-Clock Tower in Perth City.

Make it short, we took a train from Cannington to Perth city, walked around in the CBD (Central Business District) and went into a shopping mall, walked to the bell tower, saw the river, took a blue cat, back to a train station and back to Cannington again.  All within 2 hours, and here goes the photos that I have taken.

-  There is a small piece of green area where a man statue is standing there but we are not sure who he is.  There are people siting on the bench there and we saw a lady was lying on the grass.

-  Not far from the train station when we arrived, we were welcomed by these colourful flowers.  They look like morning glory but they weren’t.

-This building is labelled as the post office.  The design looks historical.

-Street view taken somewhere not far from the train station when we arrived the CBD.

-  Tourist information center.  I asked them where the nearest river is, and the staff was very helpful, gave us map, and told us the shortest path to see the river.

- Shopping area.

In the shopping mall.

- The chairs in a food court.

-We were attracted by this specially designed toy.

-From the upper floor of a shopping mall, we can see what happen on the street.  The street is not for vehicles but only allow visitors to walk there.  As you can see the information center is at the junction of these streets.  It is a good location, because visitor from all the direction can seek help there.

- Random Perth street view #1.

- Random Perth street view #2.

- Random Perth street view #3.  I like to see a lot of people walking on the street.  They all have different destination, different feeling, walking at different speed, and will be doing different things.  I would like to wish them to have a good day.

- Random Perth street view #4.

- Random Perth street view #5.

- Random Perth street view #6.  The traffic light make sound to tell when we should cross the road, I like the cute sound.

- Random Perth street view #7.  Can you see the ball fountain?

- Random Perth street view #8.  We walked through these street to head to the bell tower.

- Random Perth street view #9.

I saw at least 2 outdoor escalartors as the entrance to some building.  I wonder what happen when there is a heavy rain?  They must have the weatherproof ability.

-Opps.  The escalators were closed.  I took this picture while we were on the bus.

-  This is somewhere near the train station where we were ready to catch a train to go back to our hotel.  There is a toilet near this area, but we have to pay AUD$0.5 for entering the washroom.  The fee for taking a bath there is AUD$5 if I am not mistaken.

We didn’t know where was the direction to take the train while we were sitting on the free blue cat (Center Area Transit),  we felt that the bus has gone too far, and the bus driver may had forgotten to tell us where we should stop.  We just pressed the button and popped down from here.  And we were lucky because the train station was just across a street away.

- The Blue Cat.  It is free, and we can check how many minutes more the next cat is coming.  Can you see the words on the pictures above?  ”The next cat is due in 11 minutes.”

-  We went into the stomach of a Blue Cat.  This is how it looks like.  Its bones was in yellow.

Since we were in a rush, I am not sure both the train station when we arrive and left were the same station.  My feeling told me that they were different.  I will show you how the train station look like soon.

I took quite a number of photo on the bus, and I suddenly saw this on a construction site because the bus is tall enough for me to notice it. My curious:  What is the drawing mean? Why there are many X(s)?  Does it a type of vandalism or it is the “internal” decoration? The words start with “D” looks artictic, but can someone tell me what does the word means?

I still believe that Perth is a good city and would like to come here again.  The next post will be about the Bell Tower in Perth and the Wheel of the Perth.  Stay tuned.

The kid was playing with the ball fountain.

Let’s us start our stories from the Perth city. We took a train to the Perth CBD (Central Business District) and we had about 2 hours to go around in the city. I was holding my camera shooting around. It was really a short tour but I have taken a lot of photos. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I could feel that the air and the breeze were cooler compared to what I have experienced in Malaysia, even it was a sunny day.

One of the most excited scene that I found was this kid playing with the ball fountain. This lovely naive kid was curious and playful. She happily touched the water and try to wipe the stone. If I am not mistaken her father was sitting not far away watching her. I thought when I was going to point my camera to the ball fountain she would have moved away, but she wasn’t. She stayed there and did not even notice that I was taking the photos and video. She was concentrated on the ball fountain and I was focused on taking the video until I did not noticed that my group has gone far away and I was left behind. After shooting this little cute girl, I ran to catch up with them.

I like to take this type of photos and videos where the model is posting naturally instead of prepared, stand still, and acting unnaturally. It is not candid, but I shoot at anytime without letting the model to prepare. With this method, I can record the “real” behaviour and emotion of the model. The best moment to take this type of photo usually is as short as you blink your eyes, therefore I need a fast camera to do this, thanks to my camera for giving 4fps at the full 10 Megapixels resolution. Some of the photos may make the model look funny, which they want me to delete the pictures whereas some of the photos will capture a short moment and turn it into a permanent record and the model is happy with it.

To the kid in the video above:  I hope you like your video that I have captured. Contact me and I will send you a better quality of the video above.

