I'm back in Beijing now after 4 days away in Perth. I'd never been to Perth before, strangely enough it reminds me a lot of Canberra (although the Perth people may not appreciate the comparison!). It's got that same small town feel to it, lots of wide open spaces with no people in them. It was also very nice, if a little dull I guess.
One thing I had clearly been missing without really realising it was blue sky. We hadn't had a clear day in Beijing for a week or so, and even then they're just not the same. When I arrived in Perth I got there at 8am but couldn't check in to my hotel until 2pm so I had some time to kill. I just wandered around for a while and was really struck by the size of the sky and how much I had missed that feeling of space that you can get in Australia.
I had a great time in Perth, I was there for a bunch of workshops with our new client. Happily they went very well, we had a very successful time there and I also had a full day free on Thursday before my plane left at midnight. I elected (having been given some useful advice) to head out to Rottnest Island for the day. It was a really nice place!
The ferry left from Perth at 8:45 in the morning and didn't arrive back until 5:45pm so I was a bit worried about getting a bit bored my myself so I booked a boat tour around the island, lunch at the hotel and a push bike to go for a bit of a ride. When I turned up, the girl at the counter seemed a bit surprised at the number of things I was going to do. I found out why pretty soon, the ferry didn't arrive until 10:45, my tour left at 11 and got back at 1, my lunch started at 1 and went until about 2ish and we had to be back at the ferry about 3:30!
Still, I had a blast, it was a lot like a tropical island, fantastically blue and clear water with clean beaches. Not too many people, really the only unpleasant thing was the flies, there were heaps of them. Apart from that it was great. I even saw some qokkas which surprised me cause I thought they would be less... obvious I guess. I also saw seals on the trip around the island. I have dived with them before but never got so close in a boat before. They looked so relaxed!
I would definitely like to come back and go diving.
I did my very best to not get sunburned and I did pretty well in the end. Most of the people on the ferry back were very burned! It was about 32 or 33 with just a bit of a breeze. Once I got back to Perth, I walked back to the hotel, collected my luggage and headed to the airport.
The flight back to Hong Kong was much less pleasant than the flight there. The plane, food etc were all really nice but the guy sitting next to me was a tool. If you're going to sit in the aisle seat, you will have to get up sometimes. I wanted to get up once (on a 7 hour flight) and this guy didn't want to make room. Oh well. The flight from Hong Kong was good though, no one next to me so I could stretch out a little more.
When I arrived back in Beijing, it was snowing! It was about -2, quite a difference from my 32 degrees the day before. I think I said before, the train to and from the airport is great, except this time is meant I had to walk back to the house in the snow! It wasn't really that bad, I just think I need to get some boots for the snow.
(yes that's snow on the window)
Now I have a week here, then next Monday I'm off to Paris for Christmas! It's a hard life :)
The rest of my photos are here. Sorry they're not that great, I only had my iphone with me.
https://picasaweb.google.com/david.mutton/Perth?authuser=0&feat=directlink
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