My loot from Australia!

This post is waaaay overdue! I finally told myself that I MUST take pics and post this. I'm more restrained this time around. I decided that I would only buy stuff that I cannot get in SG and not stuff that I imagine is cheaper! Hahahaha!
This pack of flowers were not even bought at a scrapbook store! I was in this bargain place called Red Dot when I picked this up.
Even though I never wanted to get papers, I could not resist these Kaiser papers and this exclusive Australian brand from Woolworths.

Stamps are one of my weakness and these were cheap and cannot be found in SG.

This whole stack of mags were cheap cheap cheap!! They were all 3 @ $9.95AUD! But unfortunately, some of the mags were duplicated. I decided to give them away as pressies from my Aussie trip!

Albums are always super cheap there! I bought 3 albums at only about $9AUD each! And check out the wooden 12x12 multi frame display by Kaiser! It wasn't very cheap but I can never find this type of thing here! Yeah!! I love that frame and I'm really glad it didn't break in my luggage! In fact, nothing broke, only a bar of chocolates!

So here's the sum of my loot and I promise that I didn't leave anything out!

Life goes on... Much faster!!

Sigh... I'm back from dream holiday... Even though I was throughly convinced by this trip that I'm a born and bred city gal, I still miss Perth and it's serenity and utterly slow pace of life. I would love to holiday there once in a while for a week or so... but I now know that I'll never be able to live there or anywhere too quiet long term. (Which was once my dream. Not Perth, but maybe somewhere nice and quiet)
I don't like the fact that I've gotta drive 10mins to get food. Or that all shopping malls close at 5pm even in summer. Or that there's utterly no one around you. Or that every morning, there's the sound of birds chirping instead of cars rumbling.
I love the city and I love Singapore. Yes, it's so crowded here. There's always people and they are mostly annoying. But Singapore has LIFE!! Perth seems sleepy and kinda... errrr... dead... The people here rush everywhere and I've gotten used to the rushing. When not rushing in Perth, it felt odd and I was quite discomfitted by it. Even the CBD area in Perth felt relaxing, like one of our more sleepy suburb area like maybe Ponggol. The whole of Western Australia is larger than the whole of Western Europe but it has only 2million people!!! Singapore can fit into one of their lakes and we have 4.5million people!! I know I said this before but I'm totally amazed by this! How I wish it were the other way around!

This is a typical busy busy day at the Fremantle Market. It will barely clasify as traffic in Singapore.

This is how crowded the beaches will get in summer! This is considered very very crowded by the locals! I can't imagine how the Aussies feel when they come here and see the horrendous crowds on weekends!!

I tried to find more pics of "crowded" places in Perth. I realized that only a couple had more than 20 people in it and our small family of 6 filled up most of the pics!!

Hey! Here's some pics!

Font View of the House

I'm not quite sure if this is considered the front or back view of the house! The car is parked at the front door though and when we walk around back, this was what we saw! Amazing right??!! We absolutely love this place! The bungalow is huge, kitchen well equipped, rooms clean, toilets large.... Wow is all I can say!!
This is what happens every morning. The sprinkler switches on at 5am every morning and waters the grass around the greens. This light here is 5.45am! I can't really sleep and I wake up promptly at 5.30am every day! I'm getting a bit tired already!
Here's the rest of what the neighbourhood looks like!

Everyone needs food ya! There is a huge shopping mall nearby and best of all?? There are TWO! Not one, TWO scrapbook shops nearby!! Yipeeeeeee!

The two kiddies playing on the XBox. Yup! There're plenty of games too!

Perth is really beautiful!

