Melbourne, Australia

Dates: May 20 - May 22
Only a short taste, but honestly, it was enough, not because I didn't like it, but rather because it's a city you need to experience rather than visit. In fact, one of the people I met here used to work for Arthur Blank's (owner of the Atlanta Falcons... come on, you know that) ranch in Montana, and she came to Melbourne to live for a few months to get a better taste of it after being there for a few days previously. Maybe that's my future: work for the Arthur Blank (preferably the Falcons and not his ranch...) and move to Melbourne for a while!

Accommodation: United Backpackers Melbourne
This hostel was better and worse than the one in Sydney. Worse in terms of room, but much better in terms of company. The hostel had a bunch of events going on, so it was pretty easy to meet people and hang out with them.

Itinerary:
Day 1

• Arrive

Day 2

• Hostel-hosted walking tour of Melbourne, which included:
• Federation Square - public outdoor space designed created in the 2000s, that has free Wi-Fi, huge TVs (that were playing Friends when we were there), etc.
• Chinatown
• Royal Arcade - apparently this is what an arcade is, architecturally.
• Street Art, including Hosier Lane and ACDC Lane - didn't know this, but Melbourne is actually a huge place for street art, influenced by NYC artists
• Walk along Yarra River, including:
• Docklands - relatively new area with lots of stuff, e.g., bars, condos, sports stadium
• Flinders Street Railway Station - Melbourne's main train station with pretty old architecture
• Southbank - another area with bars, restaurants, etc. Also has a casino, where I was lucky enough to win some $

Selected pics:

A couple examples of the awesome street art found at a couple different places in the city.

The clocks at Flinders Street Station.

Webb Bridge, which connects Southbank to the Docklands across the Yarra River.

Day 3

• Trip to St. Kilda - nearby beach town. Houses Luna Park, which was built after the park in Coney Island
• Walk around University of Melbourne
• Queen Victoria Market - huge market with lots of shops to buy anything you want. Reminded me of a farmers market, except one that sold everything.

Selected pics:

Seen at Queen Victoria Market: Actual backpacks that look like those backpacks in cartoons.

A building in Melbourne continuing to show off its character.

The Royal Arcade - not as cool as what I was hoping for after hearing the name of it.

Random tidbits:

• Melbourne actually reminded me a lot of Seattle. Definitely recommend checking the other out if you've only been to one of the two. Big things (e.g., type of people, vibe of the city) and small things (e.g., they are very particular about their coffee, street art).
• Melbourne is apparently huge on AFL. I think someone mentioned half the AFL teams play in the city. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to a game, as there was one on Saturday, but I had already left on Friday.
• This is more of an Australia thing than a Melbourne thing, but iced coffee is actually more of a desert than a drink like it is here in the US. They take cold coffee, throw some ice cream in it, and add whipped cream on top.
• I'm considering studying abroad in Australia. UT Austin has an MBA study abroad program that partners with schools in both Sydney and Melbourne, so it's seriously worth considering, especially given the note I mentioned earlier about needing to be there for an extended amount of time to really experience it. I could also use the rest of this trip as a tour for a bunch of study abroad locations. Let's see what happens.
• Along the same lines, walking around the city was really, really cool. Anywhere you turned could be something random and unique, such as a narrow alleyway that was actually a restaurant or an arcade (such as the ones mentioned earlier).
• Apparently, I walked over 80 miles in Australia... Had no idea that was possible in about a week's time.

Sydney, Australia

You know that place that you've wanted to go to for so long, that you don't even remember why it was on your list to begin with? Yeah, for me, that was Sydney, and to a large extent, Australia in general.

Dates: May 15 - May 20

Since this was one of the top places on my list, I figured I should spend the most amount of time there. Actually, this is just how the flights worked out, but I like to thing it was fate that I was in Sydney for the longest amount of time of any city.

Accommodation: Hostel - Bounce Sydney

To be honest, it's been a long time since I stayed in a hostel, so I can't really tell you how it was compared to others I've stayed at. What I can say is that it was pretty cool that they had lockers with chargers inside of them, so you could charge your stuff while it was locked away. The staff was nice, they had events every night, but I don't know, I just wasn't feeling it.

