The Debacle of Getting a Korean Visa

Five Weeks Ago...
Once we had signed our contracts we had to get out degree certificates and police checks notarised and apostiled before sending them to Korea. You have to get a lawyer to do this and typically it is a very expensive process. Our lawyer, Anne, considering she must be earning at least £70,000 a year, was little more than incompetent. She didn't know that she had to send the original documents off to be apostiled by the Foreign Common Wealth Office [it's not like its her job or anything]. So all our papers went to London, came back up to Huddersfield with a note saying they had not been apostiled, and then had to make the journey again, taking two weeks instead of one. All that for the tidy sum of £260. Thanks Anne.

Two Weeks Ago...
After shipping everything off to Korea via UPS (£50 but very efficient) we eventually received a visa application number from the immigration office in Seoul. Then it was up to us to send our passports to the Korean Embassy in London. That should have been the easy bit. However, when I called the embassy to ask about payment and just to generally confirm the process and reassure myself that we were doing everything right, I was confronted with the most unhelpful organisation I have ever dealt with. "I can not confirm anything, please consult the website" is the standard response I received to numerous questions I asked over the two weeks it took to get the visas. Sometimes they would just mutter something in pigeon English and then hang up. So, with scarce information on the website, we sent our passports with a cheque for £80.

10 Days Ago...
"We don't accept cheque" said the Korean voice on the phone. Another panic, a rush to find a post office and send £80 to the embassy, this time in cash.

Yesterday...
The visa should take five working days to process, according to the unhelpful Korean accent on the phone who reluctantly disclosed a snippet of information. But with a double bank holiday to waste millions of tax payer's money celebrating the jubilee of a non-elected Queen, we had missed out on two working days. When I called the embassy (Wednesday) with only 2 working days left for them to issue my visa, post it, and for it to ger back to Manchester I was told "We cannot provide tracking information for your visa. If it is not sent tomorrow you have to come to London". They refused to tell me if the visa had been issued.

Today...

I dreamt that the postman came and I signed for my passport, so relieved, only to open it up and they'd sent the wrong passport back. Instead of my details on the photo page it was a Chinese man called Won Wood. I woke up in a panic still unsure whether it was real or not. I barely took my eyes off the front door all morning, knowing that special delivery would have to come before 1 o'clock. Never in my life have I been so interested in the post arriving. The postman, blissfully unaware of my tense morning, sauntered up at 12.40 with only 20 minutes to spare. I grabbed the package out of his hands before he'd even reached the door and all my stress was gone.

I HAVE MY PASSPORT AND VISA. I AM GOING TO KOREA IN THREE DAYS!!!!!

I'm so happy now, I hate leaving things last minute but there was no other option really considering we only got the jobs six weeks ago.