Perth

I decided to create a blog, not sure if I'll keep updating it all trip. I'm currently at Wardy's house with nothing to do until our flight tonight at 9:30, so I figured I'd post about my time in Perth.

On the Wednesday I essentially did nothing other than head down to the Chinese consulate and put in my visa application, then later watch Australia v Uzbekistan. I did check whether Wikitravel had any suggestions about what to do in Perth. In the "Do" section, the first four suggestions were "Take a walk", "Swim", "Cycle" and "Catch a movie". As you may have noticed none of these things actually require being in Perth. That was my first hint that there isn't a whole lot to do in this town.

On Thursday, after wasting most of the day, I met up with Glenn and Cat (uni friends) in the city for a few beers, then later dinner and more drinking with Lynsey and her boyfriend. On the way home, on a footbridge thing over the railway tracks, this girl came sprinting past me followed by two guys. I stared for a sec, then started chasing after them thinking the girl was maybe in trouble. Just as I started to move though, another girl came running past and said "It's OK, nothing major". Since it was a girl I chose to believe her and slowed back to a walk. Next minute all three of the chasers come back up the stairs at the end carrying the girl they were chasing, who is now apparently unconscious. I stop and stare again and as they walk past one of them yells out "It's OK mate, we're police". I then notice he has a walkie-talkie strapped to his belt which is making police-type noises, so I shrugged and moved on.

Friday I picked up my shiny China visa and moved to a new hostel a couple of streets away (I wasn't able to get all 5 nights in one hostel). Then I caught up with Kyla for lunch and chatted to her about a few things including what exactly had happened with her brain surgery - a pretty amazing story which I guess I shouldn't repeat here! After getting back to my new hostel I wandered round for a while frowning because it didn't look like there was anything happening despite it being Friday night. How wrong I was. Eventually a group of mostly British backpackers moved from their hidden location out behind the kitchen into the courtyard. After that it was on. It was one of their birthdays and they were going completely mental, playing a drinking game which they called Ring Of Fire and which I knew as Kings. I joined in for a while, but they seemed to have a pretty serious headstart on me. One of them, a Welsh guy, was so drunk that when the hostel closed the courtyard and we moved on to the next pub, he only made it as far as a nearby gutter, whereupon the cops descended on him and he was taken to hospital with alcohol poisoning. Apparently later one of the others was mugged by local Aborigines, but was so drunk that he didn't remember it happening the next day. I also witnessed a guy take on bouncers in a fight and win, then managed to hook up with an Irish backpacker in the first pub we went to, thus completing the full range of authentic Northbridge experiences.

Saturday I vegged out for most of the day again and then met Glenn and Cat again for a trip down to the Little Creatures brewery/pub down at Fremantle. I'd expected a winery-restaurant type atmosphere but it was more raucous, just basically a factory/warehouse type place into which they had piled a kitchen and an enormous number of tables. It was packed out and they were making an absolute killing. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the place and the food was good too.

Sunday I went on a wine tour of the Swan Valley. Not much to say, pretty nice and diverse group of people. Pretty terrible wine across the board, but good fun all the same. That night I had intended to watch the Premier League but was so tired that I crashed out at around 10pm.

Monday morning I woke up, checked out and did some laundry, then caught public transport down to Scarborough where Wardy picked me up and now here I am. The beach looked great but given I'm going to Thailand I think I'll get plenty of beach time over the next few weeks. It's just past 4pm now and the flight is at 9:30, so not much time to kill before we head to the airport, have dinner, and check in.