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Discussion Forums » General Discussion
Country Differences.
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24 Jun 2009, 06:47
Shattered Dreams
Post Count: 23
Japanese McDonalds are different from Australian McDonalds in a number of ways.
The part that stood out most for me is that in the Japanese M's, when you buy a coke, the strawhole is... off-centre. Like, kinda like the hole in a takeaway coffee cup would be. Our Australian ones (and I think the rest of the world too) have centered strawholes.
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24 Jun 2009, 10:35
Transit
Post Count: 1096
When I went to Czech Praque it was really nice as there were virtually no chain retailers that I recognised apart from one H&M no dirty McDonalds or anything like that. What I did notice though, the same thing happened in Germany as well, all bottled water apart from in hotels was sparkling, which I think is gross! We didn't see any supermarkets either, instead you went to your butcher, green grocer etc and bought real locally grown food. Which is something I hate about the UK, most people can't be bothered to do anything than go to Asda, Sainsburys etc.

The locals appeared not to be polite as Brits, for example if I bump into someone in the street, I say sorry and so does the person I bump into, but in Praque you had to leap out of the way of other people.

Border control, not one of us had our passports checked upon entering Czech!!

The streets were dirtier than ours as well, which I found quite surprising as ours are bad enough.
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24 Jun 2009, 12:36
|stripes|
Post Count: 18
I noticed a couple of differences (to Australia) when I was living in England.

None of the chips in McDonald's, KFC or Burger King (which is Hungry Jacks here) come salted. They're all salted here and KFC even has a special yummy salt that is different to the others.

The seagulls and pigeons are bigger in England. I almost shit myself when a seagull landed in front of me one day. They're huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge and very scary looking.

Petrol is a lot more expensive there. It's about $1.15/litre here which is roughly 55p/litre. What a bargain! Though of course it's expensive for us :P

Customs was basically non-existent when I got to England. I walked right through without having to have my bag x-rayed or anything. I would have thought Heathrow would have checked those things?
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24 Jun 2009, 13:40
The Ryan
Post Count: 415
I've never been x-rayed on my way into a country, yo! Only on the way out. Do they x-ray you when you arrive in Aus? :-o

And yes, our pigeons and seagulls are kinda scary!!
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24 Jun 2009, 14:43
Transit
Post Count: 1096
We were when we went to American, then again they take your finger prints and everything!
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25 Jun 2009, 20:39
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
And the security people in American airports are RUDE and aggressive! I saw them physically shove people into lines when we were going through security at San Francisco. And at Newark airport I was treated like a criminal for not taking my flip flops off at the xray machine (even although I'd seen the woman in front of me be told it wasn't necessary to remove flip flops!).

Also, when we left the US and entered Canada on a summer holiday there when I was 16, the customs people didn't remove the little green tourist visa cards they'd put in our passports. I didn't realise until I re-entered the states 6 years later, on a stopover in LA on my way back from Australia. I was told that since the cards hadn't been removed and sent to the appropriate place, as far as they were concerned my entire family had NEVER left the US!

Luckily, because their computer system hadn't picked it up (lol... shows how easy it is for illegals to stay beyond the length of their visa!) they still let me in. But when I returned to the UK my whole family had to post the cards to the US immigration department with evidence we'd left 6 years earlier! Easy enough for my parents, who had credit card statements that showed they'd been back in the UK... but not so easy to prove that 14 and 16 year olds had returned to the UK. In the end we had to send signed letters from our high school confirming we'd attended school the month we'd said we'd left the US. :P

And of course we never got any confirmation that the situation had been cleared up (despite us trying multiple times to get some sort of confirmation from them). Still, my sister and I have both since been in the US without problem, so we figure it must be OK!
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25 Jun 2009, 20:43
Transit
Post Count: 1096
We went to Orlando airport, they staff would shout at children and shove them away for pressing their fingers on the finger pad too hard or for not being able to spell their names properly. Before we got off the plane the staff told us, don't smile, don't tell any jokes, don't strike up conversation or talk unless spoken to, when you get off the plane you just want to go straight back home!
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25 Jun 2009, 20:45
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
I know. My friend and I were horrified when we arrived in San Francisco. We were like "why did we want to come here again?". Thankfully the brilliance of the San Francisco beyond the airport made up for it (in New York however, the rudeness continued beyond the airport!).
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25 Jun 2009, 20:49
Transit
Post Count: 1096
The airport staff reminded me of cybermen....it was so tempting to tell them as well! Where we went thankfully out the airport everyone was lovely. When we left though we got to the airport and showed our passports, then the woman behind the desk called loads of staff members out, we were left standing around for over an hour and weren't told what had happened. Apparently we had already checked in, which obviously we hadn't. The security was so shoddy that another family of four, who didn't have the same name as us, it just started with the same letter had been checked in under our details! This was very soon after 9/11 as well! I hate to think how lax security was before then! Then no apology for making us wait around for ages, just an extremely rude woman told us we wouldn't get the seats we had booked as the other family had them, so we had to deal with it.

