Passport & IC
In the process of applying for a job in Singapore, Ban discovered that his passport had expired nearly 6 months ago @@. We were worried because it was a hassle then to renew passport due to limited number of passports issued at each immigration office. If I'm not mistaken, this whole debacle came about because the passport vendor printed passports that didn't meet the new features. So that resulted in severe shortage of passports.
After enquiring with friends and family, Ban decided to start queuing at the Kelana Jaya office by 6am @@. The poor guy didn't sleep well the night before and ended sleeping only about 4 hours :( There was already a queue when he reached there. As these queue slots were so precious, an attempt by a man to jump queue was quickly rebuffed and reprimanded. Yay!
Once office opened, Ban managed to get queue number 41. Despite lack of sleep, he was alert enough to ask the officer at the queue counter whether it would be a problem if the chip on his IC couldn't be read (had that problem before). He was advised to get a new IC before renewing passport. Unfortunately the NRD is not at the same building.
The plan was to get new IC and rush back to the immigration office to renew his passport using the queue number he obtained earlier. By the time he set off to the nearest NRD office, it was already office rush hour and so there was bad traffic jam :( Not only that: due to the change of traffic flow on certain roads (one-way street), it took even longer to get there.
Once there, there was a sign that system was "offline". Oh gosh. He was given a queue number anyway. Fortunately, it was "online" soon after. Phew!
After doing what he could, he was told to come back in 2 hours to collect it. So he went home, rested and then had lunch with me and his brother. After lunch, I drove him to collect IC and then off we went to try our luck with the immigration office at Kelana Jaya. I dropped him there and went looking for parking space.
Meanwhile, in the office, he was questioned about the longer-than-expected time he took to get a new IC. He just pointed out to the 2 hours wait and thankfully they just proceeded with his passport renewal. More than an hour later, he collected his passport. Yay!
After enquiring with friends and family, Ban decided to start queuing at the Kelana Jaya office by 6am @@. The poor guy didn't sleep well the night before and ended sleeping only about 4 hours :( There was already a queue when he reached there. As these queue slots were so precious, an attempt by a man to jump queue was quickly rebuffed and reprimanded. Yay!
Once office opened, Ban managed to get queue number 41. Despite lack of sleep, he was alert enough to ask the officer at the queue counter whether it would be a problem if the chip on his IC couldn't be read (had that problem before). He was advised to get a new IC before renewing passport. Unfortunately the NRD is not at the same building.
The plan was to get new IC and rush back to the immigration office to renew his passport using the queue number he obtained earlier. By the time he set off to the nearest NRD office, it was already office rush hour and so there was bad traffic jam :( Not only that: due to the change of traffic flow on certain roads (one-way street), it took even longer to get there.
Once there, there was a sign that system was "offline". Oh gosh. He was given a queue number anyway. Fortunately, it was "online" soon after. Phew!
After doing what he could, he was told to come back in 2 hours to collect it. So he went home, rested and then had lunch with me and his brother. After lunch, I drove him to collect IC and then off we went to try our luck with the immigration office at Kelana Jaya. I dropped him there and went looking for parking space.
Meanwhile, in the office, he was questioned about the longer-than-expected time he took to get a new IC. He just pointed out to the 2 hours wait and thankfully they just proceeded with his passport renewal. More than an hour later, he collected his passport. Yay!
Comments
Yes! @@