Day 1

A warm welcome

Today, May 30th, 2026, marks 5 years since I started dating her.

As a celebration of this, we decided to splurge and get ourselves a nice hotel to stay at, and not to choose the cheapest offer we could find and instead book something a little bit more expensive to make it special- after all, we only get our 5 years once and it is quite the milestone.

We arrived yesterday after being frustrated and annoyed at the very odd layout of the center of Perth City around Elizabeth Quay. Honestly who decides to lay out roads that way? And even more so just randomly choose which roads should be one way only and others should be a 4 lane main road. As well as the pedestrians who do not seem to stick to the road or the sidewalk and instead will free for all. But I digress.

We ended up arriving a bit later due to our unfortunate struggle to find proper parking. Though, on arrival, we were greeted well and informed that due to our unfortunate delay we had missed the evening canapes. As compensation the staff offered us a free 2 drinks coupon for use at their bar.

We ended up getting settled, unpacked our bags and got comfortable in the room. We decided to look around for a few places to eat, and quickly found “Miss Chow’s on the Terrace”, which looked quite interesting, we got ourselves dressed and started walking there from the hotel which was only about a 5 minute walk.

Unfortunately though, on arrival they seemed to had already closed for the evening at about 7, which was a bummer, so we ended up looking around for some alternatives instead. While looking around we had found a place called “Grand Orient Restaurant”, a Chinese restaurant. We decided to give it a go, and headed there. When we entered we were astounded by the beautiful interior design, something that if I am being honest actually blew me away.

The lighting was flattering, the theme was beautiful and the decorations were detailed. We ended up being seated within a matter of minutes even without us making a reservation and the restaurant being quite packed. We ordered a sweet and sour pork, some fried rice with prawns and bbq pork, and salt and pepper fried pork ribs. When it arrived we were amazed by the portion size too, the price was very good, and the portions were great.

We ended up leaving about an hour later and were very happy with the meal. We got back to our hotel and rested for the evening, both being quite tired from the day of work we had too.

Day 2

Comfortable beds, war, & storms

We woke up the next day, and had incredibly good sleep, the room was cozy and the bed even more so. The sheets felt so soft and comfortable, getting out of bed was a fight itself.

We got dressed and ended up having the complementary breakfast that we had, and we were greeted by your usual hotel breakfast, well prepared and some extra amenities I have not seen before. Notably there was also a fruit juicer that was a self-serve station, which we both used for some yummy drinks, though notably a person that was before our 2nd round of getting drinks seemed to have a keen love for ginger, as when we went and made drinks a second time around we had our mouth blasted by a very strong taste of it.

After that, we went and checked the executive lounge, which had about the same amenities and some extra free drinks, as well as additional staff that were there to help your requests, or make something for you if you were interested in it. I ended up just getting a black coffee, and we went back to our room to prepare for our day.

We got dressed, and headed out of the hotel to have a look around at the nearby shops. I had discovered that there was a Warhammer store not too far from us, neither of us ever actually played Warhammer, though I have had interest in it for some time now. We decided to have a look, and when entering there was this glass display cabinet that had beautifully painted miniatures. A staff member greeted us, and within a matter of moments offered us to take a seat to learn how to assemble and paint a miniature, ofcourse we said yes. For the next few hours we built a miniature, and painted one from scratch to completion. Our first miniatures I believe turned out pretty great.

My partner painted a Stormcast Eternal Liberator, and I made the Space Marine, I gave it a heart on one shoulder pad, and a roman numeral 5 on the other, for 5 years.

The staff was very friendly, and when we were done we asked for a few food recommendations. We were recommended a place called Short Order, which was right next to a Krispy Kreme. We ended up going there and got ourselves a cheese burger and an Oklahoma smash burger. Both were quite good, and reasonably priced, once we were done with that we got our Krispy Kreme donuts, and ended up heading back to the hotel after walking around for a bit more.

We relaxed for a bit and watched some of our series together, before we decided to head out again. This time we decided to head out to Elizabeth Quay. When we got there, we saw a Gelato place, we got ourselves 3 scoops of a few different flavors, they were quite good, but unfortunately I forgot the names of all of the flavors we had chosen. Around this time as-well it was about 5:45, the storm started rolling in. We ended up making our way back to the hotel just perfectly in time, as the moment we entered the hotel doors the rain started pouring down. We decided to try out the complementary evening canapes. When we entered we were asked our room number, and then were asked if we would like any drinks. I was offered a rum and coke which I gladly accepted. We got ourselves some small canapes and took a seat, all drinks from 5-7pm were free.

My partner ended up having a pineapple and vodka mix x2, and I got a Heineken, a sweet taste of piss from home.

A bit after we went back to our room, showered and got dressed in some more comfortable clothing before heading back to the bar to see what we could get with our voucher, my partner chose some pineapple based cocktail, I ended up getting a pint. The storm outside was raging on and from our view we could see the street running with water, and the wind bashing the trees. We ended up feeling like eating something, so we ended up getting ourselves some dinner at Samuels on Mill, where my partner got some Pork Belly, and I got a steak. The steak was quite tough and chewy and not quite worth the money, but the garlic butter they did was very good, and the chips too— though it is hard to mess up chips.

Seated next to us was an older couple, who had their flight cancelled due to a mechanical fault with the plane. I ended up offering them the other coupon for the free drink as we weren’t going to be using it. After our evening meal we ended up heading back to our room, and got cozy and decided to watch some more of our series, and promptly pass out.

Day 3

Exploration and our way home

On our final day at the hotel, we decided to have our breakfast again, a similar mix to what we had the day before. We were quite interested in potentially painting miniatures again, so we planned around that. We got our breakfast sorted, and got a coffee at the executive lounge. After this we packed up our things, and got ready to check out, due to the rainy weather I discussed with my partner that we would pack our things, and I would bring it to the car so she can wait comfortably. Low and behold 2 minutes after getting outside it starts storming and I get soaked head to toe in rain and blasted by the wind, I arrive to the car a bit later and pack everything before heading back to the hotel to pick up my partner.

From there we decided to head back to the Warhammer store, which notably was graffiti’d by someone somewhere earlier and had painted on the windows, it looked quite honestly like runes of some sort, maybe someone put a spell on the store or something similar hahaha

We were warmly welcomed back and given a broader set of paints to paint another miniature, this time around my partner and I both chose different color palletes and ideas to pursuit. This time around we both decided to make space marines.

Once we finished with the space marines, we thanked for the time and went to visit an English abbey that we saw on google maps, the rain was chilly so we had to huddle up under the one umbrella we had. Once we got there the abbey was quite cute, unfortunately though everything was closed apart from a mens tailor and a small souvenir shop. This was probably because it was Sunday.

After this we went and visited Tactics Games, a store for DnD things, TCG’s, Warhammer, and many other nerd things of the like. They had a wall that was maybe 10 meters long stocked full of hundreds of DnD miniatures. We didn’t stay long there as we were both starving. We ended up finding a sushi place not too far from there, the prices were great and we got a few rolls for ourselves. Notably though, some girl came up with 2 friends of hers, and sheepishly asked if she could sing for a free sushi roll, to which the store owner replied no.

After this, we stopped off for some boba tea and an icecream before heading back to the car, when we got the ice cream I was tempted to ask her if she sang for that one too hahaha.

We headed back to the car which at this point was about a 15 minute walk, we finally got back to the car and the wind was incredible, and quite rough, we got home safely.

Overall the trip was great, the hotel was good, the hospitality was a lot better than I expected in the city and the people were kind. This was our 3 day 5 year anniversary expedition!