What I brought back from Aussieland

The Australian Flu, thats what.....had to stay home today due to my fever and incessant coughing...

But in exchange for that, I've had 4 extremely fulfilling days exploring the sights of Perth and living the life of a local.

Arrived at about 11pm on Thursday night so didn't get to do much except have an orientation around Matt's place. I like his place, spacious and specifically built for parties. I can only imagine when we have a full on party there one day.....

So on Friday, I decided to do a makeover for his place, because nice as it was, it was lacking in a few homely touches. Now normally, I'm quite good with working within a budget, but in this case, because I was in a new city, there were a lot of ideas which were unrealised because I didn't know where to get the materials. That aside, I still managed to get a few bits and pieces to leave my territorial markings around the house.

Matt planned for Friday to be a rather hectic evening, where we would start off the proceedings with our usual Friday night drinks. You'd never realise how much you miss those standard end of the week sessions we used to have living in Sydney until you start doing it again. Sure, we've tried having drinks via the webcam, but nothing beats being physically there to be able to clink a glass. And yes, Matt did give up his daily session of Home and Away to have the balcony session with me.....whoa lucky me!

Next its off to a secret restaurant location which I am unable to reveal because we are selfish beings and have decided to make it our restaurant, so no one will ever know its name or location. You'd probably be able to see from the photos that it is a riverside restaurant which serves fantastic Italian food and affordable wine. Yup, thats all the clues you're gonna get....

Fantastic views

I had the pasta pescatora (seafood pasta with wine wine sauce). Matt had the prawn and beef skewers (the best grilled beef I've had in ages) and we shared the Fritto Misto (fried seafood selection)

I really couldn't wait for this photo to be over...that was the 2nd bottle of wine (after you add up the equivalent of 1 bottle we had at home for the balcony sessions.)

It was a truly wonderful night!

After dinner, we were off to The Court Hotel for some music festival style clubbing. You should be able to tell from the video why I think it is festival styled (i.e. unstable stage, open air dancing arena, 1 mirror ball and about 300 excited punters plus BRILLIANT music). This was where we ordered 2 more bottles of wine, was bloody cheap for a night out, we paid $35 for the concert and then $27 for grog each. You could have easily spent that in an hour clubbing in Singapore.

We decided that 4 bottles of wine in 1 night was enough drinking for the entire weekend so we decided to don some sexy gear and get active. So we hired some bikes and went on a two hour riding trip around the river. Was really fun and reminded me of our trip to Paris where we did a cycling trip around the city....

Ok, anyone noticed this blog entry is so boring? I've just read it again and it almost made me fall asleep. It doesn't convey the excitement and fun I've had for my trip there.

Why?

Because its difficult.

Its difficult to live apart after living together for 5 years.

Its difficult to leave a place I've very quickly grown attached to.

Its difficult to go from extreme fun to extreme boredom in a space of 5 days.

During the course of our chats, we were wondering how much more of this we can take, the emotional roller coaster of having to part after a few days of fun together, of smiling one minute and then nearly bursting into tears the next, of not being able to be there for each other physically after a bad day at work (there are limitations to webcam hugging), of the physical (Matt) and emotional (Grandmaster) loneliness. After staying a few days at his place, I can see why Matt sometimes gets really bored and frustrated there. I don't know if I would handle it as well as him if I were living alone for the first time.

However, the good thing is that we are willing to talk about it rather than bottle it up. Come and think of it, we are not really trapped. No children, no mortgage, not much debt so we can change the situation around very quickly if we needed to. But the question is do we want to? Is there a reason why we are apart, so we can grow closer? Is this period apart helping us to move closer to our dreams? Am I back in Singapore to tie up loose ends so we can move forward?

Many unanswered questions, but I have complete faith we will ride through this and come out of it stronger than ever.

On my last day, I spent the morning and afternoon preparing large batch of meals and freezing them so Matt can enjoy a home cooked meal whenever he wants instead of doing takeaways all the time. Just doing that made me emotional again, as I remembered the countless fun meals we had in front of the TV. I wished I could cook enough meals to last him for 2 years, but we all know that is not possible. I just want to make it easier for him during this difficult transitional period and hopefully some of my frozen pastas and fried rice will do the trick......

Not an easy blog entry at all.