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| Is It a Hotel or a Pub? |
SIDNEY,
AUSTRIA: I didn’t bother making hotel reservations before I left for Australia.
Just showing up has worked better for me. It gives me the opportunity to check
out the availability, and then decide. Sydney, I figured, should have plenty of
hotels. The train to the city center is conveniently located next to the
airport — $16 for a twenty-minute ride. I got off at Circular Quay from where I
could see the Opera House and thought would be a propitious spot to
find a hotel. I wasn’t disappointed, not far away I saw a small unimposing
hotel that would probably not bust my budget, but to my surprise it was closed,
locked up tight as a drum. A little farther down the street I saw another hotel
but it too was locked up. “What gives
with these hotels,” I thought. Granted I also saw a Marriott and a
Radisson, which my wife, if she were here, would jump on, but were clearly
beyond my budget. I stopped by two more small hotels, but they too were closed
and then came to one where I could at least see someone inside. I waved to him
through the locked door. He reluctantly opened the door. “Hello, are you open?” I said. “Nah,
we’re not open for a few hours,” he replied. “But you’re a hotel, aren’t you?” He looked at my bags and shook his
head, “We’re a pub, mate. Hotels are what we
call them here.”
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| City Bus Tour |
You can’t miss all the Chinese tourists in Sydney. I say Nǐ hǎo whenever I have the opportunity. They often act surprised, even delighted, that a Westerner would know this much. On the city bus tour, a Chinese family of four got on. The father sat down next to me and, of course, I said, “Nǐ hǎo.” He smiled, “You speak Chinese?” “Nah, just the one word.” His English was excellent. They were from Beijing. He worked for the Chinese Airline Industry Association. “So you fly a lot?” I said. “Yes, quite a bit. In fact, we spent six months in San Francisco — liked it a lot.” One of his daughters, maybe eight or so, reached over the seat in front of us to show her dad a picture on her iPhone of her and her younger sister in clown outfits. “Those your daughters?” I asked. “Yes,” he said proudly. “Two children, I thought that was impossible,” I said. “It’s possible, you just have to pay the penalty.” “And how does that work?” “It cost us about $30,000 for the young one. The penalty is six times the average annual income in Beijing.” “And what if you had a third child?” “Oh then the penalty would be much, much, higher.” I would have loved to learn more, but I had to get off at the next stop.
