sPERTHacular Australia trip: 12-15 December 2013 Day 1

Day 1 of our sPERTHacular Australia trip: 12 December 2013

Booked our tickets earlier on with Scoot's Perth inaugural flight promo + NB's free flights of course! Flight time was about noon which means we will reach Perth at about 6+pm. Not the best timings as shops are usually closed by then! But who are we to complain if it's a (nearly) free flight?

Marking the last trip of ours in 2013, we hope we wouldn't suffocate from the heat there, where everywhere else were in the winter season.

 

Our breakfast drink before take off. Making use of the 1-for-1 Starbucks 12 days of Christmas promotion. Love the hot cranberry white chocolate mocha!

Our flight and Scoot's inaugural flight to Perth

Getting comfy on the flight with my pink travel pillow

Cause it was an inaugural flight, there were games on board with the CEO and MediaCorp personalities like DJs Jean Danker, Cai Wei bin and artiste Elvin Ng. And of course, being thick skin has its benefits huh! We won a $100 Scoot voucher! Just nice to subsidise my share of air tickets for the next trips! ;) Well done NB!

 

 Other interesting things on-board - challenge between the CEO and Elvin to garner more duty-free merchandise sales. Trying to get back some ROI huh? :p #thingsCEOdo #thingsartistedo and in case you are wondering, Mr Campbell won... ouch... where's the star power?

 

Got a chocolate to get some loose change for the bus.

We couldn't find a place to get the Smart Rider Card (their Ezlink) at the airport so we got to use cash.

 

Surprisingly, that was unnecessary as the bus driver will issue change on board.

Our first thought was wouldn't it be very time consuming for the driver to do so?

Indeed, it took some time whenever there are passengers who needed change.

 

 After nearly 3 hrs of travelling time to Fremantle from Perth airport (took terminal transfer shuttle to T3&4, Transperth bus 37 to Victoria Park transfer station and 106 to Fremantle train station), we finally arrived at Hougoumont Hotel, tired and hungry.

 

Hougoumont Hotel

15 Bannister Street

Cost: SGD363.6 for 2 nights.

 

The hotel was very new, clean and modern. Got our stay at a discounted rate of just $180+ due to their opening special. Good price for the quality.

 

Though small, it was cosy. And there you have NB immersed in his game once he got his Internet access -_-.

Quickly left our hotel after settling down to search for food!!

Cappuccino strip is a great street with lots of good to chill out cafes, pubs and restaurants. Would be good to gather there with a group of good pals to chill the night away. The night there was pretty cooling with gentle breeze along the street. Good place to stay if you are a night owl cause anywhere else would be a "dead town" after 8pm. So we end our first night with a slow stroll back to the hotel.

 

After walking down the cappuccino strip at Fremantle, we couldn't find an affordable meal until we saw Hungry Jacks' (or Burger King as we all would know it as). Ordered my usual chicken tender grill (with their special Peri sauce) and the meal cost us both about AUD13+. One of our cheaper finds already. The burger was ok (chicken patty slightly bigger) but I thought the waffle fries were tasty!