It was the first time we fly scoot, and honestly we were a little apprehensive about it as last year, there was an incident about a Scoot flight to Perth (TZ8!) was delayed for almost a day! (Passengers unhappy after Scoot flight delayed for more than 21 hours) My friend Anny was on that flight and I asked her about it, she still gives Scoot the thumbs up. Nonetheless, we’ve already paid for it and out fate is sealed.

This Perth trip is quite unique, as this is our 3rd trip to Perth. The first, your mum, and I went, with your Ah Gong, Ah Ma, your Ah Gu and another of your mum’s cousins, HanJie Ah Gu. That was quite sometime ago, way before your mum and I was married. The second time was when Ian was about 18 months only. I also coincided that trip with your mum’s birthday.

What we didn’t know was, that your mum, at that point was pregnant as well, which explains a lot about her motion sickness, unfortunately, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. Well, that’s another story for another time.

Scoot TZ8- 787 Dreamliner!

This time, 2016. We are going because your 弟弟 wants to see dolphins. Our flight for 28 May was in the afternoon, so we woke up excited about the trip. There was plenty of time for us to prepare and unlike our Bali Trip which was in the wee hours, this time we reach the airport easy, chill and took a bit of makan before heading for the check in.

The flight was a non-event, and I prepared some ‘in-flight’ entertainment for you boys by putting up some movies in the iPad2, and you boys end up watching Zootopia and Charlie Brown the movie. It was a budget flight, so the flight is a flight is a flight, we had to entertain ourselves. And one thing I noticed, we weren’t expected to turn off our mobile device unless specifically told to do so. Wow, it’s a
Dreamliner new! The window is electronically tinted, thus there is no physical shade, which you need to bring up during taking off and landing. You can press a button and the window will go from clear to opaque to totally dark, cool!

Perth! Touch down!!!

We reached Perth 5 minutes earlier than scheduled. The first thing we experience when we stepped out of the aircraft was the chill! And it is not from the building’s air-con!  We are indeed enjoying the winter like what we’ve wanted!

The customs was a breeze and we soon got out to the airport terminal. The first thing we got was a pre-paid SIM card. I bought 7 days’ worth of stored value for us to use for a 5 days trip, 2 spare days for the just in case. And each day we are allowed to use up to 500MB of data, easy and more than suffice for us to travel around, post stuff on FaceBook, using the GPS to get around and checking out some stuffs on the net.

The car rental stall folks were also very friendly, and despite of Wayne being 7 years old, which technically waive him from the use of a child booster seat, but due to his small build, the chap at the counter was kind enough to lend us one, which was a good idea, as it will at least prop 弟弟 up and he can better look out of the car and enjoy the scenery.

The car we had was a small, but cozy Hyundai i20. When we stepped out of the airport, it was drizzling lightly. It was a delight as it really pushed the temperature down a couple notches more! S-h-i-o-k!!! To the max!

I went through the usual check for the rental vehicle and make sure that everything that is there is there, and anything that is not, is not. Then I tried to fix the phone holder to the windscreen, but it didn’t quite work; either the angle was wrong, or the suction on the holder won’t; well suck.

No GPS, no holiday

So we ended up having your mum hold the phone,and give directions off the GPS. She is the only co-driver your dad ever wanted.

And the GPS worked flawlessly. And without it, we would have been lost in Australia.

We made our way to the hotel, taking every turn and advise given by the GPS and reached there without any fanfare. But it was! We’ve never done a self drive, never solely relied on GPS for driving, and we have never driven in Australia! Lotsa firsts to celebrate!

Upon reaching the hotel, the good people at the concierge checked us in with no problem and we snaked our way from the hotel lobby to room 155. It was quite dark by then and we didn’t know what to expect from the exterior of our room. We knew the weather was fabulous and the facilities in the hotel are great. the only let down was, there’s no toothbrush. Other than that, the room is clean, sheets are nice, everything works, and most importantly, the heater works! Otherwise, it would be long cold four nights.

With that we came to the end of Day One, going to sleep knowing the next day would be a great one, watching dolphins.