What a way to start a vacation: “Never Assume Anything” and “Racial Profiling”

It never occurred to me that US citizens are required to have a visa to enter Australia (FYI, this requirement has been like that for years). I checked NZ earlier (since we arranged this portion of the trip earlier), and NZ does not require visa for us. So I assumed that Australia is fine. (We are allies, and we are even going to have a military presence there, and we need visas!)

I almost had a heart attack when we found that out as we tried to get our boarding passes the night before the flight to Australia. However, one can get an Australia visa online “instantly” (for most people, and "occasionally" some have to wait 12 hours, according to the website). So I went online and started to fill out the form. Somewhere in the middle, it asks for the country of birth, and it appears that there are two categories of countries (it does not say that exactly, but I can tell). China is in the second group, but US and even Hong Kong are in the first group. My instinct told me there was going to be a problem. Sure enough, I did not get my visa “instantly” - it said I had to wait 12 hours to find out. When we applied for Sally's (in the same sign up), hers sailed through right away. I have not experienced racial profiling (discriminated for "country of origin") for a long time - it's not allowed in the US but is alive and well in other countries.

So I lost some sleep, but not a lot because we had almost 24 hours before our Sydney flight, and I was told by United Airlines that there might be other options if the visa did not come through in 12 hours. At eight in the morning when I checked before leaving for San Francisco, I got my visa. But what a way to start a vacation!

Not to dwell on racial profiling too much (yeah, right!), below is a list of profiling encounters on this trip. Each instance seems to be trivial by itself, but if you add them up, it is rather obvious something is going on. I have traveled frequently all over the world and have seldom encountered such an experience.

1. After passing through the boarding gate at SFO, I was singled out by a guard (I am not sure what kind of guard) on the gangway and was asked stupid questions like “what city are you going to” (where else?), and “how much money are you carrying” (I never knew that I look like someone carrying tens of thousands of dollars on me!)
2. On the flight from Sydney to Adelaide, a crew member asked me to show my boarding pass after we sat down on the plane, for no reason at all. Remember that in Australia and New Zealand, they check your boarding pass before you enter the plane.  Nobody else was checked.
3. At the boarding gate in the Adelaide airport, I was stopped to have my backpack checked for size.
4. There are other instances that I am not going to write about, some of which may be just because I am getting too sensitive.  However, at some point I told Sally that I would scream if they picked on me again.
5. However, my experience is pale compared to this.

Sydney

Now off to the good stuff. We stayed with Elisha and Judy for 4 days. They live in a Sydney neighborhood close to downtown and it is very convenient to go into the city center by bus. They have lived in Australia since the 1980s. It is nice to be able to learn from the locals about their political system, health care and retirement issues, etc. We also learned trivia like the Australian outdoor clotheslines, and if you are truly Australian, you don't collect your clothes even if it rains – let the clothes dry themselves after the rain.

Elisha is a retired air traffic controller, and spent his time taking lots of different dance classes, doing volunteer work and traveling all over the world. Judy works for an independent organization that monitors the Australian government financial condition, economic decisions, etc. (I probably have this all wrong.) She is going to retire pretty soon.

They took us to various parts of Sydney and its surroundings. While we were there, the temperature was in 70-80ºF, with thunder showers in the afternoon. We planned to go to a national park in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, but cancelled the trip due to thunderstorms and landslides caused by the torrential rain. In fact, people got hit by lightning in the Blue Mountains recently.

They also let us loose to roam around Sydney and the Zoo. We had dinner with another high school friend (Lisa) and a high school teacher (Tam Sir). I have not seen Tam Sir for 40 years and he looked very good – turns out he is only a few years older than us.

Sights in and around Sydney

Sculpture made from stones near city center.

The Sydney Zoo is a great place to go to see native animals,some of which are difficult to find in nature.

Kangaroo (left) and wallaby (right) – kangaroo has a snub snout (like a horse) and wallaby has a pointed snout (like a mouse).

A joey (young kangaroo) trying to climb into pouch (left). Success!! (right).

Tasmanian devil (left) and a colorful bird (right).

Koala