One of the funniest things about travelling across countries is the amount of smuggling that goes on. I mean, when Matt came by to visit us a year ago, he had a backpack loaded with camera gear for me. And when he returned, we packed for him half a kilo of bak kwa – even if he didn’t successfully smuggle that past customs and had to finish that much of meat in front of the officer LOL.
And just recently in my trip to San Francisco, I smuggled two tins of Milo across US Customs for Elina, my co-author, whose husband was also at the Game Developers Conference and who’d be picking up the two tins. Like Australia, US Customs is pretty picky about the kind of foods that get into the country.
While travelers have been able to bring Milo as malt drink powder into the country, I wasn’t taking any chances. I religiously declared the items on my customs form, and even prepared detailed food composition data on the Milo – in case I had to pull out information to convince the customs officials.
The funniest thing? At the customs, the officers took one look at me and waved me through LOL. No scanning of baggage even after I pointed out to the fellow I had items to declare.
Elina told me that Milo powder isn’t available off the shelves in Finland. After the ease I had bringing those two tins, I really should have brought along more. Like a couple more kilograms from NTUC.:)
=) Thank you so much for the Milo. Yes, you cannot get in Finland – except with the Thai recipe but you know how religious Australians are about their Milo .. we even had to name our son after it! :)