Itinerary (I say itinerary like it was planned, but it's more like "how things ended up working out"):

I'm still figuring out the format of this, so let me know what you think.

Day 1

• Circular Quay (pronounced "key") - This is probably the main area of Sydney. All the ferries take off from here, all the cruise ships dock here, and many of the iconic Sydney architecture pieces are right here, too.
• The Rocks - Oldest area of Sydney.
• Manly Beach - Supposedly named so because the Aboriginals that lived here were more manly than those the British had encountered elsewhere. Hung out with my sister's second friend (like second cousin) all day here.
• Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) - Museum that houses contemporary art (shocking, I know).
• Marquee - Popular club in Sydney, owned by the same folks as Marquee in Vegas.

Selected pics:

Day 2

• Darling Harbour - One harbour away from the Sydney Harbour, lots of cool stuff here like restaurants, a park, etc. Most of the business in Sydney are located between Sydney and Darling Harbours.
• Queen Victoria Building - Huge shopping mall with, according to Wikipedia, "Romanesque revival" architecture.
• Chinatown - Yeah, Chinatown.
• Sydney Opera House - Most perfect building I've ever seen.
• The Ivy - 5 story club owned by a really rich dude whose dad got rich by being in the mafia, and was sent to jail. Kid decided to legitimize the family money and build a really popular club that has a pool area (where people can get in), a changing room area (with a dance floor that plays hip hop), and a courtyard (that plays EDM). Hung out with Sisco, an old friend from study abroad, here.

Selected pics:

Day 3

• Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach Coastal Walk - Really scenic walk along the eastern coast of Australia.
• Centennial Park - Token large park in the city.
• AFL Stadium - Just walked by this, but pretty self explanatory. 

Selected pics:

Day 4

• Art Gallery of New South Wales - An art gallery in New South Wales (the state Sydney is located in). Australians are really creative with their naming system.
• Mrs Macquarie's Point/Chair - Scenic point where you can catch the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge in one frame. Named after an old governor's wife.
• Hyde Park - Park dedicated to ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps).
• St. Mary's Cathedral - Big(gest?) cathedral in Sydney.

Selected pics:

Day 5

• Blue Mountains - Scenic mountains outside of the city. Lots of cool hikes and aboriginal history here.
• Featherdale Wildlife Park - Basically a zoo where you can see animals and play with koalas and kangaroos.

Selected pics:

Day 6

• Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb - Really unique experience where you can walk along the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Did this with Navs!
• Dr. Seuss Art Museum - Art museum where you can buy pieces of Dr. Seuss' work.

Selected pics:

Random tidbits:

• Australians are huge on coffee. And brekky (that's breakfast).
• Free WiFi is pretty hard to find in Sydney. Didn't realize they were still in the 18th century here. That's all I've got to say about this.
• If I had to pick the 3 most picturesque places I've been, they would be (in alphabetical order):
• Dubrovnik, Croatia
• O'ahu, Hawaii
• Sydney, Australia
• There are way more British tourists here than I expected, and not nearly as many Americans.
• There are these random signs that say "VIP Lounge" everywhere (literally 2-3 per block) in Sydney CBD (central business district). Apparently, they're bars that also have some casino aspect to them. That took me a really long time to figure out.
• Australian Football is actually pretty cool to watch. The best thing about it is that it's a lot more free flowing than American football. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch a game while I was here.
• Missing the Hawks beat the Wizards to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time ever sucks. It's hard finding a bar that is open with the 14 hour time difference, and I can't find WiFi to stream it on. I know, #firstworldproblems.
• Asian food in Sydney is awesome, probably due to its proximity to the homeland. I had Malaysian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese food while I was here, all of which were incredible.
• There are a bunch of people who move here for months/years at a time on what's called a "Work and Holiday Visa". Details here. It makes sense, because it's so far away that to explore appropriately (and cost-effectively), it's the easiest thing to do. Something to think about in the future, but it's only good until the the age of 30 (I can't believe that I'm at the point where that's a caveat...).
• Public transportation is interesting (aka confusing) here. They have a bunch of different ways you can get places, e.g., passes by # of days/$ amount, different zones (distances), different types of transportation (bus, train, ferry) and various combinations of all of those. The simplest way to get around is using an Opal card, which is completely $ based and works on all transportation methods. Here's the cool part about the Opal card: There's a maximum amount you can spend per day, so if you travel more than the maximum amount, the rest of your transportation for the day is free. And the limit is pretty low; it can range from something like $3-4 on Sundays to something like $15 on weekdays.
• Sydney did a really good job of having free exhibits at every museum or art gallery I went to. They had some paid exhibits as well, but it's nice to see free stuff for those who want just a taste.

