Day 3 - AQWA and relocating to Joondalup

Exciting day today as in many ways it is the real beginning of our vacation. Today we collect our rental car from Bayswater in the morning, then check in to Joondalup Resort, our home for the next week.

My Ah Gu studies in Edith Cowan University which is situated in Joondalup, so it was just nice that we managed to get cheap and nice accomodation near there!

Day 3 began with breakfast at Miss Maud's again - a full breakfast this time, complete with toast, scrambled eggs, chipolata sausages, grilled tomatoes and bacon.

Trip to AQWA was next. Here I am posing with some colourful fishies.

Trying the binoculars on for size coz I saw Papa using them.

Dinner was at Hog's Breath Cafe in Joondalup, voted best in WA. No pictures as we forgot to bring our camera to the restaurant, but Mummy says the steak was the BESTEST. As for me, I stole bites from Papa's delicious burger.

Day 2 - Rottnest Island

Our original plan was to go on a one-day Pinnacles Tour; however, first the people over at this booking website missed out on answering Mummy's email queries; then when we finally reached Perth and went to the WA Visitor Centre to enquire, the people there told us that I had to have a baby seat and also pay to go on the tour. So - end of Pinnacles Tour. We decided to go to Rottnest for the day instead, mainly to see quokkas in the wild. Rottnest Island is apparently a favourite holiday destination for WA residents.

Mummy and me on the ferry to Rottnest - we set off around 8.30 in the morning.

Me on Rottnest!

And the elusive quokka - distant relatives of the kangaroo, but really more rat-like than roo-like. And extremely, extremely cute.

Here I am trying to lure the quokka with some plant that we saw them eating; but the quokka was having none of it.

The parents thought it'd be fun to put me in a cage. Well, whatever. I don't really care coz I know they wouldn't leave me there for long.

Me doing my Zoophonics while waiting for lunch to arrive. Robbie Rabbit! - Ain't I cute???

Wow are ALL these for me???

Taking the train up Oliver Hill for the Guns and Tunnels tour. Rottnest was an important defence outpost for the British. The guns were positioned to defend

Fremantle's port.

Day 1 - Perth Mint and Harbourtown shopping

We arrived in Perth on the night of 24 July...
Mission: to visit Perth and my Ah Gu who is completing the last year of his degree there.
Participants: Granny x 01, Papa x 01, Mummy x 01, the Clairester x 01.
It was not very cold as we walked out of the airport and we were all lulled into thinking that Perth was not so very cold after all. This was, sadly, misguidance, as we all nearly froze to death the next day. Strangely enough, Perth city was very cold, but the environs, including the parks, were actually quite all right. Think the environs got more sunshine? Hmmm.

We stayed in the city for the weekend, at the Rydges Perth, before moving to the rented bungalow at Joondalup Resort, belonging to SAF.

Mummy and me on King's Street, from where we managed to get quite a good pic of the hotel as the background.

Room at the Rydges. Nice and clean, but no view to speak of, as we were accorded a 3rd floor room which directly faced the adjacent building. Oh well, we got the room at a steal (AUD169 a night), so we couldn't complain.

Breakfast at Miss Maud's the first morning - Steak and mushroom pie! Tasted great, but helping was very small.

At the Perth Mint. Papa rates this the 2nd most disappointing visit of our trip. We got to watch gold pouring, which was quite fascinating, but the exhibit itself was really small, and totally not worth the AUD15. And what's more, you weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the building, for security reasons.

Ah Gu suggested we go to Leederville for dinner. We were lucky that there was no queue at Siena's, which served gorgeous pasta at great prices (well, for Perth it was cheap!). The carbonara was FANTASTIC.

Phuket Escapade 30 May - 2 June

So Papa and Mummy had this bright idea when they went to this talk organized by Marriott Vacation Club, which was how we came to be on a plane to Phuket on 30 May. They took up an offer by MVC for a 4D3N stay at Marriott Mai Khao Beach, for USD499. For a two bedroom suite that sleeps 8, it was a very good deal. After two months of anticipation, we finally got on the plane to Phuket.

The Clairester on the plane (not in a very good mood because the flight was at 8.15am in the morning!)

