Salt * Wet * Fish

Perth Photos

Was in Perth from 8th June to 12th June. This is my first trip to Perth and Australia, for that matter. Its basically a work trip as I was there to attend the 4th Global Conference on Buddhism at the Perth convention center. We were there early so that we can vist some monastries and have some free and easy time for ourselves.

Its winter time in Perth, but the weather was fantastic. Heard from an Australian friend that its one of the warmest winter. The night drops to about 7 to 5 degrees and the day time can be up to 22 degree… which is just perfect type of weather for me. I loved this type of weather, dry and cool. Of course, the only thing to watch out for is drying and cracking lips, if we are not careful.

Perth city itself is rather small and not very crowd. Most of the places of interests are walkable about 10 to 20 mins. If not, one can get a free ride on the CAT buses, which stops at almost all the places of interests. I love walking along the swan river in the cool morning. It takes me about 20 mins slow walk from the Goodearth Hotel at Adelaide Terrace, along the swan river to the Perth convention centre.

The shops closes around 7 pm daily, except Friday (I think). The main shopping area is at Murray Street. There is also Harbour Town, which is sort of a factory outlet shopping center, near Northbridge. Northbridge is lined with eateries and is also where the Chinatown area is. We were there for 2 nights, eating pasta in Sorrento cafe, which I must say is very good! I was also introduced to Miss Maud Swiss buffet at Miss Maud hotel. The buffet costs AUD27 and its quite a good and delicious spread.

What I enjoyed most in Perth was just walking around looking at the plant species and the birds flying around. There are lots of parrots calling everywhere.

Fremantle Photos

Also managed to popped down to Fremantle on late Friday night and had the famous Fish&Chips at Ciccerella. Not bad, but the crazy Chinese decided that inside the restaurant was too warm and all of us sat outside at the docks for our dinner. Almost halfway through dinner, most of us were freezing our butts off in the cold winter winds. Crazy chinese!

After dinner, we popped down to the Fremantle market which was opened till 9 pm on Friday. It an interesting place of sorts. It seems like “orientalism” is a rather in thing now in Australia. There are a number of shops selling Indonesia and Thai handicrafts and Buddha’s head and paintings. Sometimes, its strange that you visit a country and expect to see their local products, but you end seeing more of what you already see in Thailand, because everyone else in more interested in those products.