Immigration Round 2 - Let's call it a draw

Okay, freshly shaved, nice clothes and all - I was ready to drive to Putrajaya this morning. I arrived on time, together with my wife.

First action - my mistake. At counter one, the one counter where someone gives you your appropriate waiting number, I said the wrong thing. I mentioned transfer of permit from one passport to another - not spousepass. So, I got to line up at the wrong counter. My clever wife assumed that we were wrong, and lucky us, we only waited for about 5 minutes when our number was called - and it was the wrong number.

Nevermind, off I went to counter 1 again, and got my a number to line up at my favourite counter, the one with the woman that caused me to crawl up the wall last week. It was about 9.15 AM and she wasn't sitting at her counter yet. She only arrived about 5 minutes later, but I was lucky, actually, I did not have to wait long, when my number was called.

Heart pumping, I moved up to the counter - all smiling (actually, I am lying here). My wife with me. Oh - there is someone new, the one from last week is the other counter. Hope rises!! The new one also looks friendlier.

I gave her the letter from my company, the one, that states that I am working with them. Pass her the photocopies of my old and new passport - looking at her expectingly. She looks at the papers and says that this is a letter in English. I nearly faint. There are five lines on the letter - just confirming that I work with my company, since when, and asking them to transfer my permit from the old to the new passport. She passes the letter on to the colleague. Ah - to the one from last week. This one just says that the letter has to be in Bahasa. And that, by the way, the letter needs to be addressed to Immigration Department. We ask why that is so and I say that I don't want to waste another day, that I am here to work and all. She just says that if I don't agree I should go to her boss - that sounds familiar. Must be her line, since this is the same thing I heard last week.

So yeah, we go off, to her boss. Waiting, once again. I nearly made another mistake - or, actually, I made one. See, we had this bag with us - a book for my wife to read and a book for me to read, to pass the waiting time (Honestly, I didn't read much, since they were faster this morning). When we arrived at the counter of the boss, I put the bag onto the counter and forgot that the heavy books were in there. Boom - it crashed on the counter, and it sounded like a very angry guy just put down a bag very angrily. That would have been a bad impression and my wife really gave me one of those look - "behave, don't show your temper!" How true!!

Nothing happened, luckily, and the officers just went about their work and my papers were passed to the "boss".

It took time. We sit down. And wait. Now, suddenly, I hear my name calling from the spousepass counter. Of we went, and yeah - there is something for us. There was great development. I get my some new papers, and the lady explains that have to go to pay first and that than I have to photocopy the paper that I received (It looked like a receipt) before submitting all together - the new paper, and so to the appropriate counter. So we do. We pay first. That meant that we had to wait first again - I think we even got a new number. And than, we walk off to the photocopy shop, which is suppose to be in the next building, around the corner and a bit down the road, and in the building, in a cafeteria.

We walk on the road. Alone. Left a high wall, right the street and another building. This must be the one, but there is no one to ask. Oh - there, finally, is a security guard, but he doesn't know anything about a photocopy shop and says that the cafeteria is closed. We cannot believe it and look through the building. Yeah - it took a while but we found the cafeteria - it is closed and the building appears not to be occupied yet.

So we walk down again, find a lady, and ask her. She sent us to the right place, which was not just around the corner, but a bit down the road. Okay and there is the cafeteria, and there is the photocopy shop. A4 copies - 20 cents each. Expensive. One guy copying, about 8 people waiting but the guy is quite okay. All is done in 10 minutes and back we walk to immigration.

At the counter where we have to submit our papers, my wife talks. The guy is okay, quite friendly, but apparently, I made the early mistake that I didn't transfer the work permit the moment I received a new passport from the German embassy. I would have got a visa called something like "Journey Performed" - something that needs to be done now. So he said that I should come back on Thursday - very early, so that both can be done immediately. The new stamp in the passport with this Journey Performed thing.

Oh, and I will learn if my application to transfer my permit from the old passport to the new passport has been approved. So all I did was actually applying that this is happening. Results not guaranteed? I don't know. Next round - Thursday morning. Thank you. This all took me three hours - but I had the chance to meet Jordan in Alamanda Mall in Putrajaya.