Saturday, December 1, 2007

The wagamama

Today starts with a plate-winner: "Porker". A porker would be a person that sounds like a pig more or less. Charming, innit?

And we saw "Lewis 5".

"Donelle" was also there.

We visited a little town called Kalamunda today. The girls went to a market and Maurice and I tested the local pub. That pub was fantastic. No pictures unfortunately but they brew a lot of their own beers with imported ingredients from Germany. Their beers get brewed according to the german "reinheits-gebot" which is an old rule instatiated by King Wilhelm IV that says that beer can only be brewed with certain "pure" ingredients. This was to protect the german people from nasty immitations or dangerous substances. The "Dark ale" served here was the best beer I have ever tasted. Unfortunately not for sale anywhere else...

The huge cart is called a Whim it seems. used to carry big tree trunks.

Like the Whim, an old locomotive including the station and many other old buildings from the town of Kalamunda have been kept and moved into their little town museum. Maurice and I went here to have a look how these people lived here about 30-100 years ago.

The locomotive was build in Glasgow in the year 1897. It was in remarkably good shape.

This little cottage belonged to one of the first settlers of Kalamunda.

Back in Perth we visited the local Wagamama noodle restaurant. Being big fans of this world-wide chain we had to eat there once we found out there was one in Perth. There's none in Adelaide unfortunately.

As should be clear by this picture and the previous, you can eat with chopsticks if you like.... Or you can entertain the people around you with them.

I was happy with number 71 of the menu: Chicken katsu curry. De-li-cious.

This photo was made especially for Placido, our favourite waiter at Waga's Amsterdam.
"KNIGHTSY" was at the scene. Bit of a funny name if you ask me.

In the evening Maurice and I played some poker. First Texas Hold'm no limit and later some kind of Irish poker or more like "Murphy" poker as it was often played in the Murphy family on many social occasions.

Friday, November 30, 2007

The height check

In the morning we went for a walk through a big park in Perth. It was hot. The sweater around my neck is there only the keep the sun off of me. You see, I got a bit sun burned the day before at the beach...

"KREEPY" was driving around. Aparantly Western Australia also allows custom plates.

We drove through the city (the centre of a city is called the "city" in Australia) of perth.

Windowswashers are actually mountaineers here it seems. This looks like more fun than being in a stupid box hanging of the roof in The Netherlands.

I wasn't aware Dolce & Gabana is also into bloody big cranes...

More of the city.

Santa is not the only one busy around Christmas...

Here you can see a shot from the park we walked in. Looking down shows a mix of parkland mixed with big motorways around the city.

This was the most bizarre parking entry/exit I have ever seen. In Australia, cars drive on the left side. The entrance to this parking garage was on the right though because it's on a one way street. So inside, you had to change sides. I see plenty of opportunity for accidents there.

Birgitte posing infront of the juicebar she works at. They are very popular.

Height check!

There is just no getting away from cake here. There are so many and they're huge too. Sometimes there will be 3 metres of cakes displayed like this. Unreal.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Fishy, fishy fishy!

Very nice breakfasts get served in the Murphy-Thoelen residence.

On our morning walk we saw a lot of different very colourfull flowers. I don't know their names but the pictures will speak for themselves.









This little cottage looks very traditional.

In Perth, "Bean-a-bouts" are all the new rage. They're rapidly replacing all round-a-bouts! ;-)

Maurice prepared a very nice salad for lunch.

In the afternoon we went to the beach to try out our new snorkelsets that we were given by my ex colleagues and my in-laws.

Saw a pretty little flower along the way. Colours here are just booming.

The water wasn't too cold which made it a rather pleasant swim. Here Birgitte shows her own snorkel outfit.

Nicole was also thrilled to be in the sea again.

Nicole and I quickly posing. This was not easy as there was a pretty strong current all the time. It was very hard to sit still in the water. (Photo by Birgitte)

Maurice on his body board trying desperately to catch a wave. (Photo by Birgitte)

This little big fishy was swimming around us.

There was also a crab hiding in his little hole.

All that boarding makes you tired so the girls had to lift Maurice out of the water.

After swimming we went for a tiny beach walk. (Photo by Birgitte)

Nicole on our way back to the car.

On our way home we went to a lookout spot called "Peppermint grove". From there you could see almost over the whole city of Perth. (Photo by Birgitte)