A night at the sydney opera
Most travelers experience the iconic opera house from the outside, but the vantage point from inside the familiar landmark is nonpareil even if you're not an opera fan, writes Raymond Zhou.
Sydney Opera House draws your immediate attention whichever direction you approach it from. On a recent journey to the biggest city in Australia-my first Down Under-I had the good fortune to view it from almost every angle other than right above it. I circled around it on a cruise; I walked to its east in the Royal Botanical Gardens; I stayed in a high-rise hotel with an unobstructed view of it; and I climbed onto the 134-meter top of the Harbor Bridge to have a rare photo opportunity with this youngest World Heritage site from this angle.
I was instantly smitten by its architectural uniqueness and, days later, my infatuation had not ebbed a bit. There were indeed some surprises when I got on the premises. It was much smaller than I had imagined, at least not nearly as spacious as Beijing's National Center for the Performing Arts. There are lots of small rooms and corridors, but not a single mammoth foyer like the NCPA has. That means you have a great many choices of location for pre-performance and intermission chitchat.
