COLOURFULWORLD

Wednesday 19 September 2018

The first half of September - Part I

The first half of September was hectic with family gatherings, dinners, sightseeing and family!

It was my son's birthday on the 4th of September and my husband's 60th on the 5th of September. 
Daughter daughter Karina who is now living 2 hours south of Manila in the Philippines arranged to come and spend 2 weeks in Perth.
It was originally going to be a surprise for Dad and brother, but with Jose working in Sydney, he was only going to take 1 day off work and arrive on a Thursday and leave Sunday, so I had to tell him Karina was coming, and he took 1 week off work, spending a total of 9 days at home.

On Tuesday 4th, I joined Jose and Karina on a trip to the city and after Jose dealt with what he had to do we drove to the Kings Park Botanic Gardens to have a look at the Spring Festival wildflower show.

Kings Park is huge at 4,06 kmor 1,003 acre, bigger than New York's Central Park with an area of 3,41km2 or ‎843 acres. 

It rained on and off, so we didn't see much, but managed to catch a rainbow and were lucky enough to get close to a friendly kookaburra that stood a mere 20 cm from me when it flew onto the rail of the lookout, where we were admiring the view of the city and Swan river.


Rainbow over Perth, seen from Kings Park





















Elizabeth Quay area with pedestrian bridge, statues and Cafes
The new buildings at Elizabeth Quay - an hotel and exorbitant priced apartments

Jose and Karina looking at the city, when I joined them the Kookaburra joined us on the rail







The friendly kookaburra on the rail
Wildflowers and the Honeyeater feeding on flower pollen 
Views of Kings Park
   
That night we joined our son, wife and baby for dinner at their home, and the next day we celebrated Jose's birthday with a dinner at "Two Fat Indians" restaurant in the newly renovated rooftop food court at the Carousel shopping centre.  The food and service were great and we had a great night.

Even though I'm not a shopper and hate going to big shopping centres (malls), I must concede that the recently opened rooftop area looks beautiful, modern and spacious, with an entertainment area where live music is played and patrons can watch from an amphitheatre, lots of comfortable seating areas, fairy lights, and lots of new restaurants.

Westfield Carousel new rooftop eating area
Westfield Carousel rooftop entertainment area

  On Saturday 8th of September I had invited a few friends for lunch to celebrate Jose's birthday. Even though we had a few wet and cold days, we were lucky that the sun came out that day, but we still had to use our outdoor gas heater on the patio for warmth while having lunch.
The birthday cake was a low-carb Mandarin cake with cream cheese icing that was moist and delicious. The mandarins I used were the last ones from our tree in the backyard.

The family on Michael's birthday dinner and the table of savoury and deserts for Jose's birthday lunch
In the afternoon of Sunday 9th, Jose flew back to Sydney and Karina and I planned some activities for the following week, as I had the week off work.


On Monday 10th, Karina and I took the train into the city centre and walked through some of Perth's iconic buildings - The State Buildings, City of Perth Library, St George's Cathedral, St Mary's Cathedral - until we reached the beautiful suburb of East Perth
St Mary's Cathedral, St George's Cathedral and the Ascalon statue, Perth Library, State Buildings


In East Perth, we walked across Victoria Gardens and the Matagarup Bridge to the new Stadium area.

East Perth with the bridge and stadium on the other side of the river, and the city centre buildings in the distance



Victoria Gardens in East Perth, the Stadium and bridge, Peace Grove monument









You might remember from my previous post that the bridge wasn't totally finished, but I noticed quite a lot had been done and it was looking much better. Workers were installing an overhead cover in an area where there will be seating.


Bike repair station in and exercise machines in Victoria Gardens. Karina on the bridge and the new overhead covers on the bridge
And by then we were quite hungry and stopped at the amazing Camfield pub and chose the Fish and Chips for lunch, a beer for Karina and a Lemon, Lime and Bitters for me.


The Camfield and our fish and chips


When we left the pub the sky had turned a dark gray so we cut our trip short and rushed back through the bridge and East Perth to catch the free CAT bus (central area transit) into the city and got to the stop just as huge drops started falling.
In the city the rain continued so we decided to get the train back home and watched a movie from Netflix - "The Age of Adeline". Interesting movie, loved it! 

Hope you enjoyed the first part of the tour, have a lovely week.

Dark skies over Perth which made us rush home





30 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a wonderful time Sami, so fantastic to spend time with your daughter, I'm sure you are missing her now. Loved your shots from Kings Park, the rainbow over the city gorgeous! Carousel looks amazing, Whitfords has a new entertainment area like that also. Always enjoy reading about your family get-togethers xox

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    1. Thanks Grace, it was great to have Karina here, we had great fun, but the 2 weeks just flew! I was thrilled with the rainbow :)

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  2. Beautiful shots! It sounds like you had a great time.

    The kookaburra looks like quite a character.

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    1. Thanks William, the kookaburra is a funny bird which I don't often see in my residential area.

