Smiling Buddha

After the sensory overload that is China I gratefully arrived in Bangkok to a hefty dose of Western luxury:

Familiar faces, Lattes galore, Pepperoni Pizza, English bookstore, English (in general), Blue sky and sunshine, British Pub, Internet cafes with high-speed access, Waffles with strawberries, Thai massage, Pedicure, Doing laundry with a washer and dryer, Toilets with seats... that thing where you watch a TV series on DVD and just keep watching all the episodes all the way through like a worthless lazy bum. (The Office, Season 1. Yes! Wazzuuup!)

I spent a full day being lazy - my first in over two months - and it was brilliant.

My friends Jen and Ryan from Minnesota are living in Thailand. She teaches English and he is a professional poker player, so they decided to take advantage of this time as newlyweds and living abroad. I'm staying with them for a few days and their place rules: it's air-conditioned and posh and they're right by the sky train, a spa, a coffee shop, and an internet cafe. Score!

We went to Wat Pho temple, home of the 46-meter giant reclining Buddha. (Who looked kind of like me, watching The Office.) I decided that my first cultural assignment here will be to learn about Buddhism so I'll have some idea what I'm looking at in all these temples. From what I know so far, it focuses on the acceptance of reality (not explaining creation or death), and it doesn't have the same violent history of other major world religions. (Which makes Buddhism a popular idea among people at home who typically identify themselves as "Spiritual, not religious" - a growing bucket, it seems, judging by Match.com and Facebook profiles.)

Thailand first impressions: This place rules. It's super-cheap and will only cost me around $25/day. It's maintained plenty of Thai culture but also isn't too unfamiliar, and I'm really looking forward to getting to the jungle and beaches. I was worried about all the stray dogs, but it's so humid that they just remain eternally passed-out. Plus, seeing friends has been terrific and as I did China with a tour, I'm also looking forward to getting back on the backpacker circuit and meeting other travelers from around the world.

Three Weeks in China

My interest in China probably began during a chat with my good friends Venora and Josh while we were traveling together in Rio. They told me a bit about their families' histories and the Tiananmen Square massacre which happened in 1989. I wanted to go to China to learn more about the country with so much history, and also since I'm interested in business and politics and China is pretty important.

I arrived in Beijing via sleeper train (a relatively smoke-free experience, thankfully), and one hour later I was at Tiananmen Square. It is massive - much more than I expected for a "city square." I tried to picture it just 19 years ago, filled with thousands of pro-democracy students protesting the government, and soon completely surrounded by government officers and tanks, closing off any possible exit route and blasting the students until everyone was dead.

I looked at the painting of Mao that looks over Tiananmen Square. I tried to imagine what it was like to live during the time of Mao's rule in the 1950's through 1970's. Mao militarily forced sweeping reforms that drastically changed the Chinese way of life and killed millions. He first instituted the Great Leap Forward, which forced peasants to abandon family farms and migrate to massive communal farms. Millions were unable to adjust to the new style of farming and widespread famine resulted. After that failed, Mao tried an even harsher policy - the Cultural Revolution. He eliminated all the "olds" of Chinese culture including arts, religion, and even thoughts. He enlisted in the young generation to spy on their parents, and report or beat anyone who might disagree with the Communist Party.

Nearly 100 years of national tragedy and civil wars had led to Mao's rising and the founding of the new communist People's Republic of China in 1949. Beginning in 1840 - after thousands of years of relatively isolated existence - China suffered through invasion by Europe and Japan: Brits forcing Chinese to buy Opium and taking over Hong Kong, and Japanese - as the "superior Asian race" - invading and raping thousands of Chinese women.

(The Chinese remain resentful toward the Japanese to this day, but relations are beginning to improve. During my trip, two significant events occurred. China's president Hu Jintao visited Japan and loaned Japan a pair of pandas, and - making front page of the NYT this week- a Japanese warship visited China as a diplomatic gesture.)

After Mao's death, China's communist government changed tactics again, and started moving toward more capitalist policies of industry, trade and wealth. Industrial towns and factories sprang up, and the "Made in China" tags started being sewn on clothing and stamped on toys. (Though the U.S. and China didn't like each other in the 1970's, they both hated the Soviets more. Richard Nixon visited Mao before his death, to form a new alliance between democratic United States and communist China.... surely a shock to the world in Cold War times.) By the 1980's, the groundwork for trade between China and the Western world was complete and began rapidly charging ahead faster than the Maglev train. (In response to the Tiananmen Square massacre, the United States conveniently took a stance of "engagement without endorsement" and kept on with business as usual.)

