Swan City

Perth, Western Australia, July 10

Wednesday evening on the edge of the Indian Ocean.   Flew here yesterday with Annette, a friend from Adelaide, who offered to come along on my western diversion.   We landed as the rain began, and found our way downtown to our hotel.  After checking in, we wandered around downtown, did a bit of shopping, but then turned our attention to finding a place for dinner.

We discovered a bit of Normandy, France in Perth....   P'tite Andoise Bistro rocked, we were able to walk there from our hotel, had a great bottle of Cotes de Bourg 2007, and some great food, followed by very decadent desserts.   Place was packed, clearly the locals are into French food.   We walked back to the hotel, and both hit the hay.

Perth is literally due south of major Asian cities such as Singapore, Bangkok, etc., and as a result the city is full of Asian expats and tourists, our hotel is the overnight spot for Malaysian and Singapore Airlines' crews.   It is also 9 hours behind (but one day ahead...) of San Francisco, which I have been trying very hard to not pay attention to in an attempt to shed my final bits of jet lag.   The city has benefited from Australia's mining boom to the north - lots of new construction, tall buildings, etc. - but it is still sleepy compared to Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.    The mining boom is waning as Asia slows down and growth opportunities decline, what impact that will have on Perth remains to be seen.   It is a beautiful place, situated on a bay with wonderful parks and walking trails.   It is also warmer here than Adelaide, got up to 20 celsius this afternoon.

This morning on a walk Annette spotted a great breakfast place, called Tom's Kitchen, and we had a good breakfast, followed by a walk around the parks, then we drove north to the Swan River area where we sampled a few wines (some good, some not so good, not as notable as the Barossa, Clare, or Adelaide Hills wineries), ate a fantastic lunch at a microbrewery, and ended our day having a great conversation with the proprietress of the Fish Tail winery (not sure who gave her marketing and brand guidance..) who was in her final week of operation, having sold the estate to a larger neighbor, and was quite happy to tell us about her retirement plans (which included moving into a caravan/trailer with her husband on her daughter's property) - sadly her remaining inventory was pretty poor.....but her enthusiasm for the next stage in life resonated with me right now, particularly her apparent confidence in the future sorting itself out.

Overall a great day, we are in search of a good seafood place for dinner, tomorrow we intend to go out to Freemantle so I can stick my foot in the Indian Ocean, and then we fly back to Adelaide around 12:30.   Fiona is making us coq au vin for dinner tomorrow night, the French theme continues....

My next entry will be from my lap top, versus iPad, so hopefully I can figure out how to post some pictures.   I'm very grateful that my buddy Annette was along for the ride, I would likely have not seen or done as many things here without her willingness to drive us about.   It's 5:28pm, meaning it is 2:28am in SF, at least we're all briefly all on the same day!   Stay tuned, more to come.