ESL Blogs

This is my third entry on My Perth Diary. This blog is dedicated to 1 Omer who told me that he needs a year to finish reading my previous blog, Day Two : 30th Dec 2013. I hope this blog is not that long, and he will be able to finish it before the grape juice turn into wine. LOL 

Day One : 29th Dec 2013

Day Two : 30th Dec 2013

Day Three : 31st Dec 2013

I was getting excited. I never thought that I will one day celebrate the coming of a new year in a Australia. We had asked the hotel reception on new year's celebration in Perth. We were told that new year's celebration was not a big thing in Perth. It seemed they reserved that for their Australian Day. However, we were given two choices; either Mandurah or Perth Foreshore. We haven't decided where to go and keeping our option opened.

Because we were expecting a late night today, everyone was taking it easy. My friends and I decided to go to Harbour Town. It's a factory outlet kind of place. My friend suggested that we just took the Perth CAT (Central Area Transit) instead of driving to the place because of parking space issue. Perth CAT is an free bus services within the Perth City. It's no wonder that Perth City has no issue of traffic jam.

We walked a short distant and took the Red Perth CAT which took us to the Centre of the City. From there, we took the Green Perth CAT which carried us to Harbour Town. I had to admit, as far as a factory outlet kind of thing, Harbour Town was nothing to shout about. Thank God for that. LOL. Otherwise I will go shopping crazy. 

Though most of the items were on sale especially the shoes and handbags, the choices were limited for us. This was because most of shoes and handbags had some 'pig skin' elements in them. We had to be very careful when trying to look at those items. But that did not stop me and my friends from buying a few pairs of shoes. I even bought one handbag. OHMY! My budget!

We had a late lunch at one of the food kiosk over there. It seemed Turkish gozleme was every where in Perth. It made our choices of food easier because it's 'halal'. Furthermore, I'm getting tired of eating everything with fries. We thought we were going to spend a short time in the Harbour Town. After all, there was nothing much we can buy. Well, girls and shopping were really the best of friends. We ended up spending the whole day in Harbour Town. My poor aching feet! My poor purse! My poor eyes! OHMY!

After like forever, we went back to our hotel. After resting for a short time, my friend called me and said that we were going to Mandurah for the year's celebration. City of Madurah was about 70 kilometers South of City of Perth. It's about one hour drive. 

The drive itself was very smooth. Nothing much to see because we were taking the Freeway, or was it Motorway. We did not take any wrong turn because we got our GPS. I spent my time taking photos from the car, especially the sunset. At the same time we tried our best to pronounce certain road signs such Joondalup, Booragoon and Mandjoogoordap.

Did I say we did not take any wrong turn? Well, I spoke too soon. We did took a wrong turn when we reached the City of Mandurah. Don't look at me! I was not the map reader or in this case GPS reader. Anyway, finally we reached the City Centre. After driving round and round and round to park our car, we managed to find a small spot to park it. It seemed tonight everyone was allowed to park at non-designated parking lots. 

We saw a lot of families with their kids and extended family members and friends had picked the ideal spots on the park. The atmosphere were electrifying with children running around, and adults opening their picnic boxes. The mini concert was already started, but the order of the day for us was finding a restaurant and order our dinner. Priority was priority, right?

One thing that we noticed was the signs that had been put every where near the celebration area. "This is a No Smoking, No Drinking event". And it seemed everyone was following the rules. We were talking about it while having our dinner. We started comparing new year's celebration in Malaysia and over here. We know maybe drinking was not prevalent in Malaysia in such occasion, but it had became uncontrollable, and smoking was really every where at nd bad habit which most Malaysians acquired.

At exactly 9.00 pm, fireworks started. In Mandurah, the new year's celebration was divided into two parts. The first part was for fireworks at 9.00 pm which especially targeted for parents and small kids, well, and adults with young hearts too. LOL. Like a small kid, my dinner was forgotten. I left my table and went out from the restaurant to watch the fireworks display. 

It was really nice to hear kids clapping, oohing and aahing, every time the fireworks shot into the dark sky. I think not only kids were enthralled with the display, but everyone on the park, including me, though I had to admit, it was very hard for me not to clap every time the fireworks showed it's glorious formation in the dark sky.  

When the display ended, I can hear audible sigh from everyone. Maybe everyone was hoping for more. Back to my forgotten dinner. We spent talking about everything and nothing really. We really took our own sweet time in trying to finish off our dinner, but at the end we had no choice when the waiters and waitress of the restaurant started to clean up all the tables and put the 'Closed' sign on the door. However, when we asked whether we had to go, the lady was politely told us to just enjoy our dinner and take our time. 

We left shortly after. We don't feel comfortable to be eating when everyone seemed to be waiting for us to leave. After asking some take out boxes, you have to understand that the food portions over here were too much for small Asian ladies even if we have big stomachs. Normally we will share our food with each other, but sometimes, we wanted different food, so we always ended up with uneaten food, especially since it seemed every thing in here was served with potato chips. 

After finding an ideal spot on the park, we parked our well fed stomachs, in front of the stage where a group was entertaining the crowd. The group entertained us with various songs from Abba. Even though we just had our dinner, that did not stop my friends from joining the crowd on the dance floor. They even managed to drag me, the only two left footed and tone deaf person, on the dance floor. I managed to shuffle my feet to resemble some movement, but honestly, I should be banned from ever trying to dance to anything. It was really a horrendous sight, and innocent public should not be tortured with such sight.

A few seconds before midnight, we joined the crowd in counting down to 2014. The second part of fireworks display was right on cue at midnight. We hugged each other, and laughed nonsensically. We just felt blessed to be able to celebrate the new year in a foreign country and with each other.  

Right after the fireworks display ended, we walked to our car. We did not encounter any drunk behaviour from anyone, nor rubbish strewn every where. In fact, the event was more like a family day out. Once again, while in the car on our way back to the hotel, we were comparing the behaviour of the people in Mandurah to Malaysians. The sure thing was, after such event, in Malaysia, rubbish would be strewn every where, and people will act aggressively to try to drive out from the car park areas. It shamed me to admit that Malaysians were definitely lacking in civilised manner.

However, when we reached Perth, the scene was not too nice. It was nearly 3.00 am, but we saw a few police cars parked at various curb sides. We also saw people walking or more like tottering drunkenly on the streets. Once in a while, we heard the sound of sirens from various parts of the City. Throughout the night, or I should say morning, I can hear the sound of sirens. This made me thankful that we decided to choose Mandurah rather than Perth Foreshore to celebrate the new year.

To be continued in My Perth Diary : Day Four 1st January 2014