Cogito ergo scribo

Went to renew my passport today at Tampoi together with mom (she renewed hers as well). The entire process took us about 4 hours.

We were at the immigration at around 7.30am. Even before i climbed up the stairs into the building, there was this Malay guy standing at the staircase and asking me if i've taken the photo for the passport. I shook my head and then he asked us to go to get the form from the designated counter, and then led me to a shop and told us to take the picture there. So we took our pictures there, and also paid him to fill out the form for us, because both mom and i were too lazy this morning to read all the Malay words, so we'd rather pay RM3 per form, even though it was a very simple form. Yep, that's the price to pay for being lazy.

After we had our pictures taken and form filled out, that guy led us to the other counter to get a queue number. The queue wasn't long, and we got number 86 & 87. As we left the counter and walked into the inner part of the building, that was when we realised there was another shop that is also taking passport photographs, with the professional photography equipments. Immediately i felt like a fool.

The thing is that this guy made it felt like modus operandi that we didn't even think twice and simply followed what he told us. He took the photos with a simple compact digicam (holding in his hand), and needless to say, i looked terrible. In fact, my face seemed green in the photo, and my hair looked messy. It really sucks to think that i am stuck with a picture that looks like a vampire for a passport that i'm gonna use for the next 5 years.

Anyway, as the queue number that was being processed at that time was number 10, we decided to have our breakfast there. We went to the only roti canai shop at the food court, and ordered roti canai, coffee and tea.

Now here's a piece of advice to everyone here who may be going there one day -- DO NOT order anything from that stall at all. The food tasted terrible! Seriously, this is the worst, again, THE WORST roti canai i've ever tasted so far in my life. It was so bad that i felt like i was gonna puke as i forced myself to finish up the first piece, and then left the second piece untouched. I think what made me feel like throwing up was that the roti canai wasn't really cooked; it was thick and i could still eat the dough inside even though the outer layer seemed cooked in brownish burnt mark. And the curry was tasteless, and the coffee was just a cup of sugar water with milk (i.e. there was no taste of coffee!).

After a very bad start to my day, we went up to third floor to wait for our numbers. We sat there till about 9am+ and it was our turn. We submitted our application form with our passports and IC. We were then asked to stamp our thumb print on the form using the traditional black ink pad, and then again with the digital fingerprint reader. Frankly i do not understand why do we still need to dirty our fingers with the ink when we already have the new technology to image and store our finger prints.

Then we paid RM300 and were asked to be seated. We waited for a while and our numbers appear on the electronic board again for us to collect the receipt. On the receipt, it was written 10.45am, the time when our passports will be ready and could be collected.

It was about 9.30am only and i told mom that i wanna go out to have a cup decent coffee. So we drove to the McD in the nearby petrol station. Yes, i know the coffee at McD isn't really good either, but if you have had what i had this morning, anything would taste good after that.

We returned to the immigration office at around 10.40am and waited for our numbers. Here's where we made a mistake again. We weren't aware that we were supposed to place our receipts into a designated box and then only the officers would get our passports for us. Mom did see the notice on the box that read (in Malay), "place the receipts here", but she wasn't sure what it meant. When she collected her receipt earlier on, she asked the officer what she should do with the receipt and she was told that she should "hold on to it". As for me, the officer didn't even tell me anything and simply passed me the receipt. I guess they assumed that we should all know the procedure.

It was already past 11pm when we felt that things didn't seem quite right. Mom went to enquire about it and then only realised we had been wasting 20 minutes of our time sitting there waiting for nothing. We then placed our receipts in the box, waited for another 15 minutes and then finally saw our numbers appear on the electronic board again. We then collected our passports and left the immigration office at around 11.30am.

So, now i'm have a new passport with a dead person looking photo in it, but at least i can travel overseas again (no plan to go anywhere yet though). Well, i must say the entire process of passport renewal has indeed been streamlined and improved compared to several years ago. I heard that in KL, we even have self-service kiosk for us to renew the passports by doing it ourselves. I hope we can do it online one day soon, just like in SG.

The next step for me, as SG PR, is to process the online transfer of my PR to my new passport. I am glad that we do not need to go to SIR personally to do it anymore, so that i can have a good rest tomorrow.

Labels: malaysia, singapore