Thursday, November 19, 2009

Hayley finally got her own passport

After delaying this for so long we finally got her passport done. In fact we got all our passports done on the same day, this very day. Papa and I renewed ours and Hayley got her brand new passport. As we'll be travelling to Singapore in mid December, we had to get it done this week else we'll be joining the school holiday crowd next week when school holiday starts.

I was quite astonished with how baby friendly the immigration department became. I've never had good impressions of govt departments/offices but today I felt likewise.

We arrived at 9.35am at the Immigration Department in Subang. As kiasu as I can be, I got everything prepared beforehand - forms filled, photos taken, photocopies of I/C and ours birth certs all ready so we won't need to join the queue at the photo booth or photocopying counters. When we got there, the place was packed and there were long queues at the photo booth and I was glad I didn't listen to papa who said we can take photos on the spot and make copies of documents on the spot - MEN!

We proceeded to counter 1 to submit our documents and to collect a queue number:

Papa and I : our old passport, application forms, 2 photos each and copies of our I/C (original copies must be presented)

Hayley: application form, 2 photos and copies of her My Kid and birth cert. As Hayley is below 18, a parent will need to sign the application form on her behalf and a copy of the parent's I/C will need to be supplied, this we didn't know :-(

So papa quickly rushed over to join the queue to get a copy of his I/C made. This took almost 5 mins but felt like forever and it cost him 40 cents. When papa came back with the copy we were given a queue number. Our number was 2019 and they were serving number 2018 :-). We waited for what felt like 5 mins and then our number was called and we proceeded to 'special counters' which was counter 6 and 7. We had to show the original documents here and have our thumbprint captured and verified. Hayley got exempted from the thumbprint part. This was done in less than 5 mins and then we waited for another 10 mins to make payment. RM300 each for papa and me and RM150 for Hayley (50% discount for kids below the age of 2) for a 32 pages passport valid for 5 years. When we step out of the Immigration, it was only 10am. We were told to return in 2 hours to counter 13 to collect a number for collection of our new passports.

As it was still early we didn't want to wait there and decided to go for breakfast. We hung out at Old Town Kopitiam in Kampung Subang and returned to Immigration at 11.50am. We heard over the PA system that the system was down and everyone was asked to go to other Immigration offices to get their passports done but no one moved. Everyone just continued with whatever they were doing as if they didn't hear the announcement.

Luckily the hiccup would not interrupt passport collections. I went to counter 13 and was given number 2040 and saw that they were currently serving 2017. Oh boy, I thought it would be a long wait. Then the number appeared on the screen and they were calling numbers not in random order. I wondered why they were still calling numbers (different numbers from mine) if the system were down, now I know why everyone stayed on. When our turn came, all 3 of us have to be present at the counter and again we have to show original copies of our I/C and Hayley's birth cert.

We left the Immigration at 12.15pm. We were in the Immigration for less than an hour in total and got all our passports done!

The whole experience of making the passport has been great, no long waits and it was definitely very baby friendly (except the paying part where you still need to wait for your number to be called). Papa and I also benefited from it as we didn't have to wait like everybody else as we were given 'priorities' because of Hayley :-).

Now we can look forward to bringing her to the airport in December and showing her what an 'a-ro-plan' looks like from near.

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