SO, after all these years of drastic cultural and economic changes, famine, natural disasters, massacres, etc.... visiting China today was an overwhelming experience, to say the least.

The analogy that made the most sense to me came from a Brit I met in Lijiang, Mark, who had been traveling through the 'Stans for over a year: "It's basically the Gold Rush." (Mark was one of the few Europeans I've met who is pro-American. Bashing America has become kind of the "in" thing to do, not necessarily because of Iraq or annoyance at loud obviously-American tourists, but because somehow we managed to elect Bush ("Yo, Blair!") not just once, but twice. But Mark is sympathetic to Americans because with us it's, "You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't," and within all the bashing on the backpacker circuit, there isn't much real, intelligent dialogue.)

Anyways, Gold Rush. Everyone in China is an entrepreneur.... From the man following us with a horse in Tiger Leaping Gorge, to the woman in Yangshou trying to up-sell me milk with my coffee. Most hotels we stayed at were filled with businessmen, and had "massage parlors" open until 2 a.m. China's 70 million government officials are entrepreneurs as well. Apparently corruption runs rampant at the local government level, and you can bribe your way through nearly anything. I was told by a few people that most Chinese don't actually care about politics; it's not in their interest to. They've figured out how to navigate the system.

Actually, I heard and read several times that many Chinese - even some pro-democracy advocates - believe that China just isn't ready for a Democratic Government right now. China has the world's largest population - which is spread out across a massive area and has high illiteracy in the countryside. After so many years of drastic change and tragedy, many people want China to exist as-is for awhile and not throw yet another major change at the people.

China took capitalist Hong Kong back from the British in 1997, and operates under the Communist government as "one nation, two systems." But for a communist country, China has policies (er, lack-of policies) that would make many free-market capitalists envious. For example, the chief of the Nigerian Investment Commission said, "The USA will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment. The Chinese just ask: "How do we procure the license?" Much to the protest of human rights activists, China trades arms for oil with Sudanese warlords, and despite protest from the Dalai Lama maintains a tight hold on Tibet... sparking many anti-China protests during the Olympic torch rally.

On the other side, I can see where Chinese Nationalism also exhibited during the rally comes from. The Chinese view Western countries as hypocrites, because in our heyday we had no problem with human and environmental crimes such as plowing down forests, polluting the earth, taking land from Native Americans and owning slaves. Now that we've become rich and developed from such crimes, we tell China not to do it. China has human rights organizations working on such issues, which they don't feel they get credit for. In response to many years' criticism from the United States, China issued it's own report on America in 2005 beginning with, "American society is characterized with rampant violent crimes, severe infringement of people's rights by law enforcement departments and lack of guarantee for people's rights to life, liberty and security of person."

One of the dumbest things I heard during my last job was from a fellow rep, poo-poo-ing hybrid cars and saying, "It's not us - it's the damn Chinese." China - as a nation - is the biggest polluter in the world. But Americans - as individuals - are the biggest individual polluters in the world. If Americans - in all our technological advances - don't take serious steps to adjust our environmentally-destructive ways, then China certainly won't.

Yesterday, I read an op-ed by Ye Tan in the government's China Daily, which mentioned the weak dollar policy the United States has continuously maintained. The words "weak dollar policy" caught me off-guard, since it implies that we intentionally want our dollar to be weak. I asked my guide about it, and said that since the U.S. is so in-debt to the Chinese, we benefit from a weak dollar because then we ultimately owe less. I told him I was surprised because when I usually read about the weak dollar, it's in the context of other economic pains like the crap economy and high price of oil - not written about as an intentional strategic foreign policy. He laughed. "No - and Ye Tan is a good economist and one of the few journalists who can get away with criticizing the government."

Others on the tour, enjoying this conversation, delightfully threw in their 2 cents, "America is threatened by China's rising power." (Also, in response to a question of "What factors make a country Developing or Developed?" one of the New Zealanders jokingly hypothesized "quality of toilets." In a bus ride through the countryside last week, we used public toilets with no doors or actual toilets - just holes in the ground vaguely separated by small barriers. The word shithole suddenly had actual meaning. A week later, we would be in Beijing, surrounded by Lamborghini and Jaguar dealerships, and hundreds of official government vehicles - black Audi A6's with tinted windows...)

