Immigration Outing

It's the time of the year to travel to Singapore again in December and for Christmas, nevertheless (Orchard Rd, here I come again!). This year, yours truly's passport has expired and must be renewed. How was I to know, I had chosen the wrong time to do that. Seems like everyone is traveling out of the country this year. How do I know that? Look at the queue in the immigration office in Wangsa Maju which took 2 hours to collect the queue number.

Reached the immigration office at 8.45am and I had to go all the way to the back lane of the office building to start queuing. Only got to reach the counter at approximately 11am which I thought was madness. Another few more hours to wait for my turn to submit my passport renewal form. Indeed, as my number was 1369 and the last called number was 1160. 209 people to go before it would reach me.

The hours just passed by reading a book and walking in and out the office. Then, at 1.50pm, I decided to leave the place for lunch, opposite the office in a restaurant which serves spaghetti and other Italian variety. That's where I got connected to the internet via Wifi provided and by then, the last number called before I left was 1260+. Presumed my number will be called in at least an hour time as the speed was almost as slow as a person per minute. However, there were couple of times when I left the notebook at the restaurant and walked over to the office just to check on how far the called number was to the number I was holding. (Again, it was 1369. 4D anyone? :P)

Picture above was taken at approximately 2.45pm after lunch. There were still many people around and some of them (who were not in the picture) had been standing for hours!

I was back to the immigration office by 2.45pm and it was still 1350+. Reckoned it was about my time. Subsequently, by the time I submitted my form the clock was touching 3.10pm. Then, the officer told me that I have to wait for my number to be called again for payment. Another 30 minutes to go?! Nevertheless, yours truly was really in patience mode throughout the day, so wait it was!

By the time I was done with the payment, it was really about 3.45pm.

Returned the next day to collect the passport and in less than 5 minutes, I got hold of yours truly renewed passport already! Most importantly, it was collected with smiling face from the officer. It made my day indeed.

So my advice is.... do not renew your passport at the end of the year!

P.s.: After the renewal, I found out that it's better to choose the option of renewing the passport for 5 years at RM300.00! Share with you more, only per request.

Cheers.