I have been to Australia quite a number of times, but never thought of Perth till now. My brother rented a huge bungalow and invited us along. Naturally, we thought that was a good deal coz we were saving alot on accommodation.
"But.... Perth???!!! That's a really boring place!!"
However, we still thought that we should just go along because of the free accommodation.....
Today.... our 5th day in Perth......
I am utterly bowled over by the serenity and stark beauty of the place. Western Australia is larger that the whole of Western Europe and yet there are only 2 million people living here! Amazing ain't it?! There's 4 million people in Singapore and we fit just nicely into one of their lakes here!! Oh gosh! Even on days that are supposedly "crowded", to us, it seems like a nice stroll through Singapore malls on a really super quiet weekday morning! The only gripe I have is that the shops close really early even in summer.
The sun here is super duper HOT! Humidity is so low here that it's not uncomfortable. But the sun is so hot that the moment you are in it, you start to burn! However, the interesting thing is that the moment you find shade, the wind that blows is actually cooling! Unlike in SG, the weather is hot, sticky, humid and the wind is hot, sticky and humid too! Morning and evening gets quite cold. About 18 to 20 deg cel.
There are actually quite alot of things to do here. We have been to the beautiful and famed Swan Valley (I always want to say Swan Lake!!) and had chocolates, nuts, wine and bought the whole works too!! There's the Caversham Wildlife park where the kids ran wild and petted kangaroos, koalas, ducks (yes ducks too!), fed them and chased them all over the place! They watched the mandatory sheep shearing show and watched the dogs herd sheep. They even fed bottles of milk to newborn lamb! (Silly little things!) Brandon milked the cow and fed the donkey and llama and declared that they felt soft and had no teeth!! (They have! They just used their lips to pick the food and not their teeth!)
Then we went to Hillary's boat harbour and visited the famed (AGAIN!) AQWA aquarium. It was comparable to the one in SG, Sentosa. In fact, I think we had more fun here coz it was super interactive and there were outdoor and indoor exhibits. The undersea creatures were quite different from those that are in Underwater World in Sentosa. We saw creatures unique to the Australian sealife. Brandon was fascinated and Brianna was, for once, stunned to silence. She was so excited about all the exhibits and wanted to touch everything and anything! After that wonderful experience, we went to Adventure Park and let Brandon bounce on a huge trampoline for 20 over minutes!! His thigh was so sore that he could not walk the next day! Hahahaha!
We have also been to MacNuts Australia and Milbrooks Winery in Rockingham. MacNuts was where we all went NUTS!! Literally! My sister in law went nuts and bought $300 plus AUD in Maccadamia nuts! I was saner and grabbed only a modest $150AUD. Hee hee hee! Then, we proceeded to this beautiful winery cally Millbrooks Winery. It was the most gorgeous place! The surrounding was peaceful, the vineyard was lovely, the lake was crystal... What more? One thing spoilt our experience though. The staff there was not very friendly and they didn't bother to entertain us. They gave the other Australians (or other ang mos) free wine and friendly service but ignored us totally! So we ignored them too and took lots of pictures, used their toilets and left without spending a single cent! Hahahaha!
Then there was Mandurah where the rich lived! We took a ferry ride, ostensiously to watch dolphins. But it turned out to be a trip to see how the rich lived by the lake/riverway/water/sea. There were hundreds of gorgeous homes built by the lake/riverway/water/sea and they all faced the water. It was mouthwatering to see but impossible to afford. There was even a Singaporean couple who have a holiday home there and the pilot pointed it out to us! After the ride, we walked along the broadwalk and watched the seagulls and ducks. The wind that blew in was cold and we were all shivering even though the sun was beating down relentlessly. It was so confusing for our bodies that we finally decided the shopping strip was more suitable for our city adapted bodies and mind.
We have yet to visit all the other places we have planned. We are planning to go Fremantle to see the markets, prision. We want to go Scarbourough to walk along the beach and eat ice lollies. There's also Rottnest Island where the wild creatures there roam free. And not forgetting the big Perth city center where shopping and dining abounds!
Well, that's the gist of the first 4 days of our Perth trip. There'll be more to come!
Hey hey! Not forgetting that there are countless scrapbook shops here and their shopping malls like Target and Kmart have scrapbook stuff too! I have already bought so many clear stamps and punches I'm not sure how to bring it back! Some things are cheaper here and some things are unique only to Australia. I tell myself not to be greedy and buy only stuff that's available only here in Australia......................... Urghhhh! The mind is willing................... But the heart is soooooooo weak...............