Mimi's Musings: December 2018

My First Time visiting the Land Down Under

It's my first time visiting Australia and I would have to say I had mixed feelings about the whole experience. My dad used to study in Sydney back in the 70's, but I just don't know why he was never interested to bring the whole family for a vacation to Australia when he has brought us to visit so many countries as far as the United States to enjoy Disneyland in Los Angeles.

Why I said mixed feelings was because I never really thought it was going to be quite hard to get here. You see, it was my first time ever visiting Australia and I have decided to join my best friend's family on their family trip. There was 8 of us adults and 3 children. Of course, we had to apply Australian Tourist Visa to enter the country, and I, along with my friend, and her extended family which consists of her mom, dad, sister, brother, and sister in law as well as the children (9 in total) was granted the VISA right away after application, EXCEPT for just one person, her brother in-law. His VISA was rejected just like that.

We were cracking our heads trying to figure out why his VISA got rejected. He's a school teacher, in his early 30s, had no bad records whatsoever, married to my friend's younger sister who's an executive in Sunway college, and a father of two lovely young children.

I was so confident that it was a mistake that I'm sure he will get through the first appeal. I was wrong. His VISA was rejected 3 times. The third time was the most heart wrenching. They simply rejected the VISA right after the last day of our trip with the reason, "there's no point of approving the VISA since the date of your vacation has already expired".

Come on Australia? How could you do this to a person who's never been out of his country all his life? He just wanted to see Perth, have a great holiday with his wife and kids, and his whole family, and you simply rejected his VISA application? The first round with reason being the insufficient information of his bank account and source of income?

I don't get it, he wrote an appeal letter explaining the situation, how he needs to join the trip so that the children will have their father around at a foreign country for the first time and his wife was like 3 months pregnant at that time so imagine the pressure she might be under without her husband around???? Just because you're in-secured of the foreign people coming into your country to permanently stay and work, doesn't mean that other people are also that DESPERATE! How could you not see the picture?? We're a HUGE family going on a vacation!!!! Is it nonsense if we all go back without him???? Why would he leave his job as a teacher, his wife and kids and remain in Perth???? To do what kind of job? The illegal jobs you were so worried about????

I am venting as I typed this and though a month had passed since this tragedy, I am still bitten by the tragic incident. It really taught me a lesson that not every country welcomes you. Not all country wants to share what they have with you. One of them is Australia.

So there you go, my first time ever coming to Australia, and that's what happened. And that, my friends, was only the hors d'oeuvre.... wait till I get to the entrée...

So our flight was smooth through Air Asia. We bought Promo tickets so it was cheap, just about RM900 for a return ticket. Our plane landed in Perth Airport early morning and we waited for the Homestay people to come and pick us up with the cars we rented and get us to the homestay. I'd have to say at first glance it was quite frightening. The house looked quite old just like in the 60's films... (turned out the house was built in 1956, I googled the address) oh yeah and it was quite creepy. It has this Night Shyamalan Sixth Sense aura due to the furnishings. The house had four large bedrooms, one bathroom and one separate toilet. That's quite a downside since we have like three bathrooms for a standard house like this back in Malaysia. The air was cool when we arrived, perhaps because it was early morning.

Soon as we got to the house, we unpacked the food luggage first, because everyone was already starving. We brought so many types of food from home which by the way, I had made a list of all the items in advance and it was my list that eventually saved us at the custom check out. It was all different with the customs in Australia. Seems to me that they are very strict about anything and eveything that concerns the items that enters their country. Could be something about preserving their agriculture. Hence, the very detailed declaration form that we had to fill up in the airplane beforehand. The form itself was overwhelming. Should I tick YES or NO... if unsure tick YES and most questions are asking whether or not did you bring milk.... (fresh milk or formula?) grains.... (so do we need to say yes if we brought RICE?) so obviously we ticked YES mostly and thus we had to go to a special corner where the interrogation goes further. They'll ask, did you bring cigarettes? Is it more than 3 packs? and then RICE..is it the normal white rice or brown rice? Did you guys bring anything down from the plane...? No, we did not, the pilot warned us not to do so repeatedly in the flight... OKAY, EXCELLENT...you may pass. Welcome to PERTH! And passed that customs checking, is the immigration point...and that's when don't nobody go playing with their phone. It's the most crucial step. Three girls queuing in front of me got stopped. They took one of the girl's phone and checked it. They stopped us, me and my friend. Asked us some questions...so how long are you going to stay? Where do you wanna go? What are you going to do? all of these questions while taking our thumbprints..three of our fingers and that included both of my middle fingers which I apologetically gave when the immigration officer asked for it. Sorry I said and chuckled. The officer laughed and said..that's okay..you're the first ever to apologize.... *LOLS*

Answer them calmly because you have nothing to be afraid of. You are coming here to have a great holiday because your boss approved your 6 days leave and you only have 16 days of leaves per year from your company. You work in your own country, at a company that pays your salary every 25th of the month and that's where the money came from for this PERTH holiday.... and it's not a small amount...I spent about almost a year saving bits of that salary so that I could see Kangaroo, Koalas for the first time...see for myself this amazing Australia that so many people talked about especially Malaysians...a country where even the low income Malaysian can afford to set foot in...you can come even if you don't know how to speak English because you booked a tour package from Malaysia and that include a tourist guide who could speak bahasa melayu and bring you to Malaysian restaurants.... there are millions of them... SO, why should you be afraid? You are not gonna overstay because you don't need to stay here in Australia like those desperate apple picker that gave a bad name to our country and also made it impossible for someone like my friend's brother in law to obtain a tourist VISA.

There is nothing to be afraid of... because I have a proper job in my own country. I am not a fruit-picker in my country. I work in a proper company that has a proper office, with my own proper cubicle and civilized friends and environment. I would not leave everything at my own country to be a fruit picker in your country. I have credit card bills to pay... my car still have a year of loan to pay and my parents....why would I leave without them?

PERTH DAY ONE

So we rented a house at Lawrence Street... It was a classic house built in 1956... It has four large rooms and one toilet. The kitchen is complete with a proper stove top, microwave, fridge and what not. Since we arrived early morning many were exhausted so we decided to just go to Coles to do some groceries, as well as the nearest halal butchery to get our halal chicken. We also visited the King's Park and Blue boat house. The view was breathtaking.

119, Lawrence Street, Bedford

My room.. check out the Twilight duvet hahaha

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A corner in the house that we rarely used because the TV's not working...actually this part of the house felt eerie because the sofa looked so 60s and there's a very old set of dinner chairs hidden in the corner. That TV is not functioning.