Thailand – it’s a country that conjures up many images. It’s a country filled with colorful, ornate, and bejeweled temples and palaces, fresh flower strings and food offerings to Buddhist monks, and a complex and fiery cuisine known for its focus on spices, limes and lemongrass. It’s also a place on the map that is marred by its reputation for prostitution, human trafficking, and “happy ending” massages. Thailand is a place that tends to be either loved or hated depending on who you ask. Those who love it admire it for its spirituality, cuisine, and culture (plus how far the U.S. dollar goes here if you are American, as you can easily get by spending $3 USD/day or less here on food), while those who avoid it are like a friend of mine, who recently rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, I have no interest in going there (Thailand).” She felt no need to explain herself, but I knew what she meant, as she was referring to all the negative aspects I mentioned above. That saddens me, though, because I think that after just two days of visiting, Thailand deserves far more respect than it gets. For the most part, people seem happy and healthy here. Their life expectancy actually exceeds that of the U.S. (another way that Americans are far less superior despite being a “developed” Western nation. Service, whether at a tiny open-air food stall on the street or at a mid-range restaurant in the middle of Bangkok, is always with a smile, even when I speak no more than three words in Thai.

The king recently died in Thailand, so the country is currently in mourning. This year’s New Year’s festivities have been toned down according to our hotel concierge, as the country’s government feels it would be disrespectful to have celebrations as big as in past years given his recent passing. And it was clear that the country was in mourning as we visited the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha this morning, as literally hundreds of people, men and women, old and young, lined up wearing all black and black ribbons pinned to their shirts to pay their respects to the king at the temple. Initially, we wondered given the sheer number of people dressed this way whether a black uniform was just a work thing in the country, but as we walked into the temple grounds, we realized… no, this is just the citizens of the country coming to pray for the king.

Although as tourists we are visiting these sites to see the temples for their architecture, intense handiwork in creating mosaic-like jeweled facades on these vast structures, and to simply see what makes cities like Bangkok and Chiangmai famous, I realize that everyday people come here in droves just to pray and give offerings to the Buddha. Spirituality runs deep here, as does respect for authority.

Respect in Asian cultures is so deeply ingrained. It’s rare to see the same type of respect and devotion in a country like the U.S.

After doing a quick wine tasting at the famed Voyager Estate, we drove back up to Fremantle to do the Fremantle Prison tunnel tour. The prison tunnel tour is a bit different than your usual prison tour in that it’s very intensive in what they require you to do. Because you will be canoeing in water and climbing very long ladders in a harness, they mandate that you take a breathalyzer test (can’t have any drunks on this tour), tie your hair up if it’s long, wear socks so that you can put on gum boots, and also wear helmets and body suits to cover yourself from all the dust and debris that may get on you. I’ve never heard of any tour that makes you do a breathalyzer test, so I knew we were in for something crazy.

The tunnels are were the prisoners of the Fremantle Prison worked under the prison during the end of the 1800s, and it was eye opening to see the terrible conditions that prisoners have always had to endure up until today. Not that prisons in the U.S. are known for treating their inmates well, but here, they were forced to wear kilos-heavy shackles on their ankles and climb ominously unstable and thin ladders, carrying all types of heavy material to do their work in tunnels and holes that barely had any light. If anyone died in the prison, their family would be notified only of their death, but not how they died. They had virtually zero rights. And if an inmate ever got on the bad side of another inmate, it would be easy to fake an accidental death by pushing them off the ladder or beating them over the head with shackles. No one would ever find out, so what was there to lose?

I always feel so sad for prisoners. In most cases, many of them did commit wrong and violent crimes. But at the end of the day, they are still human beings who have rights. It especially pains me to think of prisoners who have spouses and children that they can barely see if at all (in the U.S. at least, I know that minors are not allowed to visit inmates). What have the spouses or the children done to have deserved being separated from their husband or wife or father or mother?

Today, we did a tour of the Margaret River area of Western Australia, which encompassed far more than just wineries that Australians usually talk about first when mentioning WA. We started the day with canoeing along the river, visited a little creek area and learned about local, healing honey, and had a delicious lunch among the wine vats at the boutique Fraser Gallop winery. Then we progressed onto seeing the Wilyabrup Cliffs in a secluded area you can access only by a 4WD. When the day ended with our guide, who toured six of us around, we went on to a forest to see these endless regional trees and visited a beach to see the surf.

One person who was on our tour was actually local, and she was originally from Melbourne but moved out to Margaret River once her daughter decided to move there. She originally just wanted to visit, but she fell in love with the area when visiting and decided to stay. Her friend who accompanied her on the tour who was visiting was going back to Sydney, but she had lived in the area for a few years, working random jobs at wineries, reaping the benefits of the wine discounts and just there to enjoy life. When the guide asked her what she did for work, she responded that she just needed a job, any job, and decided to work at a winery. She’s working to live, not living to work, so whatever paid the bills and allowed her the lifestyle she wanted would be what she’d do while in the Margaret River.