-  This will be the photo that I will use to represent Perth.  Thanks to Alan and Alicia for bringing us to see the amazing night view of Perth.

We just came back to Kuching yesterday evening, the trip was short, rush and tiring, but at least I have some photos and videos to show you here.  You will be expecting the coming posts will be all about Perth, Western Australia.

As SiewPeng and I lived in Toowoomba before, we compared many things that we have encountered in Perth here.  There are too many similarities that give me back my memories of 6 years ago.  The smell in the supermarket, the sound of the traffic lights, the temperature of the air, the shapes of the notes and coins, Australian slang, some of the food, snacks, and many other things make me miss Australia a lot.  And now, we were very excited because we were in Australia again.

Our mission for going to Australia was to settle some matter on SiewPeng’s sister studies here, we spent a lot on bus and taxi and we walked as well.  The roads and streets are not as complicated as I thought.  Next time, we prefer to rent a car.  We walked about 2 km to take a train to Perth CBD from Cannington, and we have only less than 2 hours in the city where we took the bus called “blue cat” at somewhere around the bell tower.  That was the only time we turned into visitors in Perth.

The most important thing is we hope to have more time with SiewPeng’s sister because she is going to stay here and we would be leaving in few days time.  I believe she will be our tour guide next time we come here again.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I like the way Australian pronounces the word “here”,  it sounds like “Hia”. 

- Story Bridge in Brisbane, Australia. (Thanks to my friends from Brunei who became my tour guide when I visited Brisbane in 2003 and made me possible to take this photo.)

By the time this blog appear, we are flying to Australia again. Yes this is a scheduled post which I have written days ago. We are heading to Perth for a 3-days-trip (5 days including flight) to help SiewPeng’s sister to settle her study matter. At the same time we can travel around and take many photos.

We have never been to Perth. It is about 3500km from Toowoomba, the place where we stayed for few semesters 6 years ago. Although we have the oppotunity to go to Australia again, but we don’t have the time to visit our dream place - Toowoomba. It is just a short trip to Western Australia instead of the East and we have to come back for our work in Kuching.

Since Perth and Toowoomba are both in Australia, I expect that their culture, language (slang), food etc. are similar. Now is autumn in Perth, I am expecting to see red leaves there. Hope I can see them and take good photo in Perth.

After we make sure SiewPeng’s sister settle down in Perth, we will be coming back to Malaysia. At that time, I am sure we especially SiewPeng and her parents will miss her sister very much. I hope SiewPeng’s sister can overcome homesick and concentrate in her study. I had written a blog post (homesick) for my sister who also went to continue her higher education since last year, now I think it is for SiewPeng’s sister too.

We will be exploring Perth and hope that we like it.

Years ago, when I was in primary school, my parents gave me a toy keyboard. I digged it out a few days ago, and recalled a lot of memories. Its colour turned a bit yellowish after 20 years, and it is not working anymore.

My parents did not sent me to music lessons, but let me played with the keyboard myself. When I was in primary 3, I can play the melody of songs that I had heard from TV or radio.  Until now, I can only play the melody using right hand but not the part with the  left hand.

I know the reason why I can’t play using left hand, it is because this toy keyboard was designed to play only one key at a time, I cannot press 2 keys simultanouesly.  :p  Hmm…  I should not blame the keyboard, the actual reason is I didn’t learn it.  Anyway, I thank my parents a lot for giving me this toy keyboard.

-  Its size is quite small compared to an actual keyboard or electronic organ, but it was more than enough for me.  The only song that I cannot play was FeiYuChing’s “YiJianMei”, because of the range of the picth is limited.

When I first played with this toy, I can only use the black key to play a proper melody. :p  Slowly, I discovered how to use the white keys.  My mother showed me how to play as well.  I still remember the moment she pressed the key.  May be I will show her this toy keyboard this evening.

-This keyboard allowed me to record a limited numbers key pressed that is enough for a song’s melody.  In Play mode I can play back the recorded melody in different tempo.

-  There are 7 different types of musical instrument sound can be produced.  (Piano, organ, violin, flute, horn, fantasy and mellow).  I like the fantasy the most and dislike the flute many years ago, when this keyboard is still alive.  If this keyboard can be repaired and get alive again, I wonder if I still have the same preference now.

-This is the part where the chord can be played.  I know the effect, but I’m not sure what dim, sus4, m6, 6, maj7, m7, m, 7 are.  Can someone tell me?

-The tunning screw is at the bottom of the keyboard.  I like to turn it when I was a kid, no wonder I had shorterned its life.

I wished I had learned piano.  I have a virtual keyboard in my computer which I used to create a midi.  The rhythm part took me hours.  If I learned piano, I may have done it in minutes.  Click on the play button below to play.

I feel that something is missing on the music above, but I don’t now what is missing. Please comment.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Congratulation to SiewPeng’s sister because she has just passed her Grade 8 piano exam with distinction.