Why Australia again?!

We first travelled to Australia in 2014 as part of an annual travel ritual my husband, my brother and I had started only a year earlier. We began in Sydney and did a road trip up to Gold Coast, where we first learnt to truly appreciate sunblock. We returned in 2015, to go on the gorgeous Great Ocean Road. When we told my parents, they exclaimed, "Why not Turkey, or New Zealand or someplace more interesting?"

In 2016, my husband and I headed for Perth. Because we just had to check out the western coast, you know? In just a week, we fell in love with King's Park, Cottesloe, Lake Monger, Swan Valley, and Fremantle. In 2017, we set our hearts on Tasmania. We were there on a round-island trip, this time with my brother and his fiancee. By then my parents had stopped asking why Australia again. On every trip back to the land down under, my husband and I would catch ourselves saying to each other, "We should live here. We love it here."

We (quite easily) decided on Perth mainly because a 5-hour flight is way better than an 8-hour one. We're away, but not too far away. A 5-hour flight is one movie+one meal+one nap. If I wanted to fly back home for the weekend on a whim, it wouldn't be ridiculous. It's the quieter city, compared to Melbourne or Sydney. It is surrounded by nature, sandwiched between the Indian Ocean and the outback. Perth has some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen. If I make it through this scorching summer, the weather the rest of the year is going to be absolutely lovely. Bonus: Perth has a huge, thriving Asian community. That means plenty of good Asian food and many, many Asian supermarkets.

This was us on our VERY FIRST TRIP to Australia. It was a road trip that took us from Sydney to Gold Coast. We obviously had no idea how life was going to change for us just 5 years later.