Day 3: 12/5/2007

Today I spent most of my day in Perth itself. As there aren't any buses running earlier than 10 am on Saturdays, we decided to take a walk to Perth Mint as it was only a block away. We also checked out a bunch of shops only the way, which included a bike shop. Cycling is supposed quite conveninent here, but the bicycle rental is quite strange. For 5 hours the rental is $15, but for the whole day it is $24. The difference between the two is quite marked.

At Perth Mint, we looked around the shop but we didn't go into the main exhibits. It featured a gold pour that we'd seen already in Melbourne. Since we had to pay to see the gold pour, we decided against it. Instead we wandered around the free parts.

Later we went shopping to get some water. We'd been getting water and milk from Woolsworth, but the day before the supermarket had a blackout and had to close. So we decided to come back today. The market was surprisingly less crowded considering it was a weekened.

We soon found out why. The free buses were only running ever 25 mins. It took ages for us to get back to our hotel. As a result, we did not actually go to Swan Bells as planned. Instead, I hung out in the hotel, and when it came to the time to meet Jessica I went to the lobby.

Later, she called to say that she would be running late. So I wandered down the Swan River. it's amazing what you can do with a good map. Still, walking alone in an area not my own/familiar with was quite scary, especially since some of the streets were quite empty.

Swan River is exceptionally windy. It's also one of the widest rivers I've seen. Standing on the bank, there were points where I wasn't able to see the other bank. The water is really deep too. Still, while standing that the edge of the bank was scary (I can't swim and for some strange reason I kept thinking someone would push me in) the scenery was very nice. Not exactly a place I would sit by a write, but definitely a place for a nice stroll. The water was a lot clearer than the Singapore River.

The river also featured seagulls and cockatiels. They were really noisy but nice to watch. A lot of the birds seem to like feeding on palm fruits. I also saw the same colourful parrots we had seen at Perth Mint, which also had a palm tree. Watching birds is nice.

Later I made it back to the hotel safely and met Jessiace. She hasn't changed much from the Singapore outing. To let me identify her easily, she even wore the same Livejournal t-shirt. =D We got a lift from her friend to get to Perth Zoo.

The Zoo is BIG. It's quite different from the Singapore Zoo, as it tries to replicate the feel of the various countries where the animals were from with different plants. For example, there were tall reedy trees and grasses in the savannah section, and lush trees at the rainforest section. The encolosures were pretty roomy and mostly designed so you could walk around. Still, there were times when it was hard to see the animals. Jessica and I were lucky enough to spot the majority of the animals we looked at.

Jessica is pretty awesome. She's witty and made me laugh a lot as we poked fun at the animals. As we had gone in pretty late, we had to go through the zoo in under 2 hours. We decided to focus on the exhibits we really wanted to see, and picked the World of Birds. However, we got lost and ended up in the African Savannah. Somehow we finished that in 10 min.

We then embarked on what we dubbed the 'bullet train' version of the Perth Zoo. We covered, the Noctune House, the World of Birds, Primates and most of the Asian rainforest exhibits within 1.5 hours. We weren't even walking especially fast. At each exhibit we stopped to look for the niamsl and make jokes and remarks about them. These included noisy parrots, plump bleeding heart pigeons, mini-monkeys the size of our hands and invisible turtles among others.

We only slowed when he hit the Australia bushwalk. There were gates between the exhibits, which freaked me out because it was close to closing time, and I was worried we would get stuck inside. Jessica joked that it would make a good story. The didgeroos at the dingo section spooked us so much that we quickly got out of there.

With that, we successfully survived the zoo and headed to Mends Cafe to celebrate. There we had seafood spaghetti, milkshakes and fries. The food was good, and the company was excellent. =D We talked about a range of stuff, including LJ, real life, writing and books. And we laughed a lot. My mom said that I was smiling a lot after I came back.

Returning to the hotel was a dramatic walk along Hay Street. The Perth streets aren't that well-lit and walking along the quiet streets at nigt is rather scary. It's quiet, with only random passers-by/tourists.

Still, I made it back to the hotel in one piece, despite meeting some very quiet drunks who dropped their bottle. Quite an exciting day. My mom, however, had a slightly more relaxing time trying to hunt down the sandalwood oil Jietong's mom was looking for.