So, I’ve been in Perth for about 6 weeks now. As I mentioned in my previous post, the thought of coming over to Perth, 1,800 miles from any other sizable city and closer to cities in Asia than those on the east coast of Oz, was a bit daunting given the circumstances. By no means was I going to give up, however, so I got on that plane and landed on a fine April day at the (tiny) Perth Airport.

 The first week that I was here was for getting myself sorted out. I went into the office each day, but only for a token period of time after the first day (when I signed contracts, etc). I spent the rest of my time trying to get a feel for the city of 1.5 million so I could begin the house hunt, which promised to be long and quite possibly thankless. There were plenty of small chores to do as well, like finding the Department of Planning and Infrastructure and applying for my Western Australia driver’s license.

 The apartment that Schlumberger provided me with was amazing. 3 bedrooms, huge kitchen, lounge area, 2 balconies, one with city views….wow! It was located on Mount Street, which is just across the freeway from my office–it was literally a 5-minute walk for me in the mornings. It was also just down the hill from Kings Park, which is Perth’s best (and quite possibly biggest) park. I spent a number of afternoons strolling in the park, which overlooks the Swan River and Perth’s CBD. Perth is definitely what I would call a pretty city, even though the CBD’s skyline is dominated by massive cranes that are trying to expand the infrastructure of the rapidly growing city. The city’s skyscrapers aren’t ugly–the BankWest building is pretty cool-looking–and most importantly, the Swan River is actually a beautiful, deep blue color! I know this is unheard of for Australian rivers–Melbourne’s Yarra and the toxic Brisbane River come to mind–but I think the picture backs up my claim. I saw the river from the 20th floor of a nearby office building while on a client visit and it looks like the ocean (which makes sense, since it’s really an estuary filled with seawater!).

 On top of the nice views, Kings Park is expansive and I could have walked around in it for hours. As it is, I think I’ve only seen about 5% of the place. I love Fraser Avenue, which is lined with giant white gum trees, and the area around the Anzac Memorial and eternal flame. I saw that memorial in a whole different light (literally) when I went to the Anzac Day dawn service, which starts at 4.30am and runs until about 6.30am on the morning of April 25, the day that the Anzac soldiers landed at Gallipoli in 1915. I was lucky that I didn’t have to take any form of transport (besides walking) to the event because it seemed like nearly half of Perth was streaming down Fraser Avenue at around 5.30, when I finally stumbled out of bed. My entire street was completely impassable, since cars had parked on the road, on the grass, and down the sidewalks. I’d never seen anything like it in my life!

 As I walked into the park, big screens were showing scenes from World War II and later wars. As 6am approached, the screens flipped to a live feed of the services, which most people in the park couldn’t see because of the sheer numbers around them. I could just see the Anzac Memorial but I even had to stand on tiptoes for that. The silence was eerie; no one except the little girl next to me begging her dad for breakfast said a word. There was no commentating or anything–we just had to hope we could follow the people marching on screen and figure out what was going on. I wish I could have known more of what was going on, but I enjoyed the moment, watching the memorial from afar as the sun slowly rose behind it. Once the ceremonies completed, there was an inspiring speech and a flyover by about 7 warbirds, which marked the end of the official services. I’m very glad I went, since the Australians seem to remember & appreciate the Anzacs much more than Americans do their veterans.

As for the house search…I couldn’t stay in the Schlumberger-provided apartment permanently (since it costs $850 … per week!). I launched into the house search immediately upon arrival in Perth (thanks to the already-set-up broadband connection in my apartment) and started trying to whittle down a list of suburbs I’d like to live in and any apartments that looked even remotely affordable in those areas. The house market in Perth is quite absurd at the moment, since business here is booming and people can’t move here fast enough. Even the tiniest 1 bedroom fetches at least $200 a week, and you won’t get that in any of the sought-after suburbs. All I wanted was a place that was a relatively quick & easy commute from work, within my price range, and allowed pets. I soon took pets out of the equation because possibly only 1 rental property in the entirety of Perth allows them.

 I got to see quite a lot of Perth just by traveling via public transport to all of the open houses. I visited at least 10 properties in the north, west, and south of the city over the span of two weekends, but all of them had little niggles about them, like only having a tiny bar fridge and dryer in the unit but no washer in the entire complex, or being a 20-minute walk, 15-minute train ride, 25-minute bus ride, and then another 10-minute walk away from the office. The latter was in Scarborough, one of Perth’s beaches. I would have loved to live near the beach, but it was just a bit too out of the way for me, and quite a few people related stories of it being dodgy at night, so I stayed away. I did get to go to the beach after visiting a few homes there, and it was just as nice as the beaches on the east coast–plus it was novel because I’d never seen the Indian Ocean before! Unfortunately it’s getting into winter now (and it’s bloody chilly in Perth today) so I might not actually get in the water for a while, but it’s good to know it’s there!

 Another new and completely different part of Perth that I got to see a couple weekends ago was the area called “the hills.” The hills border Perth to the east and are quite a contrast from the beach and the Perth city area in general. The dirt was significantly redder than here in town, the trees were all gums, and kangaroos were hopping between the BBQs (you can’t have a proper recreation area in Oz without BBQs!). It was a fantastic day with barely a cloud in sight, yet not too hot–our group from work really couldn’t have planned it better. We had a ball wandering around, attempting to find the signed waterfalls (there were none, due to the fact that the rivers were bone-dry), eating BBQed & marinated lamb chops, and feeding leftover sausages to the brightly-colored twenty-eights (birds that looks somewhat like lorikeets) only to have them stolen by big & angry kookaburras. If only I had a car, I’d now have a great place to take people for a BBQ and nature walk when they came to visit me in Perth!

Anyway, I digress. Back to the house search. I was lucky enough to find a share house on the weekend before Anzac Day. It’s in a very good location–even in peak hour traffic, the bus straight into town only takes about 25 minutes–and I liked the apartment at first sight. It’s not the newest, but it’s very well kept up and quite big for a townhouse. Even better, it came fully furnished–my room already had a queen-size bed and everything–and was significantly cheaper than living in my own one-bedroom place. To top it all off, since I’d have flatmates (and my flatmate’s parrot Ambika, who has a huge personality of her own), I didn’t have to worry about getting a pet to keep me company! Seemed like a great deal to me, so I applied and moved in on the afternoon of Anzac Day. I get along with both of my flatmates well and it’s definitely nice to have someone to talk to when I get home in the evenings–and even better to have someone to play MarioKart Wii with!

There will be plenty more about Perth soon!