thirsty. I had to entertain the baby while my wife went on to express milk, taking advantage of the power point socket provided on the biz seats.

Our meals were served in plastic containers, warm but the quantity was seriously little, for the pasta at least. Meals came with small Toblerone, which I thought was quite excessive. Took turns to eat as expected.

Baby K fell asleep after some time in my wife’s arms and so I took some time to snooze. It was short lived though.

Nearing the end of the flight, I had to bring baby K to walk around as he was getting cranky due to boredom. As the flight descended into Perth, sunset in the horizon darkened to night.

Being in Biz enabled us to disembarked quickly, hitting a short queue at the immigrations. The main line was actually after the luggage claim where there was already 4 levels of people snaking through to get out of the arrival hall. The snaking line built up was due to checks to prevent bringing in of illegal stuff like food or animals and the coincidental arrival of 3 aircrafts. It was a good 20mins of queuing and randomly, we were selected to get sniffed by sniffer dogs (the lucky ones could head straight for the exit).

As we exited the small airport, I called Aries rental for the delivery of my car that was reserved online. We were informed to wait for the car’s arrival where she would call again. Then we met on the road after coming out of the arrival hall and to the left after crossing the road at the traffic light. We took the waiting time to buy some pastries for dinner, ham and cheese croissant and bacon egg muffin.

After picking up the car from the road from the lady, with some small displeasure from the airport staff, I was given the instructions on how to return the car and the fees that was charged to the car. The Nissan Micra was a rather small car but we managed to put in the not so big luggage of ours. It came with a forward facing baby seat which looked more comfy than the ones we had in Europe. I punched in the destination on the rented GPS and head to Fraser Suites Perth, 20mins away.

Driving was rather easy at night, without many cars around. The place looked pretty dead to me, all the shops seemed closed. As we arrived at the driveway, the hotel staff came out to help us with the luggage. Checked in pretty quickly and we were brought to our warm and modernly designed one bedroom apartment on the 13th floor, which was huge and had a not too bad view. Bathroom came with a tub and luxurious Loccitane bathing amenities.

Quickly we ate the delicious pastries and after repacking, we went to the IGA supermarket at Royal street to buy foodstuff for brekkie and for baby. Went back to the hotel and thereafter, I went to search for affordable car park since the hotel charged $30 per day, where the starting time was 1pm and it was really worth for me to park there since from 6pm, parking was free.

The road just opposite the hotel seemed ok till I read the no parking from 730-9am. I double confirmed with the hotel staff and he recommended that I go to the street on the left side of the hotel. There was quite an area of carpark but mostly full. I managed to get one, paid $7.20 using credit card on the machine to park till 10am ($3.60/hr).

Walked back to the hotel and it was back to baby related activities. First it was to clean him up since he was out the whole day, then it was cleaning up the bottles and sterilising them. Then feeding baby K with bananas we bought from IGA and then feeding him milk and entertaining him till my wife comes out from the shower to put him to sleep.

We were taking it easy for this trip so the first day was really for settling in. Lights off at 12midnight.

Escape plan to Perth August 2015

Posted on August 5, 2015June 24, 2020 by ziyi

A brief summary on the itinerary

Escape Plan to Perth 2015:

Total duration 5D4N
Singapore is in the same time zone as Perth.
Flight time is 5hrs on Scoot from Singapore to Perth. Return flight on Qantas is 5hrs 20mins from Perth to Singapore

Afternoon flight on 6th August at 12:30pm and arrival in Perth at 5:25pm.
Return flight is on the 10th August at 12pm and arrival in Singapore at 5:20pm.

Day 1 Arrival at Perth
Day 2 Fremantle markets and Watertown
Day 3 Perth City
Day 4 Caversham Wildlife Park and King’s park
Day 5 Home Sweet Home

This escape plan was to make full use of the super long golden jubilee weekend in celebrations of SG50. We chose to go south instead of north because it would be cooler in the south during this period. The available flights that were under 6hrs was to Perth and since we had’t been there before, this was the opportunity.

Budget nature: Highest rate of Sing vs Aussie dollars made trip of value.

Travelling during this period was expected to be expensive in terms of airfares. That was also the reason for us to travel in Scootbiz since there weren’t much difference ($100) between the economy with the add ons and the biz. Also, Qantas return provided a better timing with a slightly higher charge vs Scoot.

Buying stuff in Aussie was much easier on the pockets given the almost 1:1 exchange rate. With the TRS, buying stuff that allowed tax refund almost guarantee a 10% discount compared to Singapore.

Complexity: Perth was easy to get around in a car.

Driving in Perth was pretty straight forward since it was not a big city comparatively and far less people and cars. Parking was quite easy to find and multi-storey ones were available at the malls. Carparks were nonetheless expensive.