Kings park is a good place for me to take photos of the nature.  It is full of natural elements such as trees, leaves, flowers, birds etc.  The sky is blue most of the time and sometimes the cloud looks like soft cotton in the sky.

Since I have lived in a tropical climate most of the time, I like to compare the trees in Perth to the trees I see locally.  The trees in Perth seem to have less leaves.  Therefore, the branches and trunks are clearly shown with high contrast of the bright blue sky.

This trees is on a slope near the Aboriginal Art Gallery in Kings Park.  The leaves were almost dried and all of the big and small branches have darker colours which draw itself clearly into my photo.  Unlike the trees in Malaysia which are always green and seldom let their branches visible.

The white plants make the picture look snowy, but it is summer - hot.

In order to keep the sky blue, the trees were underexpose (made darker) and looked black in the photo.

Some of the trees have smooth skins, I thought it was painted with light yellow paint, but it was not.

The seeds of this tree look like bells.

These flowers are smelly.  Years ago, I had them in my garden, and now I found them in Kings Park.  This plant is called Mexican marigold.  The scientific name is Tagetes erecta.

These flowers looked like fire and beautiful but I don’t know the name.  They are accompanied by little purple flower.

This is also the marigold, but it appeared in a different colour.  Its colour is darker and mixed with dark red on the petals facing upwards.

Bees attracted by the red flowers.  The petals looked like needles with orange dots on top.

This plant looks soft and swing left and right by the wind.  The light brown on its top means it is growing healthily.

The shapes and colour of these leaves did not attract me but its name did.  ”Panjang” means long in Malay language.

We found bird feather on the ground.  It was in silvery green.

This is a black and white bird.

This is the entrance of the garden in Kings Park.

I like the white trees more than the green trees.  Why?  May be I have never seen trees with light green leaves in Malaysia.  It cools down the surrounding.

Someone was pointing on the tree with an odd shape trunk.  No, she was pointing to the one of the interesting things in Kings Park, - “the Talking Curve Shape Stone“.  I will tell you about it in coming posts.

Plants and the City.

The dried seeds / flowers dropped from the tree look like worms.  Do you know what is the name of this tree?

Our first visit to the Kings Park was on the 1st day of Chinese New year, it was also the Valentine’s day.

[This park is quite big (4.06-square-kilometre or 1,003-acre) located just next to the Perth city on Mount Eliza.  It has grassed parkland, botanical gardens and natural bushland.  There is also the State War Memorial inside the Park.  The name of this Park was Perth Park when it was opened on 10 August 1895, but rename to King’s Park in 1901.  Later, the apostrophe was dropped.] - info from Wiki.

From Kings Park, we can see the scenery of Perth City across the Swan River, some highways and buildings.

Now, I am going to show you only the things that can be found in the park, I will show you the rest in the coming posts.

We stood in front of the State War Memorial.  There is a wide footpath divides the big piece of grass into 2 sections.

At the other end of the foot path, there is a small pond with torch and fire in the middle.

Walking to the other area, there is a little slope with big trees along the way.  Many people like to sit and lie on the grass viewing the city and the river.  I guess many people choose this place because it is nearer to the parking area, or they can just park their car along the road under the tree.

Many couples were there on the Valentine’s Day.

Going down this slope, we found the Aboriginal Art Gallery there.  No photographs are allowed in the gallery, and I found some amazing abstract paintings there.

Above the Aboriginal Art Gallery, there is an area for visitors to see the sight of the city and the river.  The benches there are in curve shape.  Is the shape related to Aboriginal art?  Someone tell me please.

We found a Valentine’s balloon on the ground.

Next we reached a wishing well.

This well is a community project by the Rotary Club of Perth.

In the well, there is the logo of rotary international as the cover which looks like a piece of gear wheel.

And this well is surrounded by beautiful purple-coloured flowers.

It is enjoyable sitting on the grass, looking at the city and river.  I like to see the big piece of grass under the sunshine.

It is summer, and the maximum temperature recorded on that day was 37 degree Celsius.  The sky was cloudy, and we hardly felt any breeze there.

I wish I have a wide angle or fish eye lens on my camera, so that I can show you how wide the park is.

We sat on the grass and took some photos of ourselves.  SiewPeng’s sister laughed at us…

Next I will show you the city view from King’s Park, State War Memorial, Botanic Garden etc.

Our flight had delayed for more than 1 hour although we boarded the aircraft on time.  This was due to the system down of the airline check-in system.

Luckily we queued earlier, when there were 5 groups of passengers waiting for checking-in right in front of us, the computerized check-in process halted, and the queue did not move for more than 30 minutes.  No announcement was made and everybody just kept waiting.  Finally someone talking through the mic and speaker and announced that they would start to do the manual check-in process.  We waited for another 15 minutes before they started, after a staff arrived and handed some paper to each check-in counter.

