Perth Trip Day 1

Assalammualaikum wbt,

Yes, I went to Perth, Australia a week ago! It’s my first time going to mat salleh place and outside of Asia lol! Australia especially Perth seems like the popular spot for Malaysians because it’s nearer to us, the land down under and the flight journey only take about 5 hours or so. Compared to other mat sallehs countries in Europe and America, Australia is closer and cheaper. For this trip, I went with my parents and newlywed sister, Ecah with her husband. I bought the tickets like a year ago, February 2017 to be exact because AirAsia were having promotion and I got a pretty good deal about RM500 for return tickets! 

We departed from KLIA 2 and our flight was at 12.05am midnight. It seems like a good option because I thought we can sleep peacefully in a plane. It was a cute thought anyway because I’m a mother to an active child, so I can erase that thought and get into my motherhood role, please. The journey took about 5 hours and Hanif Aiden only sleeping after like 3 hours latter or so. But, I still thankful that he isn’t having his meltdown or screaming and tantrum-ing like other kids in the plane. It must be difficult for the other parents when their kids screaming and whole plane could hear them, poor thing, bless these parents. He just couldn’t sit still and asking non-stop this and that and.... hungry. I have to order nasi lemak for him and myself which I didn’t pre-book earlier because my initial plan was to sleep entire flight whilst the rest of my family sleeping peacefully. Hmmph. I let my husband sleep although he is disturbed once awhile because he’ll be doing the driving later that day. Such mithali wife, am I not?

When we arrived, this is the tricky part because I’ve read in my Facebook group that the Australia immigration is pretty strict especially with us Asian muslims because we tend to bring food this and that to foreign land. Sometimes, there’ll be a dog sniffing or you have to open your bags in front of them for checking. If they found unpermitted items, they would throw it or worst case, you’ll be fined $300 which equivalent to RM1k+ ! Don’t worry, you just declare everything in the declaration card which will be given inside your flight. Don’t try to cheat by not ticking them ok?! Alhamdulillah, Allah swt made it easy for us, there was no dog, no need to open bag, and they just ask me a simple question like do I bring meat/poultry etc and what type of dairy product that I bring. Oh yes, meat/poultry is not allowed, that is why I left my daging dendeng and serunding home. I’ve read some of the passengers managed to sneak them in when they declare as chicken/meat floss but I just didn’t want to take that risk. 

So... the first thing we all did were to buy an Optus simcard. There are others telco likeTelstra and Vodafone but from the Facebook Group most of them are suggesting Optus, so here we are. Alhamdulillah, we are lucky that the queue aren’t long, and we got a pretty cheap price for the simcard. About $10 per sim as they having a promotion, the data is valid for 30 days for 10GB if I’m not mistaken. We will be in Perth for 7 days and it would be a tragedy if I were to do roaming while there. But, I still did a roaming anyway for the first day I was there because the simcard activation would take a while and I need to use the internet for navigation whatnot. 

From the Airport, I already arranged with the Homestay for the airport transfer. For the next 3 days, we’re gonna be staying at Homestay Mak Long. She has few properties to rent out for vacation in Perth, for the large group like us, she allocated 4-bedroom single storey house in Cannington area. Before dropping us at the homestay, we stopped by at Selera Malaysia for buying breakfast which I already ordered earlier. Well, you can get a girl out of Malaysia, but you can’t take a Malaysia out of a girl, duh. I ordered Nasi Goreng and Roti Canai, the portion is big and well, I couldn’t finish it. 

For the first 3 days in Perth, we stayed at Mak Long Homestay and I would recommend this place to everybody. The house is spacious and complete with furnitures, appliances, kitchen tools and some Asian dry ingredients like turmeric powder, curry powder etc. Most important, it is belong to Muslim, so we use all the facilities without doubt. No need to samak. This house also located in Cannington opposite the train station, so if you want to go to Perth city, you can actually take the train from Cannington station because Perth city parkings are damn expensive. 

After breakfast, we drove ourselves to Caversham Wildlife Park. My husband is driving while me navigating. Driving in Australia can be challenging for Malaysians, because the law there is pretty strict, you gotta follow the speed limit or else, just prepared for the summon letter. We lost few times because I am bad at navigating, and it’s rather confusing me. But, to justify, from this Perth trip my navigating skill has improved a lot! Hahaha. 

The normal city road can be from 40 to 60km/h and on the highway is about 110km/h the most! Can you imagine how unbearable it is for us? Hahaha. But, driving there is such relaxation because everybody aren’t selfish and would give ways to whom should be prioritised. I used Waze to navigate and God, it is so helpful!!!! The only downside just, most of the road signs in Perth are so small, duhh. Please, download Waze guys, although it eating up your phone batteries like crazy. I have standby Google Map and Apple Map as well but nothing beat Waze guys. 

It is indeed unfortunate days for us, as we arrived at Caversham Wildlife Park, it was raining. So we bought the raincoat and it’s quite hideous to wear them. We just wait at the entrance for the rain to stop, while the rest of the families drown in excitement leaving us. My main concern is Hanif Aiden, I don’t want him to catch cold or whatnot being it’s only our first day there. We went to Kangaroo place first, feeding and caressing them.. in the rain. We put Hanif Aiden in a stroller, covered him from upper body with my mother’s shawl. At the Kangaroo farm, they have like a small hut there where everybody and the kangaroos gathered, but due to rain, it was wet, packed with people and smelly. Not the poop smell but their food actually. When the food made contact with water, it become mushy in your hand, duh. It’s kind of off for me but Hanif’s poop is worser, so I can deal with it. Haha. A little tips, if you want to visit Caversham, please go earlier if possible because later in the afternoon, Kangaroo are already full, and they just want to sleep and refused to be fed. 

There are few animal show there and you can refer to the schedule for the timing to plan and utilize your time while there. We went to see and take pictures with the Koalas and Wombats, seeing the Farm show where they show you how shaved the sheeps’ fur. It was fun nevertheless because on that day, there were a group of school pupils, so seeing they are having fun cheering and laughing kind of setting the mood. Hanif Aiden also has get enough rest and had fun too running in the park. We spent hours there and getting hungry because it already passed the lunch time. We brought the breakfast leftover but left it in the car. You can actually picnic inside here, there are a lot of designated picnic area. 

After the animal visit, we went to NP Supermarket and Carousel Halal Supermarket to furnish our fresh ingredients. These 2 are located next to each other. NP Supermarket is like Asian markets, so you can get many of Asians ingredients here like soy sauce Cap Kipas Udang to be exact, Maggi brand products, Brahims instant paste, chilis, galangal, lemongrass whatnot. Don’t worry about food in Perth, this city is kind of Muslim friendly, you won’t starve, lol. My mother and I went nuts seeing all the fresh produce. The fruits and vegetables are sooooo fresssshhh and prettyyy. 

During night time, we didn’t do much activities because most places are closed and we were tired from the earlier flight, so after dinner, we went straight to bed.