7/04 Australia, here we come!

Prologue

It all started with my twentieth birthday in a barbecue booth, where our family gathered to celebrate. Through the meal, Mom raved about their trip to France afterwards, and how luxurious it was to cost them 130 thousand dollars per person just to be there for ten days. It struck Dad all of a sudden for him to come out with an idea of me going abroad during summer vacation: the same goes for a 130 thousand NT dollars budget but to travel around Australia for over a month (45 days to be accurate). I was craving for some ice cream at that time and coveting over the cone. I didn’t come around to realize how hard the task might be before nodding my head in agreement. Lucky enough, my parents allowed me to take a partner on board and that just saved my day. The top pick on my list would be my best friend Mark. It’s not that I hadn’t thought of my girlfriend Roxie, but god knows what her parents would have yelled at me: Lad, you’re out of your mind! Perhaps. But Roxie and I tell each other almost anything so I mentioned to her casually about the trip, and she sounded far more thrilled than I expected. In the following days she spent most of her time on the phone with her parents persuading them to grant permission to the voyage. It was absolutely wondrous when her hard work finally paid off and she was coming with me. Yay (?)

What kind of parents would entrust their daughter to a dude abroad for 45 days?

I must have been a particularly lovable and innocent kid in their eyes : )

With the final examination coming, our timetables seemed to be packed with dozens of work the whole time, but in the mean while we grasp every spare moment searching for information about Australia, accommodation matters and local traffic. Our parents were lending their helping hands, too. Mom got me a copy of her credit card and Dad took care of our flights (Much appreciation and many thanks) As for Roxie and I we roamed around the city registering for two ISIC cards and handling our ETA thingies. And when we finally got to packing our luggage, it all came to me that: we’re really going to Australia! And it wasn’t just a vacation or some sort of easy honeymoon but a real-45-day-long budget travelling. I couldn’t help but feel extremely proud of us, as we’re the only couple that was doing this to my knowledge.

Thank you all very much for the help on the way, without anyone of you this trip wouldn’t have been existed. Here we are a couple thousand feet above the ground as everything below starts turning into dots and the landscape blurred. It was an honor and a rare opportunity to be visiting a totally unfamiliar country and see to their traditions and customs. And now I can’t keep myself from smiling, I’m just a bit concerned whether my money would be enough for the trip!

Before I dozed off into a sweet dream, I recalled the moment that everyone got worried whether Roxie could handle the obstacles and toughened conditions we would be facing. Dad even got to threatening me that he won’t acknowledge any of our pleas if Roxie and I got into a quarrel and wanted to come home! But to be honest, I felt pretty confident in Roxie. Through the years of our college life we travelled to several places around Taiwan on a budget: living in crappy hotels, eating instant noodles for meals and even walked for hours…complaints seldom came from her. With that in mind we sail, or fly in confidence toward our destination: ChangI Airport. Sorry, not Australia, yet.

Due to our perfectly slimmed budget we took the cheap tiger airline and would be arriving in Singapore and spend the night, we’ll be going to Western Australia’s City Perth in the following morning. The exchange rate of AUD to TWD is 1:30 and the fee of one bus ride or a small hamburger would have easily gone over 30 AUD according to the travelling guide. This means that money spent on these trivial matters, would have gotten us a fancy meal back there in Taiwan! What a waste… And we would be staying in backpackers’ hostel throughout the whole trip and sharing dorms with people of any kind. A normal bunk in a room of eight usually goes from 26AUD to 30AUD, and it gets higher when the hostel is located closer to the CBD. We cut off Tasmania Island, Cairns and Canberra from our original plan; it didn’t come to us that that was mission impossible until we started doing some serious homework. According to the fee on bus rides, trains and planes, just the travelling from city to city would have sucked our wallets dry.

And after all the typing and flying for about three hours, the big sweaty man next to me just won’t stop snoring. Still I look forward to the arrival of ChangI. We would be arriving at the budget terminal, of course, and departing for T3 to taste some sugar. Hopefully the 100 SIN Dad gave to me would come in handy and provide their masters some food and beverages.

See, I’ve all got it planned out.