That afternoon, still disturbed by the supposed Weak Dollar Policy, I decided to answer it the same way I solve all life's problems: Googling. Despite reports of Google's censorship deal with China back home, I've had great luck with Google here. I was able to research some of China's forbidden topics, such as the Dalai Lama and Tiananmen Square, and fully accessed Wikipedia. The hard part has been actually finding internet cafes, which - while legal - are usually tucked away in basements to avoid too much attention.

The first article I found was from Business Week in 2005, "Bush's Worrisome Weak Dollar Policy," which acknowledges that our dollar is weak because we run such a high deficit (though it seems that it is more of a result from other policies like Iraq, not a deliberate way to undermine the Chinese.) It also says China buys up our dollars to keep it's currency undervalued and it's products underpriced to be more marketable in international trade.

Hmmm. I have no idea how it all actually works, but I do think that the complex relationship between the world's largest developed country and world's largest developing country is quite an interesting topic.

One of my favorite things in China has been the people. I did not have a single bad incident and loads of Chinese from government officials to farmers has smiled and said "Nee-how!" Many people around my age approached me and excitedly talked to me in English. I realize China has a lot of issues - from "cultural genocide" in Tibet, to women's rights issues including abortions resulting from the one-child policy and prostitution, to extreme gaps in social classes between businessmen and peasants, and finally gaps between generations - parents who grew up under Mao's oppression and their children who learn business and English in schools. For so much tragedy in their recent past, they certainly seem like a happy group.

Ancient Cities and Tibetan Monasteries

Finally, blue skies!

We spent a week in the Southwest of China exploring Lijiang, the Tiger Leaping Gorge, and Zhongdian.

Lijiang is probably what Epcot Center was modeled after and is quite popular with Chinese tourists. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is nestled in the mountains and filled with cobblestone streets, canals, pagodas, shops, restaurants and thousands of red lanterns. It is the main home to one of China's minority groups - the Naxi people - who you could see dancing in the street squares each day. (Over 90% of Chinese are Han ethnicity.)

I had a full free day to walk around Lijiang taking a million photos and shopping. In addition to the usual clothing and jewelry, the shops sell a wide range of creative goods: fur wraps, bone combs, chicken feet, and Commie paraphernalia like Mao's Little Red Book, Lenin posters and Stalin ashtrays.

Lijiang is beautiful during the day but even better at night. The city lights up with red lanterns and the sound of Chinese techno music (with the occasional dose of Spice Girls or You Spin Me Round). I spent both evenings in Lijiang out at the clubs. The club scene was probably 80% Chinese tourists, 15% locals - still dressed up in work clothes (native garb) from the day - and 5% foreign tourists. It made for some very entertaining evenings.

Due to the crowds, we ended up sharing tables with Chinese tourists both nights and did a fairly decent job communicating. Some things are just universal - smiling, toasting cheers, and girls helping other girls get away from creepy guys on the dance floor. We also counted to ten in English and Chinese a bunch of times, probably the easiest conversation at 1 a.m. between drunken people who don't speak the same language.

The next hungover day was spent trekking in Tiger Leaping Gorge - one of the world's deepest Gorges and along the Yangtze River. We slept in a rather nice guesthouse after the first 5-hour day where we could shower and order cold beer and fried noodles. We met a load of interesting characters along the way - some mountain goats, peasants farming rice, hillside vendors trying to sell anything from Snickers bars to drugs, and a man who followed us around with a horse saying "Horse" in between spits, in hopes we'd get tired and hire his horse. (Speaking of spitting, it is extremely in fashion in China and the Chinese believe it's healthy. According to a survey, the two things Westerns are most disgusted about when visiting China are the eating of dogs and the spitting, so Beijing has been policing locals about spitting hoping they stop before the Olympics.)

