Wednesday, November 07, 2007

VISA problems

Vacation should NOT be this stressful!!!!! I am in Cambodia now. I had decided to take a vacation from Korea while waiting for my new job to start. I decided to get my new work VISA here rather than doing a VISA run to Japan. I know people who have done VISA runs in Thailand and other such countries. The process seems to be the same everywhere. BUT, in Cambodia, unlike almost every other Korean Embassy, they require the actual VISA issuance document and not just the number. I found this out TODAY when I went to the embassy to apply for my passport, all set with my application form, photo, money, and VISA issuance NUMBER written on a little piece of paper that my school gave to me on Monday. So now what???
The embassy says I should get the school to send the document to me at my hotel. WHAT hotel? When? I'm here on vacation. I don't want to sit around waiting for a stupid piece of paper. I checked the various couriers on the net. I think the EARLIEST it would come, IF the school sends it tomorrow, is next week Monday. Not that bad, I suppose. I think the easiest/best way is for the school to send it as a pick-up rather than having it delivered to a hotel. That way I can pick it up and take it to the embassy in the same day (when I am in the city). I think that is the only way that I can actually still do some traveling while waiting. Also, I am still waiting to hear back from my school. I sent them an email this afternoon after I found out, and then again after I checked out the couriers on the net and such. Waiting sucks.
No matter what, I have to re-think my planning on when I am doing things here. I want to spend more than a week in the Siem Reap area, but now I'm not sure how, unless I do it in two halves. That kind a sucks. I can't put it off to the end, as I'm not sure how long I'll be waiting here. And I can't just go up there now and stay and then leave the VISA stuff to the end, as I'm not sure how long it will take for them to actually PROCESS the VISA. As they the website for the Korean Embassy here isn't very informative, I have NO information.
What to do.

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