Day 71

5am: Pilot's announcing that we are beginning our descent into Perth. Feeling kinda bleary, kinda good. I was really glad that the flight was only 5 hours long because the seats were narrow and hard. I came prepared with a big cushy pillow and my own blanket: Comfort pack costs extra. Welcome to the world of budget air travel...Then the smoothest plane landing ever, which almost made up for the 2 hour queue at Kuala Lumpur's Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT). In such a good mood, yay, I'm finally back in Australia! Feelin' friendly, cheery, joking around with the nice immigration people, I make my way over to the baggage collection area.

Well, since my seat was at the back of the plane, I was the last one out, and at the now stopped and empty luggage carousel, I see only 2 bags left. A red one, not mine.. and another one, 90% identical to mine.

Oh..no...

80 anxious minutes later, a flustered Indian girl came back to the airport with my bag. I should be thankful that it wasn't the Indian family who said that they were going to Karlgoolie :P And also that she put on a local phone number, I found out later that my phone number has been disconnected... All this drama even before 9am! Surprisingly the weather was cool and nice and not steaming hot like in the tropics. I'd forgotten how good the weather can get in Australia... blue skies, cool weather and very, very hot sun! (Don't forget to slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat)

Met up with John, an old friend who's moved to Perth from London, and Fizz who's also from London. John's helping run the Australian Parkour Association classes in Perth and he's said that I can help out in the classes - yay! Meeting up at the main Perth station concourse, we have a bit of a session ourselves before the actual class. It's a nice close group, I meet Fizz (London), Graham and his sister and Matt. The energy is nice, everyone is just moving and trying stuff and the weather is blue-skied, sunny and a cool breeze is blowing. Excellent.

A few hours later, classes are on! Big-ish group, at least 40 people in the year's first class. I'm helping Matt run the first-timers class. The format of the class is simple, we do a warm up: First warming up through a range of motions, the joints: wrists, elbows, knees and neck and then quadrepedal motion, up and down the lawn, crab walks, a kind of "gorilla konging movement" and table-position walking. Then we split up into 2 groups; first-timers and experienced people. We move through different spots and the classes are going well, until a council man comes along and informs us that we are blocking a public ramp, and Matt explains what we're doing, how we're making way for people using the ramp and agrees to move on. I'm sort of easy-going about it (mostly because I'm on holiday, because the council man is like every other council man I've dealt with in work) and also, I think that Matt handled it remarkably: calm and responsible, but his mood has been slightly dampened and he's trying to keep it to himself....

At the end of the session Matt agrees that John has not run this class as tough as he normally does, probably because this is the first session of the year. But it's been a good day.