Jones Team Down Under Part One of Many

There are so many facets to our trip to Sydney, Australia, that I am not even prepared to guesstimate on how many blogs it will take to write about it all. I often will write a big huge blog when I am this behind, and cram it full of pictures! But this time I'd like to actually take the time to write a bit more about our trip, as Australia is it's own continent, after all. I think that is worthy of some true blogging.

Let me begin with the lead-up to this trip. So many things went wrong, that we began to fear the trip was jinxed (knock wood)! Before we settled on Australia, we were contemplating Phuket, Thailand or Bali, Indonesia as well. However, I felt that we had just done a great beach vacation (see previous post on Hawaii), and I had been to Thailand already. Plus, the ticket prices to both of these places were higher than the ones to Sydney - go figure! So Australia won out.

First off, when we were trying to buy the tickets, the website for China Southern went down. However, we were able to complete the transaction the next day. Then I went to both Craigslist and VRBO to look for apartments in the city that had a few bedrooms, so we could put the girls in a different room from us (and rent a cot and high chair from Hire for Baby). I found what we thought was a great place on Craigslist (VRBO was basically sold out) - $150/night AUD, in Darling Harbor with three bedrooms. We corresponded with the agent, filled out a form, and Paypal'd a down payment.

Just a few days later, however, I received an email from said agent - this time with some pretty poor English grammar and spelling - claiming that he never received the payment due to some problem with his Paypal account, and I would need to Western Union the money over to secure the booking. Red warning lights were flashing in my head - SCAM SCAM SCAM!!!!! Great! I'd been had! (Note: NO ONE rent from louisvacationrentals@yahoo.com) I could not believe it, and only 12 days before our trip! I put in an escalated a claim with Paypal (who wouldn't get back to me until after December 31 as they contact the seller first), and started frantically searching for another place to stay.

We were landing Saturday morning, January 1, and leaving the following Saturday January 8. Apparently some huge cricket match was in town that week, and given the aftermath of the famous Sydney fireworks, there were not many rooms (especially affordable ones) available. Fortunately for us, after calling and emailing several places, we were able to find a WONDERFUL hotel in the Hyde Park Inn, downtown right across from Hyde Park, and within walking distance to pretty much everything in the main part of the city. Phew! That hurdle was cleared.

So December 31 is now upon us, and we head off to the Dalian Airport. First thing the folks at the check in counter ask us - do you have your Australian Visa? Visa? Are you kidding folks, do we look Russian to you? We're US Citizens with US Passports - we don't need Visas to a British Commonwealth country! Hmph, and So There!

Ummm... actually, YES, you do. Everyone needs a visa to go to Australia. It's like their way of getting $20 bucks out of you online - and it only takes a few minutes to do and get in the database for airlines to check. However, we did not know this, so here we are at the airport with NO Visas, and our flight leaves in an hour and a half. OMG.

Thankfully, the very nice China Southern English-speaking worker helped us get onto their computer to try and get the visa obtained. However, when Alex entered his information, the pop-up window claimed that "Though most visas are granted immediately, in a small number of cases the review process can take up to 12 hours" and that was HIM. Can you even believe it?! We were texting our driver to tell him to come pick us up, trying to think of what to do with the tickets and time Alex took off work (pay money and go somewhere else?), and basically kicking ourselves in the pants (while the girls were playing chase in the lobby of the airport and having a grand time!).

However, said persistent China Southern worker then took us to an office where she called the Australian Embassy in Guangzhou (closed for the holidays), then in Australia itself - and a worker there pushed Alex's application through the system, and the rest of us applied and passed immediately online - and we hauled off for Security 30 minutes before the flight was to take off.

We were the last ones on the very nearly empty plane, and were able to stretch out and sleep over four rows of seats for our New Year's Eve red-eye flight to Sydney. Thank the Good Lord in Heaven Above - we made it there in one piece.

After all that, I was paranoid and recalling the old joke about the flood where some guy crawls to his roof and insists that God is going to save him, so refuses a ride from first a big truck, then a motorboat, and finally a helicopter - only to drown! Upon meeting God in heaven, he asks, "Why didn't you save me?" To which God replies - "I sent a truck, a boat, and a helicopter, what more do you want?"

Here is what the girls were doing as we were frantically trying to get our visa in order! This video was taken before I really knew what was going on, because after I figured that out, I was too stressed to take videos anymore... :-)


For those of you wondering, we did get a full refund from Paypal on January 2, so all's well that ends well in that regard...!