There was also something where you could leave your luggage with disney and they would send it to the airport and have it all put on the plane, you didn't need anything to prove you were on that flight or who you were, so you could send what ever you wanted on the plane basically.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:02
love♥nik
Post Count: 1010
o____O Don't smile? Don't tell jokes? Um.... w/ who? I wouldn't joke about having a bomb or something at an airport, THAT kind of joking is just asking for it. But just... conversing? Now that's way out of it. I've flown numerous times and while security can be severe/strict about our shoes and carry ons, etc, they can hardly barge on my right to converse w/ my fellow passengers. That's stupid.

Once I even accidentally left a pair of very sharp scissors in my back bag (I used them for school) and the baggage check lady pulled them out and I flipped out and all she said was that if I wanted to keep them I'd have to check them. I told her no, she could keep them. And this was like, 2 years after 9/11.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:03
love♥nik
Post Count: 1010
And also, why would ppl not be able to spell their own names correctly? Unless you mean the kids? Why are they asking the kids to spell their names and not asking the parents how many children are going w/ them? IDK, I've been to the Orlando airport a few times and I've never seen this so I'm just wondering.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:07
Transit
Post Count: 1096
When we had our finger print and eye scan done, you had to give out your personal details to the person and your little green visa slip, if the details didn't match you were sent away until you could get it right, I did say it was children.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:08
love♥nik
Post Count: 1010
Huh I've never heard of that before, but then again, I live here so.... Weird, I wonder why you need to do an eye scan.... o____O
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26 Jun 2009, 09:10
Transit
Post Count: 1096
Everyone who wasn't American had to do them along with having your finger prints taken. When I went you just filled out a temp visa form on the plane, now you have to register online like three months before, a uni friend did this a while ago as he is going to the US during the summer, never heard back from it though so he just had to go to the airport and hope he wasn't deported!
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26 Jun 2009, 09:12
love♥nik
Post Count: 1010
Finger prints I can get, kinda. I don't remember any of my family from Taiwan coming in that had the to the eye scans before but they've never come into the country through Orlando either so maybe just Orlando International does that. Hm.

The US is getting a lot stricter to get into the country now. @___@ It has its pro's and con's.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:14
Transit
Post Count: 1096
I think one of the cons is reduced tourism, a lot of people just wont go anymore as being allowed is a hassle now and then to only be treated like a criminal in the airport too.
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26 Jun 2009, 09:14
Transit
Post Count: 1096
I think one of the cons is reduced tourism, a lot of people just wont go anymore as being allowed is a hassle now and then to only be treated like a criminal in the airport too.
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2 Jul 2009, 14:19
The Ryan
Post Count: 415
In Florida they even take your finger prints at the theme parks now!
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2 Jul 2009, 14:25
Transit
Post Count: 1096
I hate to see the uproar if they tried to do that at like alton towers!
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30 Jun 2009, 22:15
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
The only airport where I've had the eye scan thing was Bristol!
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26 Jun 2009, 08:59
love♥nik
Post Count: 1010
@____@ In terms of our airports and shoes, no matter what kind you wear (I always wear flip flops when flying) I'd just go ahead and take them off. Flying in the States, while slightly better now than it was a few years ago, is still a pain in the ass.
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24 Jun 2009, 22:06
|stripes|
Post Count: 18
They don't xray our whole body (though when I got to London they did tell me to go to the medical room for an xray...just because I came from Australia) just our bags. To make sure we don't have anything we shouldn't. The whole flight home I was really nervous cos we had Sami's computer parts in our bags but they were no problem. They're normally ok if you declare everything you have.
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25 Jun 2009, 08:20
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
I've never had my bag x-rayed on arrival (only departure) in an Australian airport, and I've flown into Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. :P

Although when I flew from New Zealand to Australia I did tick the 'recently been on a farm' box on the customs form (as I'd been horse riding in NZ) and Brisbane airport made me dig my boots out of the bottom of my bag so they could chemically clean them!
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25 Jun 2009, 08:17
~RedFraggle~
Post Count: 2651
Presumably you had your bag x-rayed when in your departure airport though. Why would they need to x-ray it again?? It's hardly as if you'll have picked up a weapon on the plane. :P

I've always found Heathrow airport horrendous because it's always taken me about an hour to get through customs.

I've never been x-rayed going IN to any country either... not even Australia or New Zealand. And in fact, when I was in New Zealand, when I flew out of Queenstown, they didn't x-ray our hand luggage at all... just let us walk right onto the plane with it! That shocked me, especially as it was only a few years after 9/11. I guess Kiwis don't think terrorists will target Queenstown airport!
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25 Jun 2009, 12:19
|stripes|
Post Count: 18
When was the last time you landed in Australia? This was last year and we did declare food so maybe that was it. I dunno.
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