View of the pathetic swimming pool from our 2-bedroom suite on the 5th floor - yup, that's the ENTIRE pool. Sad right.

Papa and Ah Gong competing to inflate my mushroom float while i enjoyed an afternoon snack.

Grinning evilly at the thought of the two slaves at my disposal (see pic above)

They had a DVD player there. Mummy brought my favourite Hi-5 disc (the one I call Hi-5 xing!) and Elmo VCD along, but she needn't have bothered, because there's PLAYHOUSE DISNEY! Here I am camped out in front of the TV in our bedroom (flat-screen somemore, don't pray pray)

You didn't think I'd go anywhere without Pi, did you? :P

Self-entertaining with crayons and paper while the family relaxed at a massage centre in the middle of Central Festival Market - the biggest shopping mall in Phuket (I think). I've been drawing circles for months now, and I even try to draw faces sometimes (but of course if I didn't explain to you that this was a face you wouldn't be able to tell).

Watching the sunset at the beach (yup, you guessed it - another one of Papa's artistic/journalistic attempts!)

Mummy and me - on the way home... so fast...

Making myself comfy on TR153....

Self-entertainment because we couldn't afford a plane with inflight entertainment system - hiaks hiaks hiaks.

Review of Marriott Mai Khao: Obviously a spillover resort for the JW Marriott Phuket Resort and Spa (which by the way was way bigger and had a far nicer and bigger pool). Very limited facilities (but the breakfast at the restaurant was good). The room itself was very nice; they had everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) you could think of within the room, including your own washing machine and dryer, ironing board, microwave oven, coffee maker, so many kitchen utensils that we couldn't even recognize some of them. Location was far from ideal however; we had to hire a private driver to take us everywhere because there simply wasn't any other cheaper way to get out.

Much-awaited updates

Oops, I gotta do this as I backdated some entries... LOL... So please refer...

26 January 2009: The Little Pianist

Meeting up with my friends

Mummy took leave today so that she could go have a look at my potential new school together with Auntie Jane and Alyssa jie-jie (thank you auntie Jane for making the appt for us, and so sorry that we were late!!!)

After the school visit, we went down to Suntec to meet up with a few mommies together with their princesses. The only thorn among us - Kimi - was in school so that Auntie Tona could have a breather, hahaha. But it was still very enjoyable, and at least now we will play together a little. These mommies are some of my Mummy's closest friends from SMH. Oh, and my triplet sister Charlene was also missing in action (Auntie Sharon fly A380 again!).

Mummy says we should have more of these outings, and I so agree!

Alyssa and me - Mummy likes this pic so much coz she says we are posing like models in this. Papa says Alyssa looks like a big sister.

Alyssa, Rachel, me, Estelle and Desiree. Observe the strange face I'm trying to make. LOL.

Rachel: Claire, are those my marshmallows you are holding?

Claire: Psst, Deszi, I 70, you 30. Onz?

Deszi: Eh, why like that. We call it deal at 60-40 la, want?

Estelle: Hey, what about me??!!

Alyssa: I dunno anything, leave me out of this...

3 pretty maidens in a row...

Back at Kids' Loft

Mummy and I were overjoyed when we finally received news from Ms Lavina that Kids Loft was back in action. Though they took very good care of us at Playdays, overall we still felt much more at home at Kids Loft. I got practically my whole class back, along with a couple of new friends.

With the bigger outdoor area, we've gotten into doing more 'adventurous' activities this term. We did one round of hand-painting, and today we had a session of feet-painting. The minute the parents saw us sitting prettily all in a row, out came the cameras!

Pretty children all in a row.... Where's Zavier? Busy looking for Krissa, hahahaha!

Putting my feet into the paint. Ms Lavina put paint onto kitchen towels for us to step onto, so that we would not feel that the paint was too "dirty", as kids are bound to do...

Waiting for my snacks and posing for Mummy's camera...

Drinking from the cup. For some reason I would only do this properly in school, and this term I developed a fascination with apple juice and drinking from the cup, so much so that I often leave my snacks half-eaten.

Finally exhausted, I fell asleep at the table halfway through dinner. And of course, the first thing my heartless, amused parents did was to whip out the camera, as usual.