Day 01: Thursday, 2 March 2006 - Arriving in Sydney

We arrived at Kingsford Smith airport at about 9AM local time. Sydney is 4 hours ahead of Surabaya (DST in effect), so it was about 5AM in Surabaya. My first impression of the airport was, well, just like most airports. On our way to the customs, there were lots of signs about the obligation to declare stuff, such as food, meat, etc, that you brought into the country; otherwise you might be considered breaking the law and could be fined. After all the immigration stuff, we queued at the "Things to declare" line because I brought in some food for my cousin in-law who was studying here in Sydney. Well, it was a really long queue. Everybody seemed to have something to declare. Not a surprise since if you noticed the declaration form, it asked you to declare almost anything like food, meat, animal, soil (or sporting equipment with soils contamination); it even suggested that if you are really not sure, you'd better be safe by declaring it.

When my luggage was checked, the officer seized my "abon" (side-dish: meat fibers) and banana crackers. They were not allowed because they were considered some kind of meat or processed food. If they had been in some kind of canned form with a clear and professional wrapping, they would have been ok. Unfortunately they were home-made and wrapped simply with a plastic bag with no label or anything like that (no expiry date, no nutrion facts), so I had to let them go. Other stuff, such as cracker, snacks, etc, was allowed.

It took us about one hour before we could finally get out to the arrival hall where our cousin, Dita, had waited for almost two hours. She took us to her apartment by taxi. The taxi cost was about A$50. It would have cost us approximately the same if all three of us took a train instead, not to mention that train would take more time. The roads were big, clean, and nice, like most advanced countries have. Despite being summer, temperature was about 25 degree Celsius, so it was pretty comfortable although our taxi had no air conditioning.

My cousin had a pretty cozy apartment. It was a one main room apartment, plus one study room (which was used for a bedroom as well). I think the size was approximately 7 meters wide, 10 meters length. One other cool thing was about its security. One could not just go to any floor easily, instead, if you had an apartment at floor 36, for example, your swipe card could only activate button 36 of the elevator. If a guest (without a swipe card) wished to pay a visit, she should first call the corresponding apartment number using the panel at the front of the building, and only after the owner granted the permission (by pushing some switch in the room) that she could go up to the appropriate floor. The apartment also provided a swimming pool (not the one in the picture!) and a gym, free for the residence, nice.

We rested and freshened ourselves for about 1 hour. At 2 PM I would have to be in Four Points Sheraton, Sussex Street, where my interview with Microsoft was going to be held. My cousin took us there via the CityRail train. A round-trip ticket from her apartment to downtown cost about $3.40 per pax. We got off at the TownHall station (Queen Victoria Building), took a really quick lunch at a Malaysian Laksa restaurant, and walked for about 10 minutes to get to the hotel.

I'll write about my interview later. To summarize, it was 5 hours long. Despite the demanding time, it was really exciting, fun, and challenging actually. Meanwhile, my wife and her cousin, Dita, explored the surrounding area, the Darling Harbor. When I had finished my interview, it was about 7PM already, but somehow it felt like 4PM because you could still see the sun. We returned home, bought a grilled chicken at Oporto underneath the apartment, and had dinner at home.