COLOURFULWORLD

Tuesday, 7 January 2014

Discovering new places in Perth

I don't often go into the city, mainly due to the fact that I have everything I need in the suburb where I live, but once in a while it's nice to do something different!
So today, on my day off work, I took my daughter in law into the city and the suburb of Northbridge to show her some of the sights she still doesn't know. (She lived in Sydney previously, and has only been in Perth 6 months).

Our first visit was to the WA Museum where together with the usual exhibits there was an exhibition honouring 30 years of work from Perth's fashion designer Aurelio Costarella
Not all dresses were to my taste, but most were quite feminine and wearable.


Here a dress is inside an exhibition window with some Australian animals

There was a huge display of butterflies from Australia and the world



I love these stones with minerals!
  
Meteorites







































































A very important room in the Museum is the Discovery Centre, 
and today it was full of school children who are on their summer holidays at the moment.
It's a treasure trove for kids, but also very interesting for adults.


You can build a Pyramid

This lioness was popular with the kids who stroked her when they walked past
Under each cupboard the sliding drawers had interesting things to discover
The Dinosaur at the entrance to the WA Museum

Turning left to go to Northbridge we came across this "new sand box" in front of the main city Library. Under the shade a few beach chairs and recliners were available, and the kids played happily in the sand. It looked almost like a beach, quite funny!










Northbridge Piazza where free music concerts and movies are held - giant screen at end

























Returning from our visits after lunching in Northbridge we went past Kakulas Brothers in William Street. A old-fashioned grocer store with flours, nuts, spices, chocolates, etc that can be bough by weight from various bags around the store. There are cheeses, olive oils, sausages, olives, canned goods, lots of European flavours...Prices are very good and the choice is enormous!


Next door to them was another lovely find - a tiny and brightly painted shop selling artisan ice-pops -  Delish Ice-creams - the lady behind the counter offered us a try and we loved our choices - creamy coconut milk and passionfruit for me and Creamy Iced coffee for S. 
Pity we started walking towards the city and with the heat (it was 38C today!!) they started melting quickly. Eventually we found some shade until we finished eating them.
Have you ever tried something similar? They were delicious, we will be back for more!!

The sales lady took the photo with us holding the ice-pops

Next to the train station at Forrest Place, the kids were cooling themselves and having fun under the water feature, and a couple of  adults were also taking the plunge and getting wet...

Near the station on Murray St, this mural featured in a shop window caught my eye. Stunning!! It's part of an exhibition - Art 140 Perth and the artist is Anna McEachran.




Hope you enjoyed visiting the city with me and are getting to know a bit more about Perth's delights.


Wednesday, 1 January 2014

2013 - MY YEAR IN PICTURES



This is a month by month picture round-up of highlights of my year 2013.
Hope you also had an interesting year and may 2014 bring you all you wish! 

If you follow the highlighted links you will be able to read more about those events.

JANUARY

Australia Day, celebrated on 26th of January was celebrated with friends. 
We still have no plans for this year's celebrations ...








FEBRUARY

Our en-suite bathroom was finally finished after a few months of working on it on and off over the weekends.
Thanks to my dear husband and son who did the tiling, and a plumber knowledgeable friend who helped with some of the piping before the basin could be installed.
The difference is amazing, as we had a 1970's house complete with all the colourful and un-matching tiles, wallpaper, floors, counters, toilets....Very groovy!!



A big difference from the blue toilet and counter top (seen here on the bottom corner) and blue patterned tiles in the shower, to a modern cream and white bathroom with storage and enclosed shower.




MARCH

My daughter and her partner arrived from France, a day after my birthday and a few days before her birthday. We celebrated both our special dates by having a lovely party in our backyard with our friends.

Just before departing on our very long road trip to the North of our state of Western Australia, we managed to squeeze in a visit to Cottesloe beach to see the weird and beautiful works of art at the "Sculpture by the Sea" exhibition.






We travelled almost 3000km from Perth to Coral Bay and back, and had an amazing holiday.
You can follow our day to day along the following 7 posts and see some wonderful West Australian sights.
part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/a-long-way-to-top-perth-to-coral-bay.html
part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/perth-to-coral-bay-part-2.html
part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/perth-to-coral-bay-part-3.html
part 4 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/perth-to-coral-bay-part-4.html
part 5 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/perth-to-coral-bay-part-5.html
part 6 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/coral-bay-to-perth-homebound.html
part 7 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/coral-bay-to-perth-homebound-2.html

For me the highlight was seeing the dolphins come to feed at the beach at Monkey Mia.
We spent 9 days relaxing, swimming in clear waters, fishing, looking at the coral reef and enjoying beautiful sunsets. I took just over 800 photos on this trip, my family says I must have a Japanese ancestor somewhere! 