More lessons learned:

• I'm actually really, really sad about something from this trip. There's a yearly festival called Vivid Sydney (http://www.vividsydney.com) that starts on 5/22 this year, which happens to be the day I leave Australia. Unfortunately, there's not a lot I could do about this (having found out about it upon arriving in Sydney), but it's just something I'll have to plan to come back to in the future. Basically, they install a bunch of interactive art around the entire city in the form of lights, music, etc. If you're too lazy to check out the link, here are some photos from Google images. It seriously looks incredible.

Next up: Melbourne, Australia

The Beginning - Flights

For those of you who may be new to the blog, the way I usually break posts up is by city. I’ll put some random thoughts and stuff in between, but in terms of “stuff I did”, you’ll have to wait until I leave for the next place to see a post. So, since I’m still in Sydney and that post won’t be ready for a few days, here’s a post about a few things before I arrived in Sydney. Feel free to leave comments about anything related to the post, including feedback. I think the “posted by” defaults to Anonymous unless you’re logged into Google, so leave your name, too. There have been two very clever comments on the previous post, but unfortunately, I don’t know who to attribute them to for this reason :(

If I had to pick two things I was worried about going into the trip, they would have been having to deal with long flights and not meeting anyone. I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised with how well both of these things are going so far. Here’s why:

1. Long flights: I know these two things will both come as a surprise, but I’m not a patient person, and I really hate being stuck in the same place for long periods of time. In fact, a big reason I don’t like watching movies is because it requires me to sit in the same place for 1.5+ hours. That being said, I was a little (aka very) anxious about my flight from New York City to Sydney, which connected in Guangzhou, China. That flight was to take 16.5 hours (by the way, I wish they had an equivalent of upper case for numbers, because what that should sound like is SIXTEEN AND A HALF!! hours). On a scale from 1-10, I would place myself at 8.5 about how sure I was that I was going to be bored out of my mind for the entire flight. Here’s the cool thing… that didn’t happen, mostly due to awesome planning by me (#modesty). Really though, there were 3 things that contributed:
1. My flight was to arrive in Sydney at 8am, and my goal was to make sure I was ready to hit the ground running when I landed. In order to do that, I had to be very selective about how I slept. According to my Jawbone UP24, I slept about 3.5 hours the night before my flight, which allowed me to be sufficiently tired to be able to sleep on the plane when I wanted to, but not tired enough to fall asleep without trying to. I needed to maintain that level of tiredness, because upon connecting in Guangzhou, I needed to sleep the entire flight to Sydney. So using this strategy, I probably got about 8 hours of sleep during the first flight (thanks to lay flat seats), and I succeeded in making it through the day of arrival without being too tired.
2. Flying international business class makes time feel like it goes by fast. They offered 3 meals during the first flight (a 5-course meal, a 3-course meal, and a snack, which I slept through). If you add that up, it probably accounts for a not-insignificant 1.5 hours of the flight.
3. I know I just said I don’t like watching movies, but when I don’t have a choice about being stuck in the same place, movies are actually a great way to pass the time (queue everyone's collective, "duh"). I finished the second Hobbit movie and watched the third; this probably took up about 4 hours of flight time. Add in take off, landing, trying to understand the Chinese crew’s English, and bam, that’s basically the entire flight. Not too shabby.
2. Not meeting anyone: Despite the fact that I knew I would meet people along the way, there was still this thing in my mind that said, "ANKUSH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" So far, though, I think feel a lot better about this as well. Below are a couple of small events that helped me feel better about it.
1. Background: Delta has a very cool feature in a few of their Sky Clubs across the country (I believe it’s ATL, JFK, and LAX), where they have an outdoor seating area where you can eat, drink, watch planes taxi/take off, and inhale jet fumes (wait, that one doesn’t belong). This was something I was very excited about seeing, so the first thing I did when I got to JFK was head straight there. Upon arriving at the outdoor area, there was one other person there, who works for a newspaper company in the bay area. We struck up a conversation, and before you know it, we’re LinkedIn connections. Good way to kick off the trip.
2. On the flight from Guangzhou to Sydney, one of the flight attendants was Australian. I’m pretty sure they stuck her with me because I’m the only person who didn’t speak Mandarin on the plane, but I’ll take it. She was very cool and gave a bunch of suggestions on things to do while I’m here.

