Today was the last day before returning to Taiwan. The morning started out by heading to the Sydney Opera House. We went on a short tour to see the inside of the largest performance hall.

Inside the Opera House

Then we headed over to a park to take some sweeping views of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as a backdrop.

Opera House and Harbour Bridge

We drove over to a harbour where we got on a boat and had lunch. The boat took us all around Sydney so we could see the coastline.

Sydney Coastline

Then it was off to the Harbour Bridge to take a walk across it. After the bridge we stopped at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Jumping at St. Mary's!

Then to another SCAM Duty Free. Next door we discovered a t-shirt wholesaler who was selling shirts for $5. I got 2 shirts and made friends with the lady who owned the place.

Then it was to a casino where we easily had the best meal of the whole trip. They had some amazing Indian food! I was surprised that it was so good.

After dinner, it was back to the hotel.

There was nothing truly eventful except for the photos, which I guess is the important thing. Tomorrow, it’s back to Taiwan!

Woke up at 5am to head out to catch a flight to Sydney. Arrived and met our new tour guide, Michael and also got onto a very smelly and old bus. We drove through Sydney and got to a Chinese buffet (which was absolutely terrible). I left it early and walked half a mile to go buy 2 umbrellas (which we didn’t end up using). We then got on the bus and drove to the Sydney Olympic Stadium from 2000. Although it was interesting to be there, it was completely unimpressive. We only stopped outside the main stadium. There wasn’t much to see.

Then it was off to Blue Mountain which was an hour and a half away. After what seemed like forever, we ended up at this completely drenched mountain covered in dense fog. We could see absolutely nothing. We took this “ride” on this train that literally went down the mountain at an incredibly steep incline (Which felt like 90 degrees). Apparently it’s the Kotoomba Railroad and it’s the steepest incline in the world – that explains things.

Katoomba Rail

We took a short nature walk where Michael pointed out we could see nothing. Then up a tram, to the gift shop, back on the bus and back to Sydney.

The Forest

We got to this casino type place where we had dinner then went to our hotel…

Once inside the hotel… I went to my aunt’s room where I looked up and we counted 20+ mosquitoes on the ceiling. It was HORRIFIC. I went down and the manager came up with a can of bug spray to kill them. Then we discovered our hotel room ALSO had mosquitoes. He also came by to spray all of those. I’m just glad I don’t see any other bugs.

We started the day at the Mt. Nathan Winery. Yes, I did go wine tasting. Yes, I did turn bright red. Yes, I am a lush. The winery was incredibly small, I wonder where they grow the majority of their grapes, because from what I saw, they could probably make barely 1 bottle of wine. I ended up buying 2 bottles of wine – a 17-year Tawny and an Autumn White w/ Honey. I know nothing about wine, so someone is going to have to come over and drink it with me.

Winery Grapes

We left the winery and headed to Bond University to check out their campus. It really has a great campus, and apparently is considered one of the top law schools in Australia.

Our tour group at Bond University

Afterwards we went to the Duty Free Store, which turned out to be such a scam. Essentially tour groups are taken their to earn their tour guides commission. Because most tour groups don’t speak English, they are “at home” at these Duty Free Stores because they are owned by other (in this case) Chinese/Taiwanese people. S-C-A-M.

Across the street we stopped at this park to look at fruit bats. Apparently there was a very large concentration of fruit bats in the area, so I led a pack of our tour over to the trees the fruit bats were hanging from to take some shots. I think we were talking a bit too loudly because they started to wake up. I left quickly, I didn’t want to get hit with any guano.

I am Darkwing Duck!

We went to the Gold Coast beach and walked along the shore for awhile before going to have a nice cup of coffee and to a shopping mall to look at other souvenirs. Then dinner was Chinese and back to the hotel where I anticipate a VERY early morning wake up to catch a flight to Sydney.

Self Shot at the Beach

The day started out with a boat tour of the Gold Coast harbour. We went on this long yacht with another tour group. On the top deck, the skipper was driving the yacht and I decided to make conversation with him. We talked about Australia in general, life, adventure traveling. He’s originally from New Zealand, but has lived in Australia for the majority of his life. He’s normally an engineer, but part-time he drives boats, especially tours like the one we went on. The silliest thing on his list of things? He drives a boat that has a church on it. Apparently there are only  2 of these in the world, and to have something like that on his resume must be pretty cool.

Gold Coast Harbour

After the tour we hung out in the shopping mall next to the dock before getting fish & chips for lunch. Then we were off again to Paradise Country. Paradise Country is a theme park w/ Australian animals and promotes Australian culture. There I got to… hold a koala.

My mom and the koala

Pet a kangaroo.

This is Mr. Hoppy

See sheep getting sheared.

Mr. Sheepy

Also, a horse show and sheep herding.

Dinner was lamb chops.

Then my grandma wanted us to sign up for a glow worm trek. There’s this park called the Springbrook National Park and inside the Natural Bridge (which is a rock formation that looks like a bridge), there’s a colony of glowworms. Several groups take you on a hike through the forest to see these glow worms. Only 300 people are allowed to go a night. There’s a lot of stairs and you’re on a relatively nice hiking trail, but it’s not good for older people with bad knees (ie, my grandma). I think she had a nice time, but I’m not sure if it was worth the AUS$85 to see a bunch of blue dots on a wall for about 8 minutes before hiking back through the forest.

Um, yes, those blue dots are glowworms...

Last night I left Taichung to go to the airport then hopped on a plane to Brisbane. After a 9-10 hour flight, we arrived and met up with our tour guide, Danny. We headed off in our mini-bus. It was me and 20 other people. This trip is supposed to celebrate my Grandma’s 80th birthday, so it was me, my mom, my aunt and my grandma.

The first stop was Brisbane City Hall. Apparently it was once the tallest clock tower in the region. Apparently they were planning to remodel within the next month or so, and I was lucky enough to ride the elevator to the top.

Brisbane City Hall

We hopped back onto the bus and headed over to this park which was the site of the World Expo in 1988. They had a giant ferris wheel, Nepalese temple, and various other little sites and attractions.

Ferris Wheel

We went to lunch right after in the Brisbane Chinatown. We had dimsum, nothing remarkable, so no pictures. We then headed up to Mount Coot-tha  to get a great view of Brisbane from above.

My Grandma at Mt. Coot-tha

After that we headed a shopping center where we spent an hour shopping around for groceries at Woolworths before we headed to the hotel on the Gold Coast and dropped off all of our things before we headed out to a (terrible) Italian restaurant and then back to the hotel to relax and go to sleep.

Domo-kun is learning about the Gold Coast