Back at the hotel we had actually gotten our room a couple hours
earlier than expected. But even our zombie brains knew it'd be a bad
idea to go straight to the room now, we had to get a dress to the dry
cleaner and go buy a wedding present. I can't say what it is yet,
Kathryn & Tim might read this. We got to see a bit of Chinatown too.
According to Lonely Planet (thanks Kristin) it's the oldest and
largest consecutive Chinese settlement in Australia, dating back to
the 19th century when there used to be opium dens and brothels. Today
it's mostly restaurants and bars, which also works.

Next return to the hotel we got to our nice room on the 6th floor,
which seemed high up until I looked at all the other buttons in the
elevator. 25 floors. Perth is turning me into a country boy! The place
only opened in July, so everything is nice and new. I didn't get to
stay long, Håkon came buy on the way to work, and we went for a coffee
in one of the laneways.

Later i returned to the hotel were Shan was reading-sleeping. I tried
out the flatscreen TV at the end of the bed, apparently television
hasn't gotten any better since last time, so I made it through a
couple of Simpsons episodes on the ipad instead before falling asleep.

Waking up again at 8pm was hard, very hard. But it was worth it, back
in Chinatown we walked aimlessly up and down the street looking for
inspiration. There was to much choice! Eventually we found a great
Japanese sake bar. We had sake and BBQ food in a coal pot thing on the
table. Delicous!

Later i had a drink with Jamie and Dana at a hipster bar, and checked
out their place not far from my hotel.

The only way i can pack and get ready for a holiday or a trip
somewhere seems to be with a lot of stress. Finishing work less then
an hour before you go to the airport when you've got a red-eye flight
is not recommend. Frank picked us up while we watered the plants one
last time. It's summer and they'll be thirsty while we're gone for a
couple weeks. Got into a taxi from Frank's place and enjoyed the motel
and industry scenery on the way to the Perth airport.

Already at check-in it became clear that we were travelling with a
budget airline. Took some time to get through a very short line. And
the advertised automatic self check-in was nowhere to be seen. My
estimated 17-18 kg bag weighted in at 19.6 kg. Lucky. I can bring an
extra chocolate bar with me back.

It's my first trip in some time (7-8 years) without a laptop. It was
good not having to carry the extra luggage and not having to show my
laptop at the security. Apparently an iPad isn't computer enough to
need to be taken out of the bag. It's also my first iPad travel.
Recharged my 3G card so I can tweet and Facebook my way through the
trip. And write this.

Getting on the airplane gave me a good holiday feeling - midnight and
t-shirt temperatures. Getting off also, but more like the alps, Canada
or New Zealand. Somewhere wintery. Crisp cold air. I guess Victoria is
pretty far from WA.

The Jet Star Airbus A320 was disturbingly budget. Non-reclining seats.
And a full 1.5cm room to spare between my knees and the seat in front.
It made for interesting, but restricted, sleeping positions. One sore
neck later we were on the shuttle bus.

We walked our roller bags past a lot of adventure shops, a gallery,
lots of trams, free bikes, office workers and cafes. Naturally too
early for a our room to be ready at the hotel, so we got 6 hours to
kill. I googled "cafes in Melbourne", but got a few to many hits to
even better making sense of it, so we just took a right and a left and
found ourself a cafe. Bagel and coffee. Brains slowly getting back in
working order.