Other things:

• After being in the Guangzhou airport for < 1 hour, I came to the conclusion that it’s nearly impossible to share opinions (or anything, really) in China. There’s no Google, no Facebook, no Snapchat, and no Instagram. It’s like they’re begging me to Reddit all day (I know, I’m shocked that’s not banned either). I’m sure there are Chinese equivalents to all of these sites, but as someone who lives in the US, it’s very weird to type in all of these sites and have them time out. Upon additional testing, I was able to access all of these sites through the mobile network but not through WiFi. I wonder if that’s some kind of deal the carriers struck with their Chinese partners… Thanks T-Mobile for the free international (2G…) data!
• I was slightly worried about what flying China Southern would entail since I’d never heard of the airline. Turns out they’re pretty awesome. Here’s why:
• The first plane I flew was a pretty new Boeing 777. I think I remember reading that this flight started about a year ago, and they bought the planes specifically for this flight.
• Apparently, they’ll provide you one night at a hotel for free if your layover is between 8 and 48 hours. And they’ll give you a 72 hour visa exemption. If only I had known this before…
• Their meals are ridiculous. I alluded to it above, but in two flights, I had three 3-5 course meals and 2 “snacks”. I say “snacks” because honestly, it was more food than if I were to make dinner at home (which also partly may be because I suck at cooking, but that’s not the point). I’m sure part of this was because I was flying business class, but I’m not sure if this is a China Southern thing, non-American airline thing, or I’m just stupid and this is completely normal.
• For some reason, my TV stopped working during the flight (I think I’m jinxed because this happened to me on my flight to Hawaii, too), and when they couldn’t fix it, they had a tablet they provided me with which was synced with the system. Pretty sick.

Beloare some pictures from the flights and such.

I've been obsessed with time lapses lately, so here's one from JFK's Delta Sky Club in Terminal 4:

Plane from JFK to Guangzhou:

Business class layflat seats with cute little slippers they gave us to wear:

1st page of 3 pages dedicated to the "main meal":

Redditing in the business class lounge in Guangzhou:

Next post: Sydney

The "Round-the-World" Trip

Being the professional procrastinator that I am, I’m posting my first blog post of this trip after I’ve already left. In fact, you don’t even know what trip I’m talking about, because I haven’t mentioned it yet. So, here’s the story.

Back when I first started consulting, I heard about this thing called the “round-the-world (RTW) ticket”. Without knowing any details, how awesome does that sound? Okay, dumb question, but it probably also sounds really expensive, so let me explain. Basically, for 180,000 SkyMiles (+ taxes), you could get an economy class ticket to 7 places around the world, with a few restrictions (e.g., you can only fly in one direction, there’s a maximum number of segments). Better yet, for 280,000 SkyMiles, you could get the same ticket in business class! Obviously, my goal for the next few years became to earn enough miles for that ticket. (Aside: For those of you who don’t already know, earning miles takes a really, really long time. Earning hotel points is much quicker and more valuable.)

Anyways, this ticket was always in the back of my mind until last year, when there was a rumor that Delta was going to stop offering the ticket after December 31, 2014. Upon hearing the news, there were two things that made me decide to go ahead and book it.

1. Timing: I was planning on going to business school in 2015, so it’d be an awesome way to transition.
2. Status Benefits: If you have platinum or diamond status on Delta, they let you cancel tickets on miles up to 72 hours before the flight for a full refund, meaning if something happened, I could cancel it with no harm done to my mileage account or bank account.

Afterwards, I began planning my trip, figuring out potential destinations based on a few criteria:

1. Destinations that I’ve really, really wanted to go to (no explanation necessary).
2. Destinations that are a little far out of the way/hard to get to, because if I’m going to go somewhere far away, I might as well be going in business class.
3. Destinations that are generally expensive to get to, because if I’m paying a fixed price, I might as well get the most bang for the buck.

