Christmas holidays in Perth, Western Australia

Christmas in Perth was quite different. This wasn't my first time being away from Finland for Christmas and not even my first Christmas in Australia. Last time in 2018 I spent the holidays in Tasmania with two of my Finnish friends. This time I gathered with some of my new friends and we celebrated the holidays together.

Perth also celebrated the holiday and was dressed up in lights and decorations. There was a popular Christmas light trail that is apparently arranged every year. We have the same in Finland after Christmas (LUX Helsinki) but the difference is, that in Australia, if you want to see the lights in their best ways, you need to wait for it to become quite late to get dark whereas in Finland you're good to go after 5pm. Below some pictures of the light decorations.

At work, we also had the secret Santa game. I got lucky and drew my closest co-worker at the time and knew what to get to him. I headed to the store and bought an Stray Kids mug, Pokemon lego package and some boba tea stickers.

I received a great gift - it was clear that it was for me, as everything was my favourite colour at the time. Lavender? Lilac? I don't even know what that colour is called but you can see it in the picture. I received a scent candle and a beach pillow that I have already taken with me to the beach multiple times.

Before Christmas, I sent a message to four of my friends that were living either in Perth or in the surrounding areas, that they are welcome to spend the holidays with me. I was happy when I learned that we could make our schedules match for a few days at least.

We went to see the Christmas light show in Perth together. It was the second night, two nights in a row, and I had seen some videos and pictures from the first evening. The show started and it looked amazing, we were in awe. At some point, something started to go wrong and we saw drones slowly dropping from the sky. You can already see in my third picture, how the picture is not as clear as in the beginning. At the end of the show, it was meant to say "Merry Christmas" on the sky, but you couldn't even know it was letters. It was funny, but I hope the company didn't lose too many drones during the evening.

Before Christmas we also headed to Karen's Diner, which was a new experience for all of us. The Diner in Perth is an American style burger joint where you get the worst service ever. Slow and highly annoyed waiters make sure that you feel the most unwelcome - and that is the fun of it. They nagged for us, why we even came to the restaurant just before Christmas. They made Tamaki clean up after a table next to us had left. They even threw the receipt after us in a ball when we were exiting the restaurant.

It was ok for the customers to be Karen's as well, but we had too much fun listening to the waiters to do so. It wasn't very convincing to be nagging about something at the same time when one was laughing at something a waiter did or said. Fun experience, but not sure if I would go again - the food was good, though!

On Christmas Eve, my two friends from Japan, Yu and Tamaki, created a Japanese dinner for us. It was Japanese curry with chicken and beef, and fried noodles. We did add some Korean soju to the table as it had become sort of a quest for me and my Japanese friend from Hostel G to try all the flavours Perth's Seoul Mart had to offer. This time we stick to the basics, though.

Christmas morning started with a Finnish style brunch. We had rice porridge and sekametelisoppa, which is a kind of a dried fruit soup or custard (without milk). Very common dish to eat during Christmas Holidays. My mom and friend also sent me a package from Finland, so I could offer some Finnish Dumle chocolate and traditional style bread (though dried) for the brunch as well.

After late brunch we got ready to go to the beach. Tamaki knew that a lot of people from Hostel G had gathered at the City beach to celebrate the Holiday's. For us, it was a must - Australian Christmas was to include some time on the beach, so we decided to head there as well. We packed some picnic snacks to go, got on our swim suits and headed to the high waves of city beach.

I got lucky and received a Christmas present from the Ocean. While I was struggling to get past the breaking waves, a noticed a pink dolphin cap floating on the water. I picked it up and hoped it would stay on my head though the waves were doing their best to take it back from me.

Christmas Day dinner was made by my Korean friend, Jay. KFC, Korean Fried Chicken, is apparently the go-to meal in Korea during Christmas, but this time she prepared us some kimchi fried rice and kimchi pancakes, I added a bit of kimchi stew and tteokbokki on the table as well. We were also joined by our Taiwanese friend, Teyu, and he promised to cook us something next time as we were running out of time and meals to make.

After Christmas Day I said bye to many of my friends who headed back to their farm work. We saw many times after that - except with Jay, who headed back to Korea on New Years Eve. I just found out that she had applied and received her next Working Holiday visa to Canada!

Tamaki lives quite close to me, so it is nice to see her often. After Christmas we decided to spend the New Years Eve together - we first caught the last rays of sunlight of 2023 at the windy Cottesloe beach, and then headed to eat at Lucky Chan's - the entrance to the restaurant looks like a laundromat. The food was delicious, the drinks interesting (mine was a blueberry bubble tea cocktail) and every floor seemed to have something new to look at - and take a picture of.

After dinner we headed to the riverside to see the fireworks at midnight. Thankfully, we lived on the right side of the river. The fireworks were shot to the sky from around Perth CBD area, and we could just chill on South Perth riverbank until midnight, and then walk back home.

Tamaki had a great idea, and to pass the time, we started to watch a movie from her computer. We were "secretly" joined by a couple of kids from the group next to us, as we were watching Pinocchio. The oldest one kept on repeating "Don't watch their Netflix, we haven't paid for it, they have". We said that they were welcome to watch it with us, if they wanted to, and they sometimes popped by to see what was going on, but for the youngest, I think the film was a bit scary.

On New Years Day I was once again happy to be in the receiving side of Tamaki's cooking. She made some Japanese dishes that are often eaten on New Years Day - Zenzai and Isobeyaki.

During Christmas we sparked an idea about making a short road trip to Margaret River mid January on my Birthday. There wasn't much talk about it, and I mostly thought about it to myself and rent a car, but I was glad when I found out we could meet up with the same group again. More about that on the next post.