Chapter 726: Asking For Trouble
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
At this time, Australia was still in the tail end of summer. Once they alighted from the plane, a wave of hot air rushed over. Furthermore, as Canberra was not considered far from the sea, the wave of hot air had water vapor and hence, was both hot and moist.
The weather here was pretty much the exact opposite of Flagstaff"s. Flagstaff was cold and dry whereas this place was hot and humid.
Poor Big Quinn, who was worried that his children might be cold, had put woolen sweaters on them. As such, they started perspiring right after alighting from the plane.
The three children were as black as coal. As there was air conditioning in the plane, the temperature was low and they felt fine. However, with them standing under the sun and wearing woolen sweaters, the scorching sun was burning them like a fire.
"Daddy, it"s very hot," his younger daughter, Suzanna, said weakly.
Big Quinn wiped his face and said, "It"s even hotter for me!"
Big Quinn had worn an extra large woolen sweater for fear that he and his children would catch a cold.
After they had alighted from the plane, they were required to complete the entry card, which was another very complicated process, in order to enter Australia.
Australian drug enforcement customs officers brought over a sniffer dog to sniff around Li Du and his group. When the sniffer dog reached Li Du, it would not get close to him no matter what and was struggling to retreat.
As Li Du was being looked at suspiciously by an officer, he got frightened and hurriedly raised both of his hands. "There"s nothing wrong with me. I"ll cooperate with your investigation. What"s going on?"
When the sniffer dog reached Sophie, it continued struggling to retreat. At this moment, Li Du understood what was going on. He suspected that due to the both of them carrying the scent of Ah Meow and Ah Ow, who were vicious animals, the sniffer dog had become frightened of them.
As the officers did not know, one of them walked directly over and asked, "Are you guys carrying drugs? Sensitive medications? Dairy products, eggs, and egg products are also not allowed! Are you guys carrying any?"
Li Du shook his head. "No."
"Various seeds, vegetables, and unsealed or canned sausages? Any?"
"No."
"Alright, you guys can go over." After asking the two questions, the officers turned around and walked away without giving them a body search and the like.
Hans was at customs completing the customs declaration form. According to Australian laws, if someone brought more than 10,000 Australian dollars in cash, they were required to make a declaration.
Li Du had a harder time completing his entry card than the others. As he was a Chinese and Australia did not have a visa-free agreement with China, his visa needed to be checked and he had to fill up the entry card, whereas the others mainly underwent an inspection.
Despite that, the Australian border force was very hospitable. After seeing Li Du"s pa.s.sport, they gave him an entry card application that was in Chinese. A staff then walked over with a cup of tea in his hand to chit-chat with him:
"From China?"
"Yes."
"The Great Wall is really not bad. The noodles with soybean paste dish that you guys have isn"t nice, but the roasted chicken is pretty decent. The Forbidden City is huge—I really like that place."
While Li Du filled up the entry card, he asked, "You"ve been to my country? Thanks for the compliments."
The staff nodded his head and said proudly, "I"ve been to a lot of places and have pretty much toured the whole of Asia. I will travel during the holidays every year. Oh, the right side is for declarations. If you"ve brought the items listed above, you"ll have to declare them."
As he spoke, he pointed at the right half of the entry card"s front side, which had 11 options for the declaration of items.
An Australian contact number and an address, which had to be valid, were required on the back of the Australia entry card. As Li Du had not prepared the information required, he immediately started panicking.
When Hans walked over and helped him fill up the address and phone number, the staff looked suspiciously at him. "Don"t fill it with nonsense. If there"s a problem, even G.o.d won"t be able to help you guys."
"This is my girlfriend"s home address. There will definitely not be any issues," Hans beamed.
"You have a girlfriend in Australia as well?" Li Du asked in astonishment.
Hans replied, "Just met. She"s the prettiest air hostess I"ve ever seen. Sadie."
With the entry card completed, pa.s.sing through customs was next. While incoming tourists moved along a snake queue, customs officers, who sat in a row, inspected their pa.s.sports and visas.
The tourists in the queue were mostly from the flight that Li Du and his group had been on. After Li Du and his group had just arrived at the queue, the Brooks couple also arrived. As Brooks was still limping, his wife held on to him.
When Li Du saw Brooks, Brooks also saw him and immediately glared at him in a fierce manner.
With that, Li Du became very dejected and said, "What"s wrong with this fella? Did I eat his family"s rice or dig up his ancestors" graves?"
Fortunately, as Brooks did not go over to provoke him, both parties did not clash with each other.
After pa.s.sing through customs, they entered the luggage inspection section.
The luggage inspection section had two channels: a green channel and an inspection channel. The green channel, as its name suggested, was an unhindered express channel where tourists were not required to undergo any open luggage inspections and could directly pull their luggage across.
As tourists pa.s.sing through the inspection channel were required to undergo an x-ray screening and an open luggage inspection for their luggage, pa.s.sing through the inspection was slightly more troublesome. Moreover, when a customs officer inspected luggage, the owner of the luggage still had to respond and answer the questions asked regarding their luggage.
Li Du and his group naturally went to the green channel. Since they hadn"t encountered any problems pa.s.sing through customs earlier, they were not required to go to the inspection channel for another inspection.
Right at this moment, Brooks, who walked behind them, suddenly told an officer, "Hey, sir, someone has unlawfully entered the green channel."
An officer was positioned at the center of the two channels so that emergency situations could be handled conveniently.
As the comment made by Brooks had triggered an emergency situation, the officer at the side promptly walked over and asked, "Hi, is there a problem here?"
Once there was a problem on this side, even the people walking in front of Li Du and his group were stopped.
After turning his head and seeing that it was Brooks who was asking for trouble, Hans said impatiently, "Why is this son of a b*tch constantly asking for trouble?"
Brooks pointed at Li Du and said, "This man is from China. I dare wager that he"s from China. You guys better get him to walk past the inspection channel and give him another round of inspection. It"s common knowledge that everyone from China loves to carry filthy items on them."
Hearing Brook"s words, Li Du"s expression immediately changed and he stared angrily at the plump Caucasian man before sneering, "So there"s still racism in Australia?"
As there were no aborigines and only immigrants in Australia, Australia was, according to the information Li Du had read earlier, the least xenophobic country in the world.
However, from the current situation, the first Australian that he had encountered was already xenophobic enough and was even more racist than Caucasians in America.
On the other hand, the officer was much more just. He beamed, "Sir, you are overreacting. Australia welcomes tourists from China and all over the world."
For some unknown reason, Brooks had to go against Li Du no matter what. Brooks insisted, "This Chinese is different—he brought a few items and hid them. If you guys search properly, you guys can definitely find contraband."
Seeing him speak so earnestly, the officer hesitated and asked Li Du, "Sir, if you don"t mind, could you walk through the inspection channel?"
Li Du kept quiet. Sophie, who was enraged, took a step forward to block Li Du before saying, "Of course we mind. Everyone here came from the same place. Why is my boyfriend the only one walking through the inspection channel?"