After researching for a few weeks, and after a couple of scheduling tweaks here and there, I came up with my final itinerary, which would take place over a span of 35 days:

• New York City -> Sydney* (China Southern)
• Melbourne* -> Tokyo (China Southern)
• Requires a separate ticket outside of RTW to get to Melbourne from Sydney.
• Tokyo -> Hong Kong (China Airlines)
• Hong Kong -> Istanbul* (Aeroflot)
• Istanbul* -> Johnannesburg (KLM)
• Long layover in Amsterdam, so I can leave the airport and come back.
• Really, I wanted to go to Cape Town, but there were no available flights, so this required a separate ticket outside of RTW to get from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back.
• Johannesburg -> Rio de Janeiro* (Air France)
• Long layover in Paris, so I can leave the airport and come back.
• Going to Iguazu Falls for 1 day, which required a separate ticket outside of RTW.
• Sao Paulo* -> Atlanta (Delta)
• Requires a separate ticket outside of RTW to get to Sao Paulo from Rio de Janeiro.

(*) Indicates a visa was required with a US Passport for this location.

PS - I also made an awesome spreadsheet with all this information + a bunch of other stuff that only a consultant would be proud of, but that’s a different story for another day.

A few things I was excited about upon booking this trip:

• Getting to experience all of these places (duh).
• Making myself book a 35 day trip without planned company at the time of booking. I say at the time of booking because, since then, a few things have happened:
• I told my sister if she helped me plan my trip, I’d fly her somewhere to meet me. It worked out best for her to come to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Because my sister and I were both going to be there, my parents decided to come, too. So, Tokyo and Hong Kong are now part of a family trip.
• A friend I met while studying abroad lives in Sydney, so we’re planning on meeting up at some point. I'm actually planning on meeting up with 4 different people that I somehow know while I'm here, so that will be pretty cool.
• My roommate decided to come to Istanbul, since he also hadn’t been and wanted to go.
• A couple of my friends are planning to come to Rio de Janeiro on standby flights.
• Meeting random people at hostels or otherwise, because who knows what will happen.
• It’s worth noting that I’m only staying at hostels in cities where I have no company. If I know someone that will also be traveling to the location with me, I’m planning on using points to get a hotel.
• Comparing a ton of international airlines and airports with domestic ones.
• Flying business class internationally on different aircraft (including the new Airbus A380!).

Things I maybe should have considered that didn’t really factor in, and how I offset them (I’m sure there will be a lot more of these as I go):

1. Weather differences - Half of my places are near the equator (hot), and the other half are in the southern hemisphere (winter).
1. To be fair, I actually did think of this. I decided since I wasn’t going to be “backpacking”, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I could just take a suitcase a little larger than a carry-on and check it in for flights (because it’s free with a business class ticket)... and it’s now occurring to me that I’m relying heavily on airport baggage handlers to not steal things… guess I’m keeping anything remotely valuable in my backpack for this trip.
2. Layovers - You do not want to be on a long flight, followed by another long flight, with no time in between to stretch your legs and get your blood flowing.
1. My original flight from Johannesburg to Rio de Janeiro had a 3ish hour layover in Paris. Bad idea. Rescheduled it so I could have 30 hours rather than 3. Yay for having airline status.
3. Timing - I booked it for May based on work stuff, but probably should have done it a little later given that I was planning on going to business school, and aggressive timelines occasionally (almost always) get delayed anyways.
1. Had to quit my job earlier than I wanted because of this one, which is probably okay because it gives me more time to relax over the summer and maybe try some new things before I move.

Random aside: Because of #3, I had a few major things going on at once. My suggestion (probably everyone in the world’s suggestion) is to make sure to avoid situations like this. I had to:

• Quit my job and finish transitioning responsibilities.
• Continue planning my trip, which I had done very little of.
• Sublet my apartment (PS - don’t tell anyone! I’m technically not allowed to).
• Complete enrollment activities for business school.
• Find a new place and start a new lease before I left.
• Look for potential things to do for the remaining part of summer (e.g., internship, roadtrips in the US)