Maailmanpyörän tarakalla: Otteita Grantin matkapaivakirjasta: The Return of the Prodigal Son

26.10.2011 WEDNESDAY SINGAPORE (Flight to Melbourne)

Actually woke up before the set alarm of 7 o'clock but it was a dad news morning. Saara was not well again and had to visit the toilet a number of times and her stomach was causing her a fair bit of discomfort. It would be typical that our last day be ruined by a stomach complaint. Saara manned up though and even though I had suggested staying in, she assured me she could manage, so off we went to see a large Chinese temple.

It was soon evident though that Saara wasn't going to manage any sightseeing, but there were plenty of toilets in the area so she found a nice, shady, grassed area to lie down and take it easy. I went off on my own to chack out the rest of the buildings. I made my way around the temple grounds and back to Saara and I sat with her for a while until she was ready to go, and she mentioned she was feeling a bit better. I must have sat on some crap or something on the grass as my shorts were covered in a rather stinky brown muck.

A day of temples and shit.

Straight back to the metro so that we could meet up with Elizabeth [our couchsurfing host] to go for luch together. Liz showed up and suggested a Japanese noodles. We had a bit of a walk to a nice restaurant with one of those sushi trains but we ordered from the menu. After lunch we headed downstairs to the hawker centre for what would be my last chendol. And of course it was good. We left and Liz showed us a local specialty of pork jerky, we tasted a bit and it was so good that we decided to buy some even though it was pretty expensive.

The last chendol

We then walked back to the flat taking a longer undercover route with Liz making two trips at one point so that Saara and I could share her umbrella [as the regular afternoon rain had started to absolutely thump down]. Liz needed to do some school work, so she went to the kitchen to study as I wanted to wait a little while to see if the rain eased up. Thankfully it did. We decided it would therefore be a good idea to leave and head for the airport. We thanked Liz and made our way to the metro, and just had enough cash to cover the ticket prices.

The trip was pretty long, having to make a few changes, and the bags were pretty darn heavy. We finally reached the airport and took the skytrain to our terminal (about 150m!). As we knew our bags could be on the borderline at weight so we found a[n unused] check-in desk and put our bags on the weighing belt.

Saara's: 19,1 kg!

Instantly I knew I was in trouble as mine was clearly heavier than hers.

Grant's: 23 kg.

Bollocks.

We moved the bags to an empty area and made a few adjustments, the main one being putting all my jeans into my small backpack. That worked perfectly lowering my weight to 19 kg. We then went and checked in, rather early actually, we were surprised to see that check-in was open.

Now, we knew there was just one more battle we needed to fight, whether Saara's passport and visa were connected. [My visa is an electric one, which means I don't have anything on my passport. Also, as my passport broke in Vietnam, I had to get a new one in the Finnish embassy in Hanoi, which in turn meant that I had applied for my Australian visa with a different passport than the one I now used. *Sigh*] We reached the front of the line and instantly we could tell there was a problem when the lady asked for a printed copy of a visa acceptance e-mail, which we didn't have as it is linked electronically.

The lady tapped away on the computer for a while but nothing. She then did what everyone hates at an airport. She left the desk. Saara and I looked at each other with a look of 'Oh crap'. Saara was worried the visa was connected to her old passport. The lady came back with a phone and said something like "Do not let board" during the conversation. The problem? Well, Finns have the letter 'ä' in their alphabet, and when it is written as just 'a' it is not recognised, so, it needs to be written 'ae' sometimes. So, once that was sorted, all was good. [The lady kindly informed me that it would be easier for all parties if in the future I would write my name in my visa applications the way it appears in my passport. That being with the 'ä', you cow! You'd think I would know how to spell my surname.]

Feels a bit surreal to actually be flying home after almost three years away. Hasn't sunk in yet.

27.10.2011 THURSDAY BALLARAT

It was a bit though to get sleep on the flight even with two seats each. The flight went quick enough though flying directly over Ballarat at one point. We landed without a problem, but then once we entered the terminal there were very long queues waiting. We figured we would wait a while for the queue to shorten by looking at some digital cameras. We ended up buying two little Nikon for $200, which I think was a real bargain, and Saara also bought a hair straightener. We turned around to see that the queue had lengthened a fair amount, and we found out there were strikes.

Saara askes a couple of Germans if we could return to our spot in the line but they said no. [Arschlochs!] Technically, Saara and I had to go in different lines due to passports, but I found out later she could stand with me as 'family'. [The queue for Australian nationals was about the tenth of the foreign passport holders, and I made it to the counter before the two Arschlochs did. Ha!] It took a fair while to get through immigration and then we went to collect our bags and due to it taking so long, the bags where already there. Next we had to go to customs to declare some food, more specifically the pork jerky [we had bought in Singapore for Grant's dad]. They took it away as dried meat not in a tin is not allowed. Oh well.

Aussi-leima ja matkavasymys

Then we walked out and Bear was not there, but that was to be expected [as he had work]. We went and found the place where we had to catch the shuttle bus to Ballarat, a wait of about 45 minutes. The bus showed up, 30 bucks each [by far the most expensive bus ride we had had in the previous eight months], loaded the bags in the trailor and off we went.

I managed to stay awake until we got through the new Anthony's cutting which makes the drive to Melbourne even more boring. I slept all the way to just outside Ballarat to give Mum and Dad a call but they didn't answer, so I figured they had left to pick us up at the train station. We arrived at said station, and Dad was waiting. Gave him a hug and then threw our stuff in my car and drove to the house. We put our bags in the room and unpacked everything and also looked through the stuff we sent over from Finland [and other packages we received from Finland].