Life b4 Vietnam- Immigration Fiasco!

On the way to ChoonChun Immigration office.

oRich and his lady Lucy! They're so cute together.
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just to catch up on shtuff before I put all my vietnam and philippines pics up.

Many of you know that just a week before I left for Vietnam I had to make a trip down to the ChoonChun Immigration office to get my visa renewed so that I could legally work in and enter Korea once I came back from my vacation. This turned out to be more of an adventure than was anticipated.

After driving an hour or so through the Korean country-side, we (packed in my coworkers car) arrived in ChoonChun. Not following the simple directions given to us by our friendly Yonsei office staff, we got lost. After about 20 minutes of driving around, we found the immigration office. (On the way back. we realized how simple it really was to get there).

While trying to park, my coworker backed into a parked vehicle and left quite a bit of damage. Thank