It’s so rare to hear anyone in my industry say they are working to live, not living to work. In tech, the way it works is that it’s the cool and trendy and “right” thing to say that you will do whatever it is that is needed for your company so that in our startup case, you will get bought or go public because that’s the end all and be all of your life. If you were to ever say that you worked to live, no one would ever compliment you; in fact, people would be more likely to look down on you and think you are some loser who doesn’t fit into the “culture” of the company. We’re all supposed to be ambitious, trying to achieve the most for the company and our careers. Anyone who doesn’t fit that will not fit in.

In the modern day world of social media where everyone’s travel photos are at the tip of your fingers, it’s easy to see amazing destinations all over the world on your small mobile phone screen and romanticize about how lovely it would be to visit. You see hill after hill of sand dunes and think, what a beautiful place to visit and photograph; I’d love to stand up on that hill and experience that.

Then, your reality comes, and you do visit. And the experience is not as lovely as you imagined. Instead, you end up feeling the greatest winds that Western Australia is capable of and nearly get blown down a sand dune with the thickest layer of sand stuck on every inch of your body, even when you have clothes on. Your mouth is full of sand because the wind blows it into your mouth the few times you open your mouth to either talk to your partner or scream down the hill. All the while, you are trying to do sand boarding for the first time and realize it’s not as idyllic as Instagram uploaded photos want you to think it is. In fact, you are trying to board down a hill against the wind, which results in your eyeballs getting stuck with sand in them; your sunglasses, or your “sunnies” as we call them here, are not enough to cover your eyes from the intense speed of the sand blowing literally everywhere. You have to floss sand out of your teeth later that evening. That’s how much sand there is. It is seriously everywhere and even gets embedded in your scalp and ear canals. If you are a woman, it’s even in your bra. Yep — in your bra. Let’s not even get started where else that sand found its way to.

That was us today at the Lancelin Sand Dunes after our local WA rock lobster lunch north of Perth. We rented one sand board for two hours and stayed only half an hour to board down the dunes. The guy from whom we rented the board said that we came on a bad day and that today had some of the worst winds Lancelin was capable of seeing.  I don’t think I’ve ever experienced more insane wind in my life.

And the end part that was really bad and is lingering? I didn’t have my hair tied up because I wasn’t thinking, so this monstrous Lancelin wind destroyed my hair. I ended up getting large knots all over my fine hair, resulting in huge chunks getting ripped out tonight with a wide-toothed comb. And I never get knots. Now, my hair is brittle at the ends and probably in the worst condition it’s ever been in. I never thought hair masks or leave-in conditioner was important until now. I’m going to need at least a night’s worth of coconut oiling to get my hair back.

This morning, we flew from Melbourne to Perth, Western Australia, as our side Australian trip this year. Western Australia is one of the largest states in the world, and just getting from Perth to the top of Western Australia could take 24-36 hours driving time. During our five days in the state, we’ll barely be touching a dot of it but are trying to see as much as we can that is in the vicinity. This will be my first time on the west coast of Australia, and my first time seeing the Indian Ocean.

Western Australia isn’t really a place that the average person thinks to go to first when they think of Australia. Oftentimes when you meet people who have been to Australia, they think of or have been to Sydney, Melbourne, or Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reef. Perth, Broome, or the Margaret River aren’t top of mind unless they are Australian. WA has a more rugged “bush” feeling than the east coast of Australia – at least, that’s what I’ve been told since I’ve been here for only a day at this point. Of all the friends I’ve told about our WA trip, only one had heard of Perth before and had a strong desire to go. And if it weren’t for Chris, I probably wouldn’t have known anything about Perth or the Margaret River. I’d even heard of Adelaide, South Australia, before I’d learned about Perth.

That’s actually a shame, though, because Western Australia has so much that is amazing about Australia: gorgeous aqua beaches, intense waves for world-class surfing (yeah, not for me, but I will happily watch), white sand, golden desserts, tropical flora and exotic fauna everywhere. And because it is lesser known on an international scale (especially for Americans who probably don’t know where to identify Australia on a world map), it’s satisfying to tell people I’m going here when they have no clue what or where it is. Popular destinations are popular for a reason, but that’s because enough people have gone there to make that road known. We have to start somewhere, and someone is eventually going to do it. But some places that were once relatively unknown eventually blow up – places like Iceland, where I personally know three clients, three colleagues, and five friends who have gone in the last year. I’m not crapping on Iceland; I’d love to visit it, but it’s such a turnoff when everyone and their grandmother is going to a specific destination like Iceland.

Jeju Island, the honeymoon island of South Korea that was once virtually unknown outside of Korea, is now incredibly popular with foreign tourists to the point that now, many tourists go to South Korea to visit Seoul and Jeju, and then leave. It’s fun to take the roads less traveled to then come home to friends and tell them what an amazing experience you had at a place where few people to no one you know has gone to, and then convince them that this is a place worth adding to their travel bucket list.

Perth is also one of the most isolated major cities in the world, and maybe this is the introverted side of me, but the idea of being isolated from the rest of the world is actually quite exciting.

