Will A Filipina Like Australia? Pea Goes Down Under!

Pea kicks off her Australia trip series by flying from Manila to Sydney and spending her first day exploring the city on foot. The episode covers her accidental business class upgrade, first impressions of Sydney's cleanliness, friendliness, and staggering cost of living, plus her first taste of Vegemite — which she actually likes, comparing it to Filipino dried salted fish.

Accidental business class upgrade on Qantas ​

• Booked her flight about 9 months earlier in economy for $380
• Received a notification from Qantas the day before that her seat was upgraded
• At the check-in counter, staff explained that there's a small bidding button in the Qantas app below the booking; the lowest bid to upgrade was around $600
• Pea must have accidentally clicked it — she'd tried the same thing once with Philippine Airlines and never won
• Business class normally costs $3,000-$3,500 per seat
• She got a fully flat bed she couldn't even reach the end of, an entertainment system, personal workstation with charger, champagne on arrival, offered pajamas, and her own blanket
• Speaks in a hushed voice to respect her business class neighbors

First impressions of Sydney ​

• Sydney was founded in 1788 as a British penal colony; now Australia's biggest city with over 5 million people
• Mix of old and new architecture — the Queen Victoria Building still looks like it did over a century ago but now houses high-end shops
• Original Town Hall decorated with purple jacaranda trees
• Streets were originally goat tracks, so they wind around in circles and are hard to navigate
• A woman noticed Pea looking confused at an intersection and offered help — after trying to explain the route, she volunteered to physically walk Pea to her destination
• Pea devotes a heartfelt aside to this: "If more people cared enough about their fellow man, what a wonderful world this would be"

Pitt Street sidewalk fair ​

• Buzzing with activity — casual shoppers, vendors, local artists, street performers
• Young street performers she calls "chick magnets in the making"

Cleanliness and quiet ​

• Sydney is very clean — no trash on the street like the Philippines, fresh air, no exhaust smoke
• Strikingly quiet even on crowded sidewalks — no honking, no loud music, "like everyone just agrees to respect each other's peace and quiet"
• Still feels empty compared to Manila despite being a major city
• Australia has only 26 million people on an entire continent; the Philippines has 117 million in a country 25 times smaller

Asian presence in Sydney ​

• Almost half of Sydney's residents appear to be Asian
• Unlike the US Southeast where Pea "stuck out like a sore thumb," in Sydney she feels like a regular local
• Many Filipinos already call Australia home

Cost of living — serious sticker shock ​

• Parking: $30 AUD for half an hour
• Simple restaurant lunch: easily over $40
• Bottle of water at a convenience store: $6.95
• Pea refuses to pay $7 for water: "I'm a Filipina — I'll drink out of the toilet before I'll pay $7 for a bottle of H2O"
• Notes that Australian tap water is actually safe to drink, so she waited for a public water fountain
• Shopping tip: Big W has much more reasonable prices than convenience stores

People are exceptionally friendly ​

• Everyone greets with a smile no matter where she goes
• Pea says she could easily see herself living in Sydney "if only I could afford it"

Street encounters ​

• A magician on Pitt Street doing card tricks picked Pea from the crowd for his trick — correctly identified her card (six of clubs) with no visible sleight of hand
• A man with a parrot/bird — Pea plays with the bird, which nibbles her and sits with her; she jokes about stealing it
• Encountered two separate protests — one with flags and speeches, another large enough to stop traffic with police present
• Pea endorses free speech even for views she disagrees with: "when we start silencing speech we don't like, it might be your speech that gets silenced tomorrow — if you don't have the right to speak your mind, you don't have any freedom at all"

Sydney public transportation ​

• Requires an Opal card — a tap-on/tap-off card for trains and buses, similar to a points card
• Cash isn't really used
• Pea tops up with $40 and notes "they really eat your money here"
• The train to Circular Quay is a double-decker — Pea is impressed, wishes the Philippines had something similar
• Train is clean, efficient, and quiet — "I'm the only one talking here, and very loudly"

Circular Quay ​

• Where her day began — iconic Sydney spot with skyscrapers, harbor cruise ships, turquoise water, Opera House around the corner
• Considers doing a jetboat ride in the harbor but they don't allow cameras, and if she can't bring the audience along, it's not worth it

Trying Vegemite for the first time ​

• Viewers told her she'd either love it or hate it
• Goes to a store to buy bread and Vegemite spread ($4 for the jar)
• While shopping, alarms go off in the store — everyone is evacuated, police and fire trucks arrive; no one ever explains what happened; eventually they're let back in
• Follows the advice to put a very thin layer on buttered toast, then pretend she made a mistake and scrape most of it off
• It looks like chocolate but clearly doesn't taste like it
• Her reaction: "What the heck is this — your national food?"
• Then backtracks: she actually loves it — says it reminds her of salted fish or tuyo (dried fish) in the Philippines
• Predicts Filipinos in general would love Vegemite sandwiches
• Makes it her dinner for the night

📺 Watch the full video on YouTube

🔔 Subscribe to The Filipina Pea