We had our boarding passes written by hand.  After we have checked-in our baggages, we saw the long queue had almost reached the entrance.  They must have to wait for hours before their turns.  It was already 45 minutes to the STD (Scheduled Time of Departure).  We guessed they could not finish the check-in process on time.

It happened.  We sat on the aircraft for 1 hour plus before the flight departed, because the airline had not finished their check-in process.  While we were waiting, we finished playing one round of scrabble.

I started sleeping a short while after the plane took off because I was afraid that I might be too tired to drive the hired car the next morning.  I tried to sleep as much as possible and let the display in front of me show the flight status.  However I woke up quite frequently after 5am.  I started taking photos.

The display showed that following:
Ground Speed: 539mph
Altitude: 39000 feet
Outside Temperature: -70.6 Degree Fahrenheit
Time Since Departure: 4:05
Distance from Departure: 2299 miles
Distance to Destination:  299 miles.

I started losing my patient, and wished to arrive to the destination as soon as possible.  I kept on looking at the flight status and could not sleep.  It was not comfortable sleeping on an economic class chair.

I started to play with the LCD display in front of me, most of the entertainment channels were inaccessible unless an amount of money is paid.  I got bored in less than 1 minute and continued to close my eyes and woke up when the flight attendants passed by.

How nice if I could get connected to the Internet when I was flying in the sky.

The sky was getting brighter.  Before the sun appeared, the sky was naturally painted with gradient filled (exactly the same effect in computer graphic editing software such as photoshop) from dark blue to dark orange.  Below the horizon, it was totally dark.

Look at the photo below, from the place I sat, I could not avoid to capture the left wing of the plane into my photo.

Now, I lost focus to my impatient and anxiety, and I kept on looking at the sky which was in orange.  Slowly the sky changed its colour and brightness.  I still wished that the plane could land as soon as possible.

Finally, the sun has risen.  I noticed that some of the passengers started to close their windows, but some (including me) stretched their necks long to look outside the windows to view the sunrise.

I found the very thin line of new moon.  This is the shape of moon on Chinese New Year eve.

The sky was completely bright after a few minutes, I quickly took some photos before the landing announcement because using electronic equipment is prohibited at that time.

We were above the land in Western Australia, and I found desert, huge plantations, mountains and rivers.  Finally we arrived in Perth.

After a week long without updating this blog, finally we are back from Perth and getting ready to show you a series of photos taken in Perth.

This is the second time we stepped on the land of Perth, Australia.  SiewPeng and I had Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day in Perth this year.  This is also the second time I did not celebrate Chinese New Year in Kuching with my family in Kuching.

This time, most of the places that we have visited are beaches (Como beach, Fremantle) and parks (King’s Park, Botanic Garden, Piney Lake, Lake Monger).

We have rented a car.  SiewPeng and her sister have turned into a good GPS, while I have been taking some wrong turns into the opposite of our destination.  While we were in the car, we have listened to a song played by an FM station for many times every day.  The song is Owl City’s - “Fireflies“.

I think in the future, when I listen to this song, I will think about Perth.  Just like the Perth visit last year, when I smell the smell of the air in Perth, I can recall many things in Toowoomba. (At that time, the popular hot song was ”Get the Party Started” - by Pink… … I still remember. )

Coming up, I will show you the King’s Park.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR !!!  It is the big white cat statue, SiewPeng and Colin again.

This year, we decided to take a series of festive cat decoration at Padungan Road, Kuching at day time.  Last year, we have taken 4 types of festive decoration cat (Chinese new year, Gawai, Raya, and Christmas), which all of them were taken in the dark after the sun had set.

The cat has been put on with a red vest and red Chinese cap.  It is holding the firecracker in its left hand.  Look at the plum blossom (MeiHua in Chinese) in light-purple or pink, it represents the spring is coming.  Do you know that Chinese new year is also known as Spring Festival (ChunJie in Chinese)?  Locally we seldom use the word “Chun Jie” to refer to Chinese new year, but this word is being widely used in China and Taiwan.

This time, I asked my brother to help us to take our photo.  We have a short photo shooting session at about 8:30 am.  We were facing the strong sunlight which caused it difficult for us to keep our eyes fully opened.

Next time, we will choose another time.  Although the sunlight in the morning is beautiful, but it may not be the best time at certain angle.  Look at our shadows and you will know about it.

Because of the strong sunlight, we used our hand to block the sunlight and we looked like monkey.

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Yes, as I mentioned earlier, SiewPeng and I will not be celebrating the coming Chinese New Year in Kuching this year.  We are going to Perth again.  That is why we wish you Happy Chinese New Year earlier.  You may find that we would have no update for about 1 week unless I have time to blog and I can find Internet connection there.

This coming Chinese New Year I will not be listening to the noisy firecrackers sound at 12 a.m. on Chinese New Year and see the smoky and smelly air everywhere, I will not visit my friends and relatives as well.  I will be driving a car from one place to another in Western Australia.

2 more days to go, the Chinese New Year is coming… …

12 more hours to go, SiewPeng and I will be flying again… …