The land-down-under is about half the distance from Taiwan than from California, and only two or three hours time zone away versus eighteen or nineteen from California, so we decided to take advantage of such geographical givenness and went on a 9-day trip visiting the east-southeastern coast of Australia, specifically, the metropolitan areas of Gold Coast, Sydney, and Brisbane during the Christmas holidays.
Gold Coast is a collection of small townships with beautiful beach parks and high-rise dominated skyline along a 60 kilometre long coastline. It boasts a spectacular network of navigable waterways made up of five main rivers and many creeks, lakes, and canals.
We took a boat along the coast to a shallow shoal where we caught little crawfish in the sand, then used it as bait to catch fish, which I did in less than two minutes! I don't imagine I would have had such fun or luck at my hometown coast in Southern California!
Going inland, we visited an eco-friendly zoo where we saw many native animals of Australia up close and personal: kangaroo petting, koala holding, lorikeets (Australian parrots) flying overhead, brushturkey and gecko roaming around, as well as enjoying the very original and powerful dancing of the aboriginal people.
But nothing beat the excitement of taking a hot air balloon in the early morning, blasting off to thousands feet high, watching the sun gold-glimmering at the edge of a white bubbly clouds ocean in its early rise, the pastoral plain and lakes with resting cows below, the surrounding hills and mountains of the valley, and even the silhouette of some high-rises on the far away coastline.
Sydney is an hour flight south from Gold Coast. Its jagged-edged harbor with a long-spanning coathanger-looking steel bridge alongside the waterfront facing Opera House makes for great looking views from all angles.
Sydney is an hour flight south from Gold Coast. Its jagged-edged harbor with a long-spanning coathanger-looking steel bridge alongside the waterfront facing Opera House makes for great looking views from all angles.
We took a tour inside the Opera House and learned of the engineering and design marvels such as self-cleaning tiles, pipeless drainage, exquisite auditory control, dynamic stage/room configurations, etc. that make the Opera House not only a distinctive venue for performing arts but also a multi-facet facility providing rooms for theatres, studios, restaurants, conferences, ceremonies and social functions.
This was a small 13-people tour group we joined from Taiwan. Though we mostly kept to ourselves, we gradually got to know each other after a few days traveling together. Norman is a man in his mid 50's taking his wife and mother-in-law and aunt-in-law along on this trip, he works as an executive account manager for a semiconductor equipment company headquartered in northern California; Han and Xiu are both semiconductor engineers in their late 40's working at a major fab company in central Taiwan, they have two teen-age daughters whom they left at home for the first time for this trip; Bo, a fun-loving young man in his mid 20's who just got married to a sweet young lady accompanying him on this semi-honey moon trip of theirs, works at an AI startup in Taipei; and FC, the only single person in the group in his early 40's, works at the marketing department of an old school steel manufacturing company in southern Taiwan ... What a perfect dissection of the social, demographic, and industrial reality of modern day Taiwan!
I enjoyed talking with each of them on occasion during the trip, and on the day of Christmas Eve when we happened to have an Aussie steak dinner at a restaurant, I opened up the red wine (after paying the expensive cork fee to the restaurant) we got from the winery we visited on our first day in Australia to share with everyone, as well as a box of chocolates we bought at a mall in Sydney that day. I think we all had a memorable Christmas Eve in the summer in Australia that evening!
Just as memorable as this whole trip would be!
Just as memorable as this whole trip would be!
* For more photos and notes for the trip, go to
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