The kind university organised an authentic Australian Bush Walk for us new students today. One hour after setting off, we arrived at this nice bit of forest trail and was taken on a botanic tour, followed by learning how to make indigenous weapons (wanna see my ax?) and then the best part: meeting the baby kangeroos. I forgot what they're called, though my Brisbane housemate knows.

Anyways, I'm starting to feel like I'm on a holiday instead of being here to study. Perth is a beautiful place for retirement, slow and easy - perfect for ye olde folks. :)

Operation Pasta-For-Dinner was a success, well, almost. While I was in the midst of boiling the pasta, my housemates - three out of six of them - entered the kitchen one after the other, extracted microwave dinners from their portion of the fridge, heated them up, and ate. Easy as pie.

All their dinners were done and my pasta wasn't even half cooked. It's a lousy feeling seeing other people pop such fast meals and me, I still have to fry my potatoes and boil my pasta sauce! And in my impatience, I threw in the pasta sauce too early and now I'm eating half-fried potatoes with perfectly boiled pasta while i type this post.

It's such a chore thinking about I want for dinner. Everyday my friends and I ask each other "What's for dinner?" and the answer that immediately follows is a sigh. At least for my case that is. Don't get me wrong, I'm not cooking-adverse, I do like to cook for myself, but sometimes you just want someone else to do the cooking, y'know?

A good thing coming out of cooking for myself is learning to use the right-handed potato/carrot peeler. Utensils at home were mostly ambidextrous but over here, I have since managed to peel three potatos and two carrots right-handed without hurting myself. What a feat eh?!? :)

Prior to Perth, I've always thought that Gweilos are a friendly lot. Well, orientation week has proved my initial opinions wrong. While them Gweilos are friendly, with their ever ready "Hi!" and "Hello!", it's an entire different situation completely when it comes to making friends.

On a personal level, if there were an Australian and an Asian standing at an equal distance from where I am, I would - without a hint of hesitation - approach the Asian first. Never mind that I could probably have an easier time communicating with the Australian had said Asian turn out to be from Hong Kong, it's simply the matter of going to someone closer to home. I hope you know what I mean. From what I've observed, the same goes for the Gweilos too.

Anyways, let's not lose hair over that little detail.

Culture shock is inevitable when one arrives in a new place. Imagine my flabbergast and mild disgust when I learnt that my housemates are inclined to leave all their dishes from an entire day of cooking til a time God doesn't even have an inkling of. So all their plates from dinner and brunch and yesterday's brunch and dinner will be stacked into this unexpectedly artistic assemblage, only to be washed when and where they'd like to.

I can't have that in my house. The things we call crockery and cutlery have to be washed right after every meal! How is it that people can bother with 30 minutes of their lifetime cooking, and not spend five bloody minutes washing up?!? These Gweilos are terrible.

We visited Perth's biggest park, King's Park, over the last two days. Little wonder over the name, but the park is beautiful, of course it helped tremendously that we visited it in such fine weather.



There I am! Mini me!

You know when people say "The grass is greener on the other side"? I think they're talking about King's Park. It's so soft and green and completely inviting, just makes you want to curl up with a good book and music an entire day! Definitely a must-see when one is in Perth. :)

While waiting for the bus on Sunday (buses in Perth come every 30 minutes to every hour on weekends), a man with a beggar-ish appearance approached us with an offer of a house for rent.

It seemed liked a pretty good deal: cheaper than our current lodging and fully furnished too. Plus, the rent would cover electricity and gas so there wasn't any need for us to fork out extra money on that score.

The only catch: we've paid up for our hostels for the entire semester.

It's a shitty feeling knowing that there stood a better deal and we were not able to take it, what with my housemate-who-does-not-clean-up-after-herself and the un-homely bathroom, I would have given almost anything to get into a warmer environment.

My only consolation was that I haven't been feeling homesick much, due to hanging out with friends quite often and keeping myself busy so I won't have the time to, to quote joe ann, 胡思乱想 (having wild thoughts).

(HKL lied, who says one can't find friends if one joins school in the middle of the school year? She's a bugger)

Anyway, I have grocery shopping to do tomorrow, seems like that is, and will be, the only shopping I'm gonna be doing for a very loooooonnnng time. Sigh, what a life. What a life!

Time I woke up today: 9.30am (not bad for a Sunday eh?)

Time I decided to make breakfast: 10am

Time I washed breakfast dishes: I dunno, they're still sitting there. :)

I've gone from this:


(eh only five bags are mine k)

to this in just five hours:



Perth is pretty nice, albeit boring. It's not vastly different from Singapore, but i would have to say taking buses in Singapore is much easier, but Singapore bus drivers are a nauseating lot.

Beer has dethroned water as Perth's national drink. You go to a party, you ask, "Have you got any drinks?" They ask you, "Wot'd you loike?" Then it's back to you again, "What do you have?" and they answer, "Hmmm, I've got beer, some absolut, and more beer."

You want water, it's BYO. (Bring Your Own)

Anyways, they're very pleasant, even the weather. A typical phone call goes thus:

"Hello may i speak to Pei Wen please?"
"I'm Pei Wen."
"Hello Pei Wen, how are you?"
"I'm good, and you?"
"I'm fine too, I'm calling about..."

whereas in Singapore you just get people who jump straight into what they're calling about without even a simple "hello". tsk.

til next time,

Just keep packing~
Just keep packing~~
Just keep packing, packing, packing~~~

JUST KEEP PACKING~
JUST KEEP PACKING~
OH JUST KEEP PACKINGGGGGG~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


See you in Perth! :)

you know how after every news bulletin on channel newsasia, the nice folks at mediacorp news will provide a list of temperatures and weathers around the globe?

the temperature in mecca is tres terrible. you think singapore is hot, mecca is mind-numbingly worse. 43 degrees! everyday! -faints-

anyways, yesterday, perth was at 2 degree celcius. my eyes widened in shock. in my living room, i exclaimed to no one in particular, "it's two degrees! twooooooooo degrees!!!" while furiously wagging two fingers in the air.

dad looked up from his two-day old straits times, "that's the temperature for the middle of the night only lah..."

and mum joined in, "... you sleep like a pig already, how to feel cold?"

-__________-"

next time i'm being a party pooper, remember, it's in my genes.

as of this moment the london 2012 website is swamped, but if you can get in, go watch their videos! download their screensavers! bask in their jubilation! buy their merchandise!

(now i can finally send in a self-addressed envelope in order to get their free car sticker and not feel weird if london loses)

come 2012, the world's greatest sporting event is going to be held at the home of sir elton john. some say he is more (in)famous than the queen herself.

personally i was rooting for paris, they had a stronger and neater presentation but alas, london's managed to pull ahead. a good job by all candidate cities nonetheless.

earlier on my mother lost her temper because there was no hot water left in the flask. the way i've said it, it seemed to be a matter too trifle to raise one's voice at. on the other hand, it is of common sense and natural thinking to refill a flask one has emptied, no?

i cart my own bottle of water around the house so i wasn't the one who dried the flask, it was my sister instead. this prompted mum to let loose a:

"just because you stay in the hostel, it doesn't mean you don't do housework!"

"i didn't say i won't do housework!"

"it's not about saying! it's about the way you behave!"

granted, the words exchanged were a little harsh, but i didn't felt any need to rush to my sister's defense. truth be told, she has become somewhat of a pig since she moved back home for the holidays, my friends know what i mean - garlic incident and all. i wonder what she's thinking at times.

well, yours truly here will let that be a lesson learnt. but if i were allowed to be smug here, i would never have acted like that anyway. :)