APRIL

I joined the "Postcrossing" group swapping postcards with snippets of info about Perth.
Strangely enough, the first address Postcrossing gave me was Braunschweig, the German town where we lived for almost 6 years in the 80's. I'm glad there are still so many people who enjoy putting a pen to paper instead of just typing away at the computer keyboard, and it's also a lovely way to get to know the world.







MAY

I visited the city of Adelaide, and then my husband and I took a ferry to the millionaire fishing town of Port Lincoln, where we spent a few days getting to know the area. 
Both cities are in the State of South Australia.


The river Torrens in the city centre


An old building in the seaside suburb of  Glenelg., by the sea side.


A fishing boat coming from the sea in Port Lincoln











JUNE

For the first time I attended the WA Day or Foundation Day celebrations in the city on 3rd of June. The centre was full of people having fun around the most diverse activities.
































On the 22nd June, my son got married in Sydney to his lovely bride and we spent 3 days there and once again visited the usual tourist sights. 
This was our third time in Sydney since we have been in Australia.

Part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/sydney-weekend-day-1.html
Part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/sydney-weekend-day-2-wedding.html
Part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/sydney-day-3.html



Sara & Michael cut the cake

Darling Harbour, Sydney
A wet day greeted our visit to the Opera House
JULY

For the first time we enjoyed an Australian Christmas in July dinner.
It makes sense when Christmas falls in the heat of Summer in Australia, and people want to get the feeling of celebrating Christmas in the middle of winter.








AUGUST

A couple of renovating projects that I embarked on during the month of August and September were the renovation of my son's bedroom, now a guest room, which started with me painting the end wall with stripes.




As you can see from the before and after photos, the room looks brighter and modern now.
Before - gray walls and black furniture

After - Gray, white and turquoise

This chest of drawers that I bought on Gumtree also had a make-over, with a splash of colour in each drawer, mimicking the striped walls, from white, turquoise to dark gray.

Another project was the "framing" of the bathroom mirror  in our main bathroom, changing it from a just plain mirror to a more contemporary mirror.





SEPTEMBER

Kings Park celebrated 50 years of flower power with yet another amazing display of Spring wildflowers. 
For the first time yarn-bombing was introduced and it was a success!





The "Florettes" walking around the park, delighted young and old. 
Holden, the Australian car maker celebrated 100 years as well, and some stunning and unusual flower displays were made with two very old cars.
PS - Sadly, General Motors has decided to close down the Holden car plant in South Australia in 2017.





















OCTOBER

The 46th Telethon was held in Perth, and raised just over an astonishing $20,700 ,000.  Yes, you are reading right -  Twenty million, seven hundred thousand dollars!!!   It's the best fundraiser worldwide!




NOVEMBER

For the second year Perth participated in the "Open House" event, celebrating design, architecture, interiors, etc and showcasing the most important public and some private buildings in Perth.


My favourite was the very modern Central Park building, the tallest building with the best views over Perth. Follow the links to read about my visits on 4th of November.
The Swan Bells tower and the new "Elizabeth Quay" project under way by the river Swan


Part 1 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-2013-council-house.html
Part 2 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-2-spacecubed-and.html
Part 3 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-3-qv1-building.html
Part 4 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-4-central-park-building.html
Part 5 - http://sami-colourfulworld.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/open-house-perth-5-bishops-gardens.html

Also in November I met up with two bloggers, one from Perth, the other from Braunschweig, Germany.
I took Iris and her husband to visit Penguin Island. It was a short visit, but enough to enjoy seeing these cute little creatures that inhabit the Southern coast of Australia and New Zealand.




Penguin Island


Towards the end of November I flew again to Adelaide, to celebrate our wedding anniversary on 30th. The city was decked out for Christmas of course.
November was certainly a busy month!
Rundle Plaza in Adelaide - a pedestrian mall
We had our wedding anniversary dinner at a restaurant in the Glenelg Marina

DECEMBER

For the second time I watched the Perth Christmas Pageant that takes place the first Saturday of the month. 



The Broome camels are very popular, and so are characters from kid's story books.


Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day lunch was held at our house with the usual gathering of our "Australian adoptive family".

New Year's Eve was celebrated with a few friends at the Portuguese Club of Hamilton Hill. The food was great - lobster, prawn, calamari and octopus. 
Desserts and starters could be brought in by the guests, if they so wished.

The music - live shows and then DJ music was entertaining and good enough for dancing.


My husband and I and our son and wife


It's now time to get back to normal and stop over-eating on so much junk. I can hardly look at food today!
Have a happy 2014, with health, peace and happiness!
I look forward to having your company again this year.