One of the more, um, exciting things to happen was our bus ride from the end of the trail back into town. Apparently, China has been rapidly building highways in preparation for the Olympic torch rally, and due to the heavy rain, the hastily built highway along the cliff had a large hole in it. We all got off the bus and walked past this part, in case the bus fell off the cliff. (Although, according to the Swiss woman on our trip, this was nothing compared to Nepal, where the valleys are full of buses.) Another amusing thing was meeting my first large group of Americans at the guesthouse. They were probably in their late teens, and passed us on the trail while shouting "Woo-hoo!" (in between "Like, Oh My God!") as they climbed a huge pass. I've only met about 20 so far on my trip (and hundreds of Europeans). The others in my group looked at me and said, "Americans," to show me what they were talking about when they were explaining the Typical American Stereotype.

After the two-day trek, we boarded the bus further west to Zhongdian, renamed by the Chinese Government as Shangri-La to attract tourists (after the mystical city written about in the novel Lost Horizon.)

Zhongdian, while not officially in Tibet's borders, is primarily Tibetan so we got a taste for what the culture is like. The city is covered in prayer flags and we visited the biggest Monastery in the Southwest of China and saw plenty of mountains, rolling green hills, and yaks.

I read that Zhongdian has become kind of Disneyland-ish with the renaming of it, and locals are not allowed to speak of the Dalai Lama. Indeed, several little Tibetan girls were wearing long braided wigs and dressed in native outfits, running up to us saying "Hello Photo" over and over trying to earn a Yuan. In the spirit of Responsible Travel, we didn't take photos with them or pay them, because then they learn that they can make money and end up skipping school.

One of the interesting things about China is that the official religion of the Chinese Government is atheism. People are unable to hold government positions unless they are atheists, though the government has allowed people to practice religion if they'd like. I read only 5-10% of Chinese are religious, with the most popular religion being Buddhism and Taoism (and Confucianism, though that is more a philosophy), and also a few Muslim and Christians.

All Aboard King Long

The normally picturesque drive from Guilin to Yangshou surely had to be foreshadowing the rest of my Yangshou adventure.

After a turbulent landing in pouring rain - with fellow passengers yelping in either terror or delight with every bump in the flight - we exited the airport to catch our chartered bus: King Long. The bus driver's breath smelled of alcohol, and the 2 hour drive through flooded streets was accented by 90's German techno music, King Long innuendos, and the non-stop beeping of the bus's horn. According to our guide, there is no "Drivers Education" like we have in the U.S. People teach themselves, and honking the horn is fun.

After a long travel day, the weary crew was excited for an evening of drinking watery beer on the 5th floor patio of our hotel overlooking the stunning backdrop of limestone mountains as the floor above us sheltered us from the peaceful patter of the rain.

That peaceful rain continued and continued and continued all night long and we woke up on Friday the 13th to a flooded Li River beginning to creep up our street. Being a trooper (and since the famous Li River cruise would likely be impossible and Tibet and Chengdu were already cancelled) our guide Andy decided that despite less-than-desirable conditions, we should continue with the day's planned activity: A bicycle ride through the countryside surrounding the Li River.

Our journey got off to a rough start. In order to get to the bike tour starting point, we had to tread through knee-deep flooded streets filled with cockroaches, snakes, and surely some sewage back-up which we tried really hard not to think about. Thankfully, the tour group has been vaccinated against everything under the sun - Hepatitis A and B, Typhoids, Rabies, Yellow Fever, etc.

Finally we got safely out of the watery street only to have to cycle through town - probably one of the dumbest moves I've made in my day. Hang-gliding and paragliding: No problem. Cycling through China: Dumb. The streets were filled with pedestrians, motorcycles, trucks, cyclists, dogs, etc. driving every which way through roads speckled with flooded water. Some of the motorcycles were speeding through the flood in delight, spraying the sewage-y cockroach-y water on anyone lucky enough to be close by. Apparently the last flood in Yangshou happened 50 years ago, and this was sort of a fun adventurous holiday for locals with electricity off and school cancelled.

Adding to the "fun," our guide Andy appeared to have a crush on the local guide leading our cycling trip. And instead of being the designated rear of the caravan like originally planned, he zoomed ahead to be near the other guide, leaving several of us to navigate the madness on our own. I suppose with China's surplus of 20 million bachelors (resulting from the one-child policy starting in the 80's and a son being the one-child of choice), the man probably needs to take what he can get and I probably should have made a bigger effort to more speedily dodge children and rivers allowing him more time to flirt with the lady-friend.

