Sunday, April 24, 2016

April 23, 2016. Exploring Perth

LOCATION:  Perth, Western Australia
WEATHER:  Sunny and warm. Highs in 80s

We spent the morning sorting out our revised travel plans.....train refund, new train payment, flights and hotels.  I'm afraid the credit card was burning up!  

Like Adelaide, Perth has a great public transportation system.  We caught a free bus, right in front of our hotel, and went downtown to the tourist information office.  Loaded with brochures, we hopped on another free bus and went around the city.  We jumped off in a "foodie" area that looked interesting.  Part of the area is Chinatown.  Some of the dim sum restaurants had long lines of Asians waiting to enter.  There was also a food market in a park.

Crazy busy.  George, with his impeccable instincts for craft beer, spotted a brewpub next door.  We stopped there to rest and cool off.

We are farther north here, so it is warmer (Southern Hemisphere).  This is supposed to prepare us for Darwin which will be tropical.  

The state of Western Australia is very remote.  The state is bigger than Texas and Alaska combined.  Perth is very far from other cities. 

We took  three different buses around the city, doing our own version of the Hop On/Hop Off red tourist buses you see in big cities.
 Our tour was free, though, as we did it ourselves with the free city buses.  Perth seems to be growing rapidly.  High rise luxury apartments and hotels are being built around the harbor.

A note about international brands.....We are staying at a very nice Travelodge, which is considered a nice chain here, although in the USA, not so much.  Australia does not have WalMarts, but K-Mart is an upscale chain.  For fast food, we have seen many Kentucky Fried Chicken places (much nicer and many more than in the USA).  Subway is popular.  Some McDonalds, which they call "macca".  Even though Aussies drink a lot of coffee, we haven't seen Starbucks, just local coffee shops.  Proudly, we haven't been in any of these places!  :-)

When we were cruising around the city, we observed an outdoor wedding with white antique Bentleys parked in front of the church waiting for the wedding party.  We can actually see the church from our balcony.

For dinner, we walked to a Peruvian restaurant.  We had some interesting sausages and empanadas.  Guinea pigs were not on the menu!



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