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  3. Belas fotos deste Setembro bem produtivo em passeios, também adoro passear por jardins e parques.
    Um abraço e continuação de boa semana.

    Andarilhar
    Dedais de Francisco e Idalisa
    Livros-Autografados

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    1. Obrigada Francisco, o nosso jardim botanico e muito bonito.

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  4. What a lovely family time altogether! Looks like you had great birthday celebrations! I reckon Perth has as many cranes as Bangkok, of course I prefer your other bird the Kookaburra haha hope you're laughing at my lame joke!
    Wren x

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    1. A lot of construction going on around Perth.
      I wish the kookaburra had laughed, it would have been great. Thanks
      Wren.

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  5. A nice selection of photos. The kookaburra photo is great. Dining on the rooftop of a shopping centre seems weird, but good that you enjoyed it. What a poorer place Perth would be without King's Park.

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    1. It seems a couple more shopping centres are going to get the rooftop entertainment treatment, I suppose anything new will attract new shoppers.
      Quite true, Kings Park is the jewel in the crown.

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  6. What a fun and busy and photo-worthy couple of weeks! How fun that a kookaburra joined you and posed so beautifully. Beautiful park ... and that shopping center looks like it would be unique enough to be fun (I generally dislike malls too).

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    1. Thanks Sallie, I was thrilled with the kookaburra posing if just for a minute or so, enough for me to snap it. Kings Park is huge and always worth a visit whatever time of the year, but specially beautiful in Spring.

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  7. So that's what a kookaburra looks like. How fortunate that you found one.

    I noticed a LOT of construction near the waterfront of Perth.

    That bridge is getting better looking, but not nearly as good as that fish and chips (grin).

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    1. Yes, that's the famous kookaburra, mainly seen in bush areas, but they seem to like Kings Park too.
      There is a lot of construction all over Perth, those cranes are by the Elizabeth Quay area where a couple of towers - hotel and exorbitant priced apartments are coming up.

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  8. You inspire me to one day want to visit Australia. Your photos are wonderful, Sami. I love the things you do, too from the wonderful pubs and gardens to restaurants and bridges. It's all splendid!

    And I've never seen a kookaburra! They're cute. And the rainbow -- a good sign!

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    1. Thanks Jeanie, please do come and visit and I'll take you around Perth.
      The kookaburras are very cute, mainly seen in bush areas, but Kings Park seems to have a few residing there.

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  9. A Austrália também é uma sedução.
    Até agora só conheço Sydney, Melbourne e Adelaide.
    Ainda há muito para conhecer, nomeadamente Perth.
    Bjs

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    1. Perth tem os seus encantos Pedro, terei todo o gosto em lhe mostrar a cidade se aqui vier. Tambem conheco Sydney, Melbourne e Adelaide, o meu marido tambem trabalhou longos periodos nas duas ultimas cidades e eu ia la muitas vezes, mas continuo a preferir viver em Perth :)

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  10. Philippines now, wow, that´s a very exciting life she leads! Great!
    Sad you had to give away the big surprise!
    Belated Happy Birthdays!!!

    Oh, one day we either live in Perth or I convince Ingo to come at this time of the year!
    We´ve seen wildflowers "on the run" but I bet Kings Park must be awesome.

    Aww, a such a cutie, that kookaburra, rain and a rainbow - lucky day!

    Two fat Indians???? LOL, what a name!

    You have mandarins in your backyard, ohhh... wonderful! My avo nearly died but recovered again, phew.

    Great family pic!

    Can´t wait to visit that bridge! And... surprise... that pub :-)

    I did enjoy, thank you :-) A lovely rest of the week to you, too!

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    1. Thomas has start working in the Philippines in May, but Karina has only been there 5 weeks. They're loving it and it's an opportunity to travel in Asia.
      We have a mandarin/lemon tree, one side gives mandarins the other lemons, plus we have another lemon tree. Our avocado tree has lots of flowers at the moment which should mean lots of avocados, but last year they just fell off and we had nothing!
      You and Ingo will love the pub, it has 50 beer taps!
      Spring is my favourite season in Perth actually, not too hot yet, although this year it's been cooler and wetter than normal, but today we had 26C so hopefully that means it's warming up!

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  11. Perth is so beautiful! Happy belated birthday to your son, husband and cats! September is a big month in your family :)

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    1. You're right, 3 celebrations, lol. It's basically March and September.
      Thanks Sara.

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  12. Que bom ter uma família grande e unida! E que belas paisagens que nos mostrou. Uma vida cheia e harmoniosa.
    Parabéns aos aniversariantes mesmo que atrasados.
    : )

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  13. Schöne Bilder von der Stadt.

    Noke

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  14. Such a lovely post, love how you do your photo collages.
    That kookaburra does look friendly.
    Your low carb mandarin cheesecake sounds delicious.

    All the best Jan

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    1. Thank you Jan, the cake was delicious. The kookaburra was quite friendly :)

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