My Perth Trip Day 2

Continued from
My Perth Trip Day 1

Alright, here comes Day 2
So on the first day, I didn't mention where I stayed while we were at Perth, so here it is.

Mountway Holiday Aparment

We stayed at Mountway Holiday Apartment through out the trip. I did a lot of research before booking this place. It is one of the most affordable apartment with great location and decent room. It only cost SGD1042.00 for 6 nights. There were 3 of us so it only cost about SGD58.00 per night for a person.

Mountway Holiday Apartment from the outside

Why did I say it has great location? This picture above was taken from the bridge just in front of the apartment. At the other end of the bridge, it is the Perth city. Isn't it convenient?

BBQ Area

BBQ pits and benches

The place comes with a BBQ area as well which is free to use. It was a pretty decent place if you intend to do a BBQ while staying there. I actually thought of it but we don't have the time to do it. Maybe next time...

So the apartment is located at the road named Mount Street

Just along the road, there is a great place for workout.

Nice workout place with wonderful scenery

Check this place out, there were quite a number of people doing workout there. I would be totally motivated to exercise with such a pretty view. But that's not all... Go near to the railings and look down.

Jacob's Ladder

It is the Jacob's ladder. When I saw this, I got an awesome workout regime in my mind straight away. This is so cool! Fort Canning Park is the closest I can get to this in Singapore, but still not comparable enough.

Just a stone throw away is where the King's Park located. The moment I walked into the park, the first thing I noticed is this super huge tree.

Huge tree

 You know, it would be such a waste if I don't climb it.

On the tree

King's Park is really pretty...

Into King's Park

Anyway King's Park is 90 hectare in size. Because of the large space area, the police rode on horses to patrol the park. Cool right?

Police on horses

I didn't finish the whole area of the park though. It was too huge. It would have taken at least half of my day just to tour the whole park. I completed about half the park and it already took me almost to lunch time already.

Since it was lunch time already, we headed down to Hilarys Boat Harbour for our lunch.

Hilarys Boat Harbour

So I spotted this Beach Shack.

Beach Shack

Nope, we didn't have out lunch here. The place was so nicely decorated that I just took a picture of it.

Nino's Fish Bar & Cafe

 We had our lunch at the Nino's Fish Bar & Cafe. We ordered a Barramundi & Chips and Salt & Pepper Soft Shell Crab to share.

Barramundi & Chips (AUD16.90)

Basically, a Barramundi is a seabass. They have a variety of different fish & chips but I just randomly chose this one. Even if you gave me different type of fish, it will still taste the same in my mouth. 

Salt & Pepper Soft Shell Crab (AUD25.50)

Actually, what I love about this soft shell crab dish was the salad. By saying that, you should know by now I am not really a seafood fan. Anyway, there was so much chips that we couldn't even finish even though I lov fries. 

With our full stomach, we took a stroll around the harbour to help us with the digestion.

View of Hilarys Boat Harbour

When I was outside, I thought there wasn't much to see here except for the beach, but I was wrong.

Even though the shopping area doesn't look huge, there were rows and rows of shops selling all sorts of items.

The little beach

 Then right in front of the harbour is this small beach area for people and seagulls to play. There is a larger beach area nearby but I didn't go over to that side so no picture for that.

Another highlight at Hilarys is the Aquarium Western Australia. It has the largest single aquarium and walk through underwater tunnel in Australia.

Aquarium Western Australia

The entrance was AUD29.00 for an adult. There were quite a lot of underwater creatures to see there, but then again, all the aquariums that I have been were generally quite similar. Although AQWA has some breed of underwater creatures that are exclusive to Australia, I am no expert to tell them apart from those in other countries.

Clown fish under magnifying glass

Seahorse under magnifying glass

Differentiating turtles

 There was a board that taught us how to differentiate turtles from one another which I find it interesting. I used to see turtles as just turtles when I went to the Live Turtle & Tortoise Museum.

While in the aquarium, I saw a group of tourists climbing onto the rocks along the coastlines. That was so "tourist" but I would have done it too if I were out there.

Tourist on the rocks

For your information, the water body in the picture is none other than the Indian Ocean.

By the time we left the place, it was about 1700hr. We headed back to the city to have our dinner. My parents wanted something with rice so we found this Corner Cafe which serve Asian food.

Corner Cafe

Curry Chicken Rice

I remembered I ordered their curry chicken rice. But I forgot what are the remaining 2 dishes that my parents ordered. One was a beef and the other was a chicken though.

I tried all of them and all of them tasted good. They were more of a fusion rather than the authentic dishes, but it was still satisfying to eat there. I forgot the prices for each of the dishes already. The total price was AUD38.85 for all the 3 dishes.

There isn't much things to do at night in Perth, so we retired back to our apartment after dinner.