Once we got out of the city, the roads were flat and peaceful and he countryside is absolutely stunning. The limestone mountains stretch from China down through Vietnam, and it was tempting to stop at every turn and take a photo. (So as a compromise, we only stopped at every other turn.) The land used to be covered by ocean, and mountains formed by wind carving through crevices. Suddenly that madness all became worth it. We road along rice paddies and were greeted with smiles and waves of friendly Chinese farmers despite most of their crop being ruined.

Returning to the city was even more eventful, with the water-level now rising from knee-deep to mid-thigh deep (Gross). For many Chinese, it was up to waist deep. Wading through the water was dumb the first time and really dumb the second time. At all costs, I was determined not to find myself (and my new SLR camera) compromised and let the water rise up any further. Fortunately, a very nice Chinese woman held my hand through a scary part and guided me across the shallower area.

After making it back to the hotel safely and soaping myself down, my roommate Rita and I headed down to a restaurant overlooking the "new" river, which was close to all the action. We had some fried noodles and curried vegetables, and watched the ever-entrepreneurial Chinese launch water taxis and floats to help spectators cross the road for a whopping 200 yuan (30 USD). By the end of the day, the price had dropped to a more reasonable 10 yuan (1.50 USD).

On the first day of our tour, our guide told us always to remember "TIC." After several failed guesses to what this acronym meant (including Tour-guide Is Correct), he told us the answer - "This is China."

Shanghai

Well, now that that's out of my system, it's time to give Shanghai the credit it deserves with a proper entry.

It took me a full day to get used to Shanghai. The energy of the city is amazing - it's hustle and bustle everywhere and at all hours. It has double the amount of skyscrapers as New York City. The high-speed Maglev train zooms to the city at 430 km/h. Red traffic lights can mean Green. People are extremely friendly. The air didn't bother me so much on the second day - I guess it's kind of like when you go into a smokey bar and notice it at the beginning, but by the end of the night you're having so much fun that you seem to forget about the smoke. Plus, there are several pedestrian-only areas of Shanghai with better air quality.

My tour has changed twice. We're not going to Lhasa, Tibet due to protests surrounding the Olympic torch, and we're not going to Chengdu due to the earthquakes. My itinerary now consists of Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuzhen, Guilin, Yangshou, Kunming, Lijiang, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Zhongdian (Shangri-La), Xi'an, Louyang, and Beijing.

The reason that I chose GAP Adventures, is that they focus on sustainable tourism and giving tourists a more local experience. (They provide a "Culture Shock" rating on each tour so you have some idea what you're getting yourself into.) On my Peru tour, we did a home-stay, camped, had an occasional cold shower, and avoided tourist eating establishments. All guides were Peruvian and had a strong pride about their heritage; my guide was doing his dissertation on "As more countries want an increasingly Western lifestyle, how do they achieve that while still maintaining their ethnic culture and tradition." So as far as China is concerned, this tour is less focused on "Seeing the Great Wall, Pandas, Terra Cotta Army" and has more emphasis on experiencing what it's like to live here and learning the history and culture. (But... we're seeing all those things, too!)

Culture Shock

I was pleased to make it to Shanghai on the red-eye and have zero hassle with customs despite the somewhat hectic visa situation. Shanghai International Airport puts LAX to shame. (That's not saying a whole lot, but...) Everything was extremely clean and well-marked in English, so finding my way to the taxis and hotel was easy.

I wanted culture shock, and as soon as I left the airport I got it. I thought the pollution was supposedly worse in Beijing than Shanghai so I wasn't expecting to feel it that much, but the 45 minute drive to my hotel made me feel ill. It brought me back to my Vegas business trips, when I left the airport and stood in the winding line for the rental car shuttle bus, inhaling a combination of bus exhaust and everyone else's cigarettes that they lit up as soon as they were in Vegas, baby.

Since I had a day to kill on my own before meeting my Gap Adventures tour, I decided to do the most obvious thing: internet. After emailing my mom to tell her I made it safe and solidifying my friendships with my new Oz friends by making them my Facebook friends, I decided to leave because everyone in the internet cafe was smoking and between that and a night on a red-eye, I was feeling really nauseous and decided I needed food.

Lunch was fun, since I mistakenly ordered two meals much to my embarrassment and the amusement of everyone else in the restaurant. One young guy asked me where I'm from and if I'm traveling alone, and started laughing and said "Uh Oh."

