Day 1 - Perth, Australia

During the last few weeks of 2013, Tigerair came up with a Fly Your Friend for Free campaign, where you can nominate your loved ones to fly to a destination for free. And so, I nominated my parents to fly to Perth and I tagged along with them, along with a friend of mine. It's our first time visiting a country that is out of Asia and so, we're all really excited about it. Oh, and remember! You'll need to apply visa to visit Australia! I did mine online at JA Travel at $10 only, and it works! I recommend that website if you need to apply visa to Australia!



Tigerair check-in counter is located at Changi Airport - Terminal 2. Terminal 2 has a Entertainment Deck at level 3 where people waiting for transits can hang around. There's a Movie Theatre, XBOX Kinect and Playstation Room, etc at the Entertainment Deck. Besides the Entertainment Deck, there's still a lot of other things to do at Changi Airport, so remember to explore around if you happen to drop by this voted World's Best Airport 2014!



I always hear negative comments about Tigerair about flight delay and cancellation but my first time flying experience with Tigerair was actually quite good. The plane took off on time and within minutes, we are admiring the view below. The flight duration from Singapore to Perth is approximately 5 hours.



I really hate being on the plane for hours as I felt so restricted, I'm sure most people felt the same way. I always wonder if I'm able to endure 10-20 hours of flight if I were to visit United States someday. So after watching a few episodes of drama, movies, playing games on the iPad, sleeping and waking up again, I looked down and was awestruck by what's below (shown in the above photo). I've never seen such beautiful turquoise sea and land that is in an amazing color. Until today, I'm still wondering which part of the world is that. I really regretted not calling the air crew over and clear my doubt.



After 5 hours, we finally caught sight of Perth! Every thing looked sooooo beautiful from above. You can see that the land were lined with houses, each with their own land, and this is really rarely in Singapore. When you fly above Singapore, you'll see mostly high rise commercial and residential buildings.



If you're some one like me, who has to be on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram uploading every photo immediately wherever you go, or some one who needs to stay in contact with your loved ones and friends, then you'll definitely need a pre-paid the first thing you're in the country. For Australia, I personally recommend Optus AUD$2 pre-paid plan because it's really cheap but good coverage and usage. With just AUD$2 a day, you'll have:

Standard Talk to any Australian network	UNLIMITED
Standard Text and MMS to Australian mobiles	UNLIMITED
Voicemail retrievals	UNLIMITED
Data	500MB per Day

           

500MB should be enough for you to upload your photos, on whatsapp, etc for a day. I couldn't find any shop selling Optus pre-paid plan at the Perth Airport, so I only manage to get it when I was at one of the supermarket. You'll be looking out for a yellow packaging for the Optus pre-paid card. You can either get the AUD$2 plan (left), and top up the amount you need online or the AUD$30 credit plan (right).





So after leaving the airport, we made our way to our chosen car rental company - Bayswater Car Rental which is around 20 minutes taxi ride from the airport. I researched online and Bayswater Car Rental was one of the recommended. The rates are low and they have a Top Cover option where you pay $6 a day and it reduces your Damage Excess to AUD$50, so you don't have to worry about paying high costs if your rental car is damaged. However, Bayswater Car Rental is only available for rental in Perth and Sydney.



After collecting the car, we drove to our rented apartment in Maylands which we found on Airbnb. Airbnb is always my first choice when I'm looking for Bed and Breakfast (B&B - private homes for commercial uses). After shortlisted a few places online, we decided on three B&B apartments for our stay in Western Australia. First one we chosen is City Chic. The photos of the apartment shown on the website are really nice, so I was really anticipating the apartment..and..it really did not fail me! Everything looked exactly the same as the photos and the house is just so cosy and nice. There's even a loft with a reading corner. And the host, Brenda, is just so welcoming and friendly. She was already waiting for us at the gate when we reached. Then, she showed us around the house and also recommend us places to go around the area.



This is one of the three bedrooms in the house. I love how Brenda decorate the house. It's really modern and nice.



We chose this bedroom so sleep, the bed is big and soft and so comfortable. I felt really lucky to have chance upon this apartment.



There's even a lovely courtyard where you can BBQ or chill outdoor and enjoy the sun or the admire the moon light.



After settling down, we drove to the nearest supermarket - Coles and have dinner at Wing Bo Chinese Restaurant opposite. There's also a McDonald's and KFC outlet just beside the restaurant. The food at Wing Bo Chinese Restaurant was quite good actually, but after the trip I realised that food in Australia is too salty for me. That's about it for our day 1 in Perth!

Check out the video of the trip!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY_SOyXgmxE]

Day 1 Itinerary
4.20 pm Arriving at Perth Airport
5.45 pm Collection of car @ Bayswater Car Rental
6.15 pm Check In Accommodation
7.30 pm Dinner @ Wing Bo Restaurant

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Check out my other posts on Australia here:

2014 (Western Australia: Perth, Mandurah & Rockingham)
Day 1 – Perth (Arrival in Perth)
Day 2 – Perth (Centro Galleria, Wellington Street, Cottesloe Beach)
Day 3 – Perth (Caversham Wildlife Park, E-shed)
Day 4 – Perth (Rottnest Island)
Day 5 – Mandurah (Dolphin Quay)
Day 6 – Rockingham (Mandurah Dolphin Cruises, Penguin Island)
Day 7 – Perth (Adventure World, Little Creatures @ Fremantle)