Final Update: I won’t be going to Seoul.
Update #1: After speaking to the Chicago Consulate again this morning, even if I overnighted my passport and documents to them today, the soonest I would get them back is Thursday, the day after my scheduled flight.
So my company’s options are:
1) Have me send my passport to Chicago and wait for it to come back, then book me another ticket to Seoul (which would be ridiculously expensive).
2) Have me get on the flight to Seoul, hope immigration is kind because I have a one-way ticket and would be entering on a tourist visa, get settled, then go to the Korean Consulate in Japan for my visa stamp.
Those are the options, and it is now out of my hands. I’ll keep you posted!
Update #2:
*facepalm*
They’d “rather not pay for the flight & hotel in Japan” since the other teachers are getting their stamps. “Is there another Korean Consulate” I can go to? There are several, but those require plane tickets, which at this point, would cost me the extra arm and leg I do not possess.
So, the company doesn’t have any money, and I don’t have any money. We seem to be at an empasse.
This calls for a moment of reflection.
Am I being unreasonable? Am I being stubborn just to be stubborn? I’m just not sure all of this is worth it anymore. I may get verbally and physically abused in the street (not to mention getting arrested for calling the police to get rid of the person harassing you), Koreans will look at me and automatically think I’m not as smart as a white teacher would be, and I’d be cutting myself off from my main support system. It’s less than a week before I’m supposed to leave, and there’s a major roadblock to my getting to Korea and working to earn the money that drew me there in the first place.
On the other hand, I would have the opportunity to see a side of the world I’ve never seen, make some new friends, and pay down debt.
I just don’t know…
Their other suggestion was to go to another consulate. Well, tomorrow’s Friday. If I bought a same-day ticket, it would cost a fortune. Monday’s a holiday. That leaves Tuesday. If I were to go to NYC on Tuesday (which would still cost a fortune), where the turnaround time for a visa stamp is 12 hours, I would be racing time to get my visa on Wednesday, make it back to MN for my flight to Chicago that afternoon.
It just doesn’t work. I still have to pack, and take care of various administrative tasks here, at home. I can’t be running all over the country at this point just to get a visa stamp.
UGH.
Update #3:
A visa run to Japan seems to be off the table as an option.
I really don’t know what to do.
Update #4:
I’m calling the company office this evening and we’ll hash it out. As I see it, either they want me there or they don’t. I’ll lay out the financial cost of option one (rebook the flight) and option two (visa run to Fukuoka), and ask if they’ll reimburse me if I pay for it.
We’ll see what happens.
(I feel like I should change the name of this post to “Visa-gate 2010.”)
Update #5:
Well, I’ve delivered my ultimatum. We’ll see what happens.
*********
Original Post
I’m annoyed right now.
And my annoyance is very much related to this whole “Going to Korea” business.
At the moment, I don’t want to go. (To be frank, I haven’t wanted to go for months now, but that’s neither here nor there, now that my departure is imminent.)
I was waiting on my visa acceptance number so that I could go down to the Korean Consulate in Chicago to get my actual visa stamp in my passport. I received the email with the visa number early this morning. I called the consulate before I left for my dentist appointment. “2-3 days to process,” they said. I said, “Ok,” and hung up, not really thinking about that 2-3 days but feeling a nagging sense of “something’s wrong with that picture.”
After letting it tumble around on low in my brain, I realized that 2-3 days to process meant the wreck of my plans to drive down to Chicago on Friday, waltz into the consulate, get my stamp, then turn around and go home. (That’s how I thought it worked.) How did it wreck everything? Let’s walk through it and see.
1) Today is Wednesday – for three more hours. I leave next Wednesday afternoon, the 17th. If I were to drive to Chicago, per my original plan, I couldn’t leave here until early Friday morning, due to an appointment at the dentist tomorrow morning that I cannot miss.
2) I realize now that driving down would be folly, as it would cost me $110 in gas to get there and back, and I wouldn’t even be coming back with my passport in hand. So…
3) …mail/FedEx is the only option.
4) IF my passport arrived in Chicago (via me, or the mail) on Friday, IF they actually started to work on it on Friday (which they might not), making that day one, they wouldn’t touch it again until Tuesday. And IF they finished it on Tuesday (which, once again, they might not), they might just mail it back to me that same day, and it might reach the house before I left for the airport on Wednesday. Lots of “mights.”
Because, you see, without my passport, I’m going nowhere. But I have no choice but to send it down there and hope it makes it back to me on Wednesday. And if it doesn’t, well…
I’m feeling kind of petty, but I’m done bending over backwards and driving myself further into debt just to make all of this happen. If Korean immigration was slow in processing the paperwork, not my problem. If other people dragged their feet, not my problem. If I don’t get to Seoul next Wednesday, not my problem.
