What makes a place special, unique? #2 Sunny Perth, Australia

Following on from reminiscing about France, today I got to thinking about sunny Perth, and what makes it a special or unique place to live. My little tribe (minus Little L ), Big A and I moved across here several years ago, almost on a whim.  At the time we were BUSY.  Life was chaotically, crazily chock-a-block full of kids, work, and all the stuff that goes along with it. We'd spent the past several years living/working in Sydney and Bris-Vegas, so we both thought, really how different can Perth be? We were in for a teeny culture shock...

• When we arrived in sunny Perth there was no Sunday trading. Well, except for 'tourist areas' and 'electrical goods stores'. We were not really sure why this was in place. At the time though, it seemed completely, utterly inconvenient.  I mean, when was I supposed to do my grocery shopping?  Supermarkets opened late one night per week, Thursdays. That's it. Then after a few months, it didn't seem to matter so much, because it meant Sunday could then be all about the fabulous great outdoors, and spending time with family and friends. Which leads me to the next one.
• The great outdoors. Sunny Perth is blessed with beautiful beaches, a huge bushland park right next to the CBD, a stunning river - complete with a bucketload of parks and playgrounds overlooking that beautiful vistas. It's very easy to forget about shopping and supermarkets when you can spend all day at a beautiful beach or park just relaxing and enjoying the fresh air.  Or you could be a little more active and take up a sport, cycling, learn to sail, learn to wind/kite/regular surf. Then you can take part in your new sport/hobby a lot because it is sunny, most of the time. Which leads me to the weather (bear with me, I promise it's interesting).
• Sunny Perth is sunny, a lot. In summer, when it gets REALLY hot, there is a convenient wind that comes in around mid-afternoon that even has its own name, 'The Fremantle Doctor' or 'The Doctor' and takes the edge of the heat, so that you can relax again, and enjoy all those gorgeous beaches and parks.
• There are a lot of people who are from somewhere else, bucket-loads of expats, interstaters (that would be us!).
• People from Western Australia (WA) think it is perfectly reasonable for WA to be considered separately from the rest of Australia. You know, because it is so unique, and so special.  They belief this with all their heart.  Which I think is both reasonable and downright brilliant.  Western Australians are an incredibly parochial bunch, and are fearsomely proud of how amazingly awesome Western Australia is, not to mention the WA produce (fruit from the magnificent Ord, milk, 'Harvey' beef, the list goes on).
• Last, but definitely not least, our dear sweet Little L is from Perth.   The youngest member of our tribe was born here, which goes to show you we thought Perth felt like a true home.

Have you ever been to Perth?  It's a little different now by the way, for starters we have Sunday trading. You know what though, we still don't go shopping on a Sunday, there's way too much to do to be cooped up buying groceries! Plus I have just discovered online shopping... Enjoy xx