Continue reading:

My Perth Trip Day 3 & 4

My Perth Trip Day 5 & 6

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My Perth Trip Day 1

So I went to Perth...
With my parents...

To be honest, I was quite lost when I was there on the first day because things don't always turn out the way you wanted. First, I was told that I could easily rent a car at Perth airport, but all the car rental told me they don't have any car left for me to use. Lucky enough for me, Avis had a car for me to use after waiting for approximately an hour because one of their clients didn't turn up to collect their reserved car. Then second, I was quite hungry when I was there, but there wasn't much food option for me to choose because the airport was under renovation. So I settled with the only cafe at the airport. The food pricing was still not too bad. but the water was crazy. I bought 1L of mineral water at the price of AUD8.00. That is very very expensive! Nonetheless, I still have to buy it because I was thirsty then.

Anyway, those things aside, I had set my first day in Perth to visit the city area first since it was near the hotel.

The City of Perth

So the thing about first day was that we would walk around first to get ourselves familiar with Perth since we had another 5 more days there.

Map of the City

Perth was a nice place, they had maps laid out all over the city so you don't get lost. Although that being said, we weren't even sure where we were walking to still. But as we walked, we just reached the London Court.

London Court

I wasn't even aware this was the London Court until I left the place and looked at the map later in the day.

So as we walked, we spotted the CAT bus.

Blue CAT bus

Timing for CAT bus

I came upon this when I was researching on Perth. This is a free bus service that loop around Perth city, which makes it easy to travel around. The waiting time wasn't very long either, so it was really convenient. I like this concept that the Australian government implemented. They made the parking so expensive and provided a free shuttle bus for the people to commute. This will definitely reduce the traffic congestion if it is implemented in Singapore as well.

After walking around, it was time for lunch. We weren't sure what to have for lunch though, so we settled with something that we were more familiar with.

Pepper Lunch 

Yes, it's Pepper lunch because my parents wanted rice. We are Asians after all right?

Salmon Pepper Rice (AUD11.50)

Beef Pepper Rice (AUD9.30)

Curry Beef Pepper Rice (AUD10.20)

After lunch, we decided to take a boat ride down at the Barrack Street Jetty. So we took a stroll down to the jetty.

Stirling Garden Entrance

As we walked from the city to the jetty, we will definitely pass the Stirling Garden.

Stirling Garden

 The place is so nice that you can see people just lying down on the grass patch to sleep. How often can we do that in Singapore?

Supreme Court of Australia

 Just beside the garden, the Supreme Court of Australia is also located there.

The jetty wasn't hard to locate, just look for the Bell Tower. This 82.5m tall infrastructure is quite hard to miss.

Bell Tower

There were a few ferry agencies to choose from at the jetty and we decided to choose Captain Cook Cruises because I have heard about this agency before. The rest of the agencies offer similar services, I just chose the one that I am more familiar with.

Captain Cook Cruise

Cruise Ticket

So we got the tickets for 1415hr Swan River Scenic Cruise (Return) at AUD38.00 per pax.

The ferry we took

So as the cruise arrive at the jetty, we board the cruise and off we went!

Leaving the jetty

The first icon that we pass by was the Old Swan Brewery.

Old Swan Brewery

There were a lot of things that we saw on the cruise, the shop captain explained a lot of things to us and it was very detailed. I learned a lot of history of Perth from him. One of the things that caught my attention was the most expensive estate in Australia

Most expensive estate in Australia

The owner paid AUD57.5 million for the home. and became the most expensive estate in the whole of Australia.

Another expensive estate

This estate was one of the most expensive estate in Perth as well and it caught my attention because it looked like a castle.


As we were approaching Fremantle,  I spotted a few nice ship at the dock

Brasilia Highway

Sea Princess Cruise

China MSA

One of the ship that I saw was the China MSA ship. Remember the MH370 aircraft that went missing? This ship was there as part of the searching team

After docking at Fremantle, some people alighted, new passenger boarded and off we went again. We were travelling back to Perth on the 1545hr Fremantle departure. For that departure time, the cruise actually provided complimentary wine tasting of local Australian wines. 

Wine tasting

I tried all of them. It was good. Maybe it was just me. Everything overseas just taste better.

Lots of fins!

On the way back, we saw lots of fins in the water. Was it shark?

It's dolphin

No... It wasn't. I was just dolphin. The ship captain said we were quite lucky. They don't usually see all the time.

City of Perth landscape

Back to Barrack Street Jetty

And so we ended up back at the Bell Tower, and we decided to visit it since we were already there.

Heading to Bell Tower

Sadly, the tower was already closed by then. It was about 1700hr when we alighted the cruise. The last admission to Bell Tower was 1545hr. So we only stayed on the outside.