BUT, after the first rough day, I'm pleased to report that things have gone up and I believe China will be the highlight of my entire trip.

As the tour guide said, China isn't just another country, it's another world. And it's a hugely important one. The U.S. and most of the Western World are extremely dependent on China. Most of the people quietly grumbling about China's pollution or human rights record are likely wearing something "Made in China." China's GDP is expected to be equal to or surpass the United States in the next 15-20 years. I believe this is the first country I've ever been to that hasn't been (truly) colonized by Europeans (and also my first Asian country).

China has 6000 years of fascinating history and there is so much to absorb - differences in religions, a Communist government and modern entrepreneurial culture, collectivism instead of our Western individualism, obviously the very different language, different food (hot meat and rice for breakfast), and all the sub-cultures within China. The culture is at a crossroads even within generations; for example, the younger generation born under China's "one child" policy is having trouble affording to take care of their elderly parents completely on their own (instead of splitting cost and responsibility with siblings) and are looking to nursing homes - a huge conflict within an important Chinese tradition.

Today has been sensory overload and I'm just in Shanghai - the most Western city in mainland China.

My tour guide is from Xi'an and studied Chinese History in university. My group - a small one with only 7 people - immediately began to bombard him with questions at our first (delicious!) dinner together. It's a good group. I got paired with a roommate from Southern California who is a teacher, well-read and very knowledgeable and a lot of fun so far.

We walked around the Bund, Yu Garden, Shanghai Museum, and the very cosmopolitan Nanjing Zi Lu. Tonight we're going to see the famous Shanghai Acrobat show.

I'm extremely excited to be here am hoping to emerge from this trip understanding and appreciating a bit more about this amazing and important country.

The Australian Outback

I booked a safari that went to Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Kata Tjuta, and Kings Canyon and spent three days exploring the outback and camping.

The outback is enormous and seems to just go on forever and ever. To get from the hub city of Alice Springs to all the major sites, we spent about 15 hours on a bus (over three days). Our guide Jason DJ'd the event with a very - um, I suppose "upbeat" could be the right word - iPod full of stuff like Barbie Girl, Venga Bus, Weird Al, Village People, Inspector Gadget, national anthems of all the countries represented on the trip, and some Chopin for the pre-sunrise time aboard. He kicked off our tour with the song, "Come to Australia, and you might accidentally get killed!"

The whole experience felt pretty authentic Aussie to me. For starters, we gathered our own firewood (watching out for venemous snakes and spiders), set up campfire and prepared our own meals. We slept in swags (Aussie bed rolls - no tent) around a campfire. Our guide bought a kangaroo tail and cooked it over the fire along with our dinner. Driving through the endless outback was an experience on it's own, with the occasional camel crossing the road and the fine music selection to top it off.

The Outback is beautiful. One of the coolest things was seeing the sunset on the first day over Uluru and Kata Tjuta and enjoying a champagne toast. We were up bright and early every day to see the sunrise. The stars in the Outback were fantastic - I'm getting really good at spotting the Southern Cross and will be sad to head back to the Northern Hemisphere and not see it again until who knows when. We also did a lot of hiking in Kings Canyon and around the base of Uluru.

We also had the opportunity to learn about Anangu (aboriginal) culture. European settlers began arriving in Australia quite recently - in the 1870's - and I was disappointed to observe that Australia seems quite segregated. I know things take time, but it definitely felt very different than New Zealand where the Maori culture seems like a pretty proud part of the country's identity. Uluru and Kata Tjuta are sacred to the Anangu, and there was a bit of controversy when Australia turned them into a National Park in the 1950's. However, progress has been made over the years. Representatives of the Anangu petitioned the parliament and Queen, and in the past 20 years, they were able to regain their land. Today, the national parks are operated jointly between the Anangu and Australian goverment, and the relationship has worked so well that they've proudly received an award from the United Nations.

After all that craziness, it was great to get to Sydney, switch gears, and clean-up a bit. A new friend from the safari, Nick, and I headed to the Sydney Opera House for a performance of Edward Scissorhands, which was a ballet, and amazingly well-done. The Opera House is incredible in real life and it was a really fun night to complete my Australia trip.

Next up, Shanghai!