It’s hard, though, when you have limited paid leave, a fixed travel budget, and need to make hard decisions about how and where to spend your holiday, especially for Americans with such annoying and stingy paid time off policies. Oftentimes, we end up doing what is the easiest – visiting major cities that people we know are aware of and skipping everything in between those cities. Chris’s cousin recently biked through Vietnam from the south to the north and was able to see so much of the country that the average Vietnam visitor would not have seen. “I just don’t see how anyone could just go to Ho Chi Minh City, then fly up to Hanoi, and leave,” she said.” “So many people do this. Why would you do that? There’s so much else to see!” I understand that sentiment, but then the reality of everything above I mentioned kicks in; you want to see what you know and have heard of when you know your time is limited and you don’t have weeks or months to explore lesser known areas. It’s all about how you set your priorities given your time constraints. Me? As the saying goes: I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

When I’m traveling, I often write a short post on things that surprise me or are different than what I am used to back in the U.S. I realize that I don’t think I’ve done one for Australia even though I’ve visited this country five times now, so maybe it’s time to compile a short list.

1. Everyone says “Merry Christmas” here, even those who aren’t Christian and don’t celebrate Christmas. Take that, you politically correct American idiots. “Happy holidays” is such a crap saying. The more I see “Merry Christmas, Melbourne” signs and hear “Merry Christmas” being said to everyone and anyone here, the more annoyed with New York and San Francisco I get. Trump got one thing right: Americans, especially those who live on the coasts and in blue states, are way too obsessed with being politically correct just to seem like they aren’t racist or prejudiced. When are people going to realize that so many people love Christmas for the beauty or material aspect of it rather than the religious part? The island nation of Mauritius is 80% Muslim, yet everyone has a Christmas tree and wishes each other “Merry Christmas” happily and freely. They aren’t standing around getting offended because they are Muslim.
2. Most bathroom stalls are actually toilets in rooms with locks. They’re not the cheap bathroom stalls where you can see people’s feet underneath and hear literally everything going on as someone is pissing or shitting. They’re not as concerned with cutting costs here as they are in the U.S.
3. The obsession with renovations and new construction and newness in general is so tiring here. A home that is 20 years old here is considered old and time to tear down to build a new one; the Marriott Circular Quay where we’re staying in Sydney for the next day while Chris is there for work has its lobby under construction until March 2017. If you asked me, I would say it looked pretty modern and fancy when we were there this time last year.
4. No one cares what you do for a living here. In the U.S. when you meet someone for the first time, chances are that within the first few back and forth questions to get to know each other, the question of what you do will come up quickly. Here, no one seems to care what anyone else does. Most of Chris’s family, who I’ve been seeing every year for the last five years, have no freaking clue what I do for a living, nor do they care. The question doesn’t even come up. And that’s not to say they don’t care about me, but they don’t care about the prestige or lack of prestige my job has. It feels so refreshing to not discuss work and money.
5. Orange yolked eggs. I cannot get enough of these. Chickens eat grass and bugs here, which is normal. In the U.S. for the most part, they eat corn and grain. That’s not normal. And that results in yellow yolks, which are never as pretty or as nutritious as the orange yolks.
6. Water is never poured into glasses for you when you sit down at a table. Servers usually ask you if you’d like water, then if you say yes, they bring over a water-filled carafe and two glasses. You serve yourself. Minimize water waste. The world needs it.
7. For my racist cousin: it’s common to see Asian man/white woman couples here and not just Asian woman/white man couples the way we do in the U.S.
8. CAR TAXES ARE SO EXPENSIVE. Your $40K Lexus in the U.S. will cost something like $100K here in Australia. Eeeek.
9. Australians in general get far more paid leave than the average American. However, when they do request leave, it’s such a big deal because they really do need someone to sub in for their work (me? I check email every single day I’m on paid time off and in many cases respond at least once a day). Most of the time, they are asking for leave and also providing a reason, so everyone knows what they are doing and where they are going. I’ve never really tried to justify my time of with a reason; in fact, most of my employers could care less what I do with my free time.
10. Bathrooms here are usually marked with signs that say “toilets” with a directional arrow. In the U.S., we usually write “restrooms.” I guess “resting” is eliminating body waste?
11. People in Australia hear so much and keep up with American news, and in America, we hear little to no Australian news. Australians care about the world, and America doesn’t give a shit and lives in its own bubble, literally believing that the world revolves around America. Isn’t that why so many people in America say they don’t care what foreigners think about U.S. policies or Trump being president, and are constantly saying they don’t need to take advice from people “who weren’t even born in this country”?

I don’t think I will ever get over how good Qantas service is compared to any U.S. airline service. Even when I first flew in their economy cabin, I felt like I was being treated with such respect in the way that a paying customer should be. In Business Class, it’s pretty much on steroids in terms of quality of service; they make your “bed” for you before it’s time to sleep, they check in with you to make sure you aren’t hungry or thirsty or need anything else, and when you hit your “call” button, the flight attendants come over in less than 2 minutes. When you ask them what small plates are available between official meals, they give you a full description of the dish and talk about how delicious and fulfilling it is as though they are servers working on tips in restaurants. On U.S. airlines, it’s “pasta” or “salad.” And in the U.S., you probably need to be choking or passed out for someone to come to your seat that quickly. U.S. workers in general are so freaking entitled.