Sydney, Australia Incident

Unfortunately, I cannot retrieve my digital Australia pictures. But I did make a trip to Sydney one time. From there I continued on to New Zealand.

But here I'll share just a couple stories that happened along the way. The first one was at the airport. I had flown into Hong Kong to spend a few days, then I was on a separate flight to Sydney. This was one of the few times I actually booked First Class international and not Business Class. I rarely book FC for two reasons. One, fewer flights offer FC anymore on international flights with Business Class available, and two, the incremental difference between first class and business class is not very much, certainly not enough to justify the significant increase in price (or points in my case).

But fortunately, I chose first class for this flight. The reason being I was unaware that a visa was required for US citizens to visit Australia. I really don't know how I missed this one, I have always been so careful to make sure I know all of the travel requirements before I go. I guess I must've just thought Australia was like Europe and I didn't need to do anything special. But I was wrong.

I arrived at the airport with just a little over an hour to spare before my flight. I knew flying first class that I would have expedited service through security, and there would be no line at the check-in counter. So I saw no reason to arrive early and spend extra time waiting around. So when I discovered I didn't have the visa I required to enter Australia, I thought I was sunk. But the person behind the counter told me not to worry, and he would work to secure it for me in the limited time we had available. I really didn't think it could be done, but he did it. Had I'd been flying in a lesser class, I doubt they would've made the extra effort to make it happen for me in the limited time. But, alas, I was off to the land down under.

I'll cover some of the excursions I took on a separate post. Here I just wanted to relay one travel story that was unique to me anyway.

When I'm in a large city, I normally like to walk the streets as much as my arthritic back allows. I was walking the streets of Sydney when I heard a lady from behind me scream out loud. I quickly turned around, and I saw a man running towards me with her purse that he had just snatched.

He was running towards me, and I was considering my options. I knew he was much younger and stronger so I couldn't possibly overtake him, but I considered throwing myself down in front of him and tripping him to slow him down where others might be able to help. But thankfully, it never came to that because another young man took off in pursuit of the thief.

When the purse snatcher saw somebody in pursuit, he dropped the purse and kept running, in hopes that the young man would stop chasing him. He was right. The young man picked up the purse and brought it back to the lady and the thief scooted down a side street. I ran up to the side street just to look down and to see what was going to happen to the purloiner. He ran for a while and kept turning around to see if anybody was following. When he realized he wasn't being followed, he slowed down and begin to walk again. Probably looking for another target.

I walked over to the young man who pursued him and congratulated him on his bravery. I'm not sure that many others would do what he did.

The purse snatcher ran right past me after he dropped the purse but I did nothing despite my first thought of tripping him. After he had already dropped the purse I didn't think it necessary to risk being stabbed or something.

The young hero didn't want any attention, as a true heroes react. He just humbly walked away, probably looking for a phone booth to transform into Superman for his next feat.

Anyway, that's the only time I actually witnessed a crime like this. Of all places, I didn't expect it on the streets of Sydney.