Sydney

Final Day in Sydney

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Location | Parammata, Australia

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

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

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

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!

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!

Blue Mountain

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Location | Parramatta, Australia

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

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

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.