Tennisballs, Dogtoys, the locals and Premium Pilsener

We made it!

The stay at the Singapore Airport was interesting in many different ways. Starting with posh and exclusive fancy designer stores with no customers at all and three shopkeepers to an old dutch woman who totally fascinated by a high-tech asian invention. It was a projection of loads of tennisballs on the floor, and when you stepped on them, they were moving! WOW! She kept on pushing us to give it a try and she was all happy when we finally did it. To excuse her enthusiasm, she cried out loud: "Everyone loves doing this!" Even tho nobody else seemed to care.... Well we didnt do anything else apart from walking through the airport. We expected some exotic plants and colours, and no - they did not disappoint us at all! (Picture: Berrie discovering the lavish jungle of Singapore Airport)

Well after half an hour of checking the airport and refreshing in the toilets, we sat down on luxurious leather couches surrounded by oase-ish plants. We loved the clean airport, but one woman just took it too far. She was cleaning the carpet (always with a smily face of course), even when there was no dirt! Amazing! Oh well, the boarding went very well up until the point, where we had to fill out a dramatic declaration form that we are not importing something dangerous! But Berrie freaked out because of a few questions as he carried hiking shoes (including soil(with potential diseases)) and animal equipment (dog toys), which were (according to the declaration thing) not allowed to be brought to Australia. The flight itself then went very well. It took another 5 hours. In the end, all the drama about the hiking shoes and toys were for nothing, because the things went through the scan without a problem and we only got asked who was the owner of some very dangerous chocolate balls. We soon then found Henk Jan in the waiting crowd. Well we then carried our luggage onto his Pick-up car and drove on the left side to Gevers mansion.

Even though we felt exhausted we were overwhelmed by new impressions: Australia smells different, Australia looks different, Australia feels different - Australia is different! But in a good way! The place where Henk Jan, Paula, Jonathan, Annelies and their 3 dogs live is amazing, and we even have our own, little separate cottage! Henk Jan guaranteed us we don't have to worry about spiders, yet we still had a hard time closing the curtains in the evening: potential spider places everywhere. We experienced Henk Jans amazing cooking skills when we had dinner, but it was hard to keep our eyes opened much longer so we went to bed pretty early. 17 hours of sleep followed! Yes, seventeen that is. Afterwards we heard Jonathan had been waiting all day and even rang his mum to ask whether he should wake us; he wanted to do something with us. (Picture: Paul in the garden of Henk Jans house)

The day was pretty much over by now, we had our nice little Spice Girl posing time on the trampoline and took a little walk around the place, it was then when we met Josh. He's living in the same street and offered to drive us through Perth and show all the nice places later on, which we'd love to obviously! After we came back from the walk we had dinner, watched some TV and had some german beer. Paul felt like home drinking the best imported Pilsener that you can get in Australia. At least the label said so. But indeed it was very good. We also had a nice chat with the family and then decided to update the blog for everyone at home. Now everyone went to bed (it's nearly 11pm) and we're still sitting at the computer. (Picture: An impression of the scenery, taken during our walk)

We hope you did get a nice impression of our first day, we enjoyed the first hours down-under very much. We are going to bed now, too, Bye Bye!