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Published: March 21st 2007
G'day, so we've finally hit ozzie land, although us being us we did of course hit some problems, wouldn't ya know!!
We get to Bali airport, on time i hasten to add. I get checked in no probs - hurrah! Michelle on the other hand starts to get questioned about her passport - you know i always suspected it was a fake!! Ha no it turned out she hadn't gotten her visa into Oz and apparently she wasn't allowed to get one in oz, so off the Balinese man went and came back 5 minutes later with a piece of paper saying all was well, so we breathed a sigh of relief and then off to ozzie land it was!
Arrived in Perth and went through immigration - Michelle expecting to pay for her visa, but nothing happened! When we enquired, a rather nice immigration official told her that Bali airport had sorted it all out for her and that she'd obviously gotten a free visa!! The cheek i had to pay for mine!! As if that wasn't bad enough - the fact that i had to pay to enter the country, things got a lot worse at customs!!!!
I knew that i had to declare a plate i'd bought in Bali (don't ask me why i bought a plate, it was just pretty!) but when i came to queue a guy showed me a flash card of items to declare and i saw my beautiful little Balinese drums on there! So i got to the customs lady and declared my plate and my drums! The plate was fine, at first she thought the drums were made out of paper but she thought she'd just check. She came back and reckoned that it was in fact animal skin and at the back of the drum would be animal blood and guts! The fact that two of these drums didn't even cost me a pound i am doubtful that they were made of animal - but the customs lady took them off me anyway! boo hisss!! She said i could pay $15 dollars to re-export them but that was 7 times the amount i paid for them! So i have come to the conclusion that this 'customs' lady had heard about my big global instrumentalist band and she stole my drums in a bid to beat me to the top of the charts and win world domination!! But have no fear people i will stand strong and will not be beaten by cowardly imposters! mwhaha!
Then the customs lady decided to re x-ray all my bags again. My backpack came through and she started asking me what the 'organic' material was in the bottom of my rucksack!! I said i'm sorry love i don't know what you're trying to imply, theres no 'organic' material in the bottom of my bag!!! Then she started to describe the 'organic' material, at which point i started to stress at the thought of the impossible - unloading the backpack to pack it again! Then a lightning bolt hit me - the 'organic' material was infact a tube of jelly beans!! And with that description the customs official was happy and let me on my way! She didn't even want to check it or anything!!
Then it was out into the arrivals lounge where i was greeted by the Grubbs - my lovely auntie and uncle, back to theirs and a beautiful bed!!
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Mother Number 2
non-member comment
Into Aussie land
G'day to you my friend. What an ordeal at the airport and as for the drums, well I feel rather upset about those, insofar as it was my next venture to learn the drums and there was my golden opportunity - gone!! AND you were nearly suppered by a bag of jelly beans - no-one should take one's jelly beans away, so glad to hear you managed to hand on to them. I and Father 2 have been away for the weekend to a place near Oxford and whilst there visited Blenheim Palace - very enjoyable. I am keeping an eye on the parents and so far they seem to be behaving quite well.