Love Locks

There wasn't much to see on the outside except for the rows of love locks. Love locks were originated from China and now it has already spread all over the planet.

So after all the touring in Perth city, we headed to Woolworths to get some grocery.

Woolworths at Perth City

I found something really interesting was the cake. A hyper mart was selling hand decorated cake off the shelf! We don't get that in Singapore. Then again, I wonder if it taste nice.

Cars Cake

Peppa Pig Cake

Thomas & Friends Cake

Spongebob Squarepants Cake

The next thing was the durian I saw. Consider that it was an imported product there, I understand for the pricing. But Thailand durian doesn't taste good, they should import from Malaysia.

Thailand Durian

After all the grocery shopping, I got my chocolate chip cookie! It is really cheap there. 24 piece of them only cost AUD5.80 and they tasted better than most of the cookies I get from the supermarket in Singapore.

Chocolate Chip Cookie

Alright... That is all for my first day.

Continue reading:
My Perth Trip Day 2
My Perth Trip Day 3 & 4
My Perth Trip Day 5 & 6

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Using Helium in Tires

So... I have this idea that just came to my mind when I saw a helium balloon recently and here's what I was thinking.

Since helium balloon fly upwards because atmospheric air is denser than helium, does pumping helium into the bicycle tire makes the bicycle lighter?

 Since I do triathlon, weight of bicycle does matter for long distance cycling so this idea came into me. It might have sound ridiculous but there is no harm finding out more about it right? So the questions start coming into my mind

• Is there anybody who have already tried putting Helium into the tire?
• Apparently there is a lot of forums when you just googled "helium in tire", and the answer is yes. There are people as crazy as me to think of such a thing.

• So what are the results (based on internet answers)?

1. Helium is lighter than atmospheric air so it does help to save about 12-16g off the bicycle weight
2. Helium molecules are smaller than atmospheric air (mainly Nitrogen and Oxygen) so it will escape from the butyl tube more quickly
3. Other gases (Hydrogen, Carbon Dioxide and Nitrogen) has been used in tire as well
4. Many race vehicles prefer to use nitrogen filled tires for racing 

• Based on the information online and being a Sport Science graduate, this is what I think:

• The pressure of a tire is about 150 PSI. Volume of gas also remained constant in the tire since the tire has a fixed shape. Using pV=nRT (Assuming temperature is the same for both atmospheric air and helium), the number of moles for each gas will be the same if they were to be filled in the tube. Since, Helium is lighter in weight, there will definitely be a save in weight on the bicycle
• Size of Nitrogen and Oxygen molecule are about 10 Angstrom whereas size of Helium molecule is less than 1 Angstrom. Butyl rubber is porous so no doubt Helium will leak out much faster than Nitrogen and Oxygen. Also, Nitrogen molecule is bigger than Oxygen molecule despite the molecular mass, so Nitrogen is a preferred gas which answer to No. 4 above as well.
• Like Helium, the small Hydrogen molecules will leak out of the butyl rubber in no time. Also, Hydrogen is a very reactive so it will be too risky to use it in a tire. Similar for Carbon Dioxide, the molecules are rather small so leaking is a problem too. Carbon Dioxide is commonly used as a refill cartridge for quick refill during races. The Nitrogen, on the other hand, is rather stable and not reactive to temperature, so it can be used in tires
• As mention in  the above 2 points, nitrogen is very stable and less likely to leak, it is a preferred gas than atmospheric air. Looking at the molecular mass, atmospheric air also contain a significant amount of Oxygen which is heavier than Nitrogen. A Nitrogen filled tire will be lighter, even though the difference might be negligible.

• So after all these findings, what are the implications?

1. The use of Helium does reduce a significant weight of a bicycle during the race. A mere 12-16g difference of weight might not seems a lot but let me show you how much 1 gram is worth in cycling. Let's take Shimano chain as an example. CN-6800 chain weighs 253g while CN-7900 weighs 252g and the price difference is about USD10.00 on Amazon. 
2. Helium is more commonly found in party shops rather than bicycle shops. On top of that, the rate they charge for inflating a standard size balloon is about SGD5.00. Is it worth it to spend such money to inflate tires when atmospheric air is free to take?
3. Although Helium is good for weight reduction, the inability to stay in the tube pose a problem. What I have not find out is what is the rate of Helium leaking out of the tube. Can it last for a 100km or just 10km ride? Is there any material that can be used as tube to slow down the leakage of Helium? If there is such a material, will be material be too heavy which might end up negating the benefits of Helium?

Personally, after all these research, I find Helium is not feasible to fill up a tire. Despite the cut in weight, there are too many concerns for using Helium. I will not use it since that few grams doesn't really matter to me. I am not an elite cyclist anyway. I will just stick with my atmospheric air. It is good enough for me and it's FREE!