Grogan Teek Travels

Friday was another travel day as we left Hong Kong and flew to Australia. We spent the morning and early afternoon in China then boarded Singapore Airlines for our trip down under. Those of you who know me know that I am practically always early, especially for airplanes. This was fortunate because we had our first little immigration glitch. When we tried to check in we discovered that the Australians had no record of a visa for David. I gave the airlines my hard copy of the email with the visa number on it (from the huge 3 ring binder of all the travel stuff I have been carrying with me around the world. They still couldn't get electronic approval. Fortunately, someone figured out there had been a 9 that was recorded as a 6 on David's date of birth and we had enough time to correct it. It's a good thing. The hotel in Sydney was already paid for and I would have hated to have left David (and his credit cards) alone in Hong Kong. We did a 3 plus hour flight to Singapore then off to Sydney. We arrived about 11 local time. The city was overcast and grey and sprinkling rain. It was also a much smaller airport than I would have imagined. Kind of like the old Tallahassee airport, if you know what I mean. Very old-fashioned compared to Hong Kong. After showers and a little recovery time we ran off the find some dinner. I was determined to have a steak. After more than a week in China, I was sick of noodles and rice and unknown products. After our time in England, I was determined to have something with flavor. We walked down to get our first glimpse of the harbor and found a nice place that offered lovely calamari and steaks. The Moroccan waiters thought we were a great opportunity to make fun of their boss and American co-worker with some inside joke about the way American's say water. I am not sure what the joke was, but I can tell you that every time we said the word it provoked gales of laughter. We have a cute little kitchenette room close to Hyde Park and within walking distance of the Harbour. I have to say that all our accommodations worked out pretty well. I booked them all over the internet, without a travel agent, so I was a little worried that we might not always get what we had anticipated. I had tried to do some research with sites like "trip advisor", but you never know. Fortunately, everything worked out. Tomorrow we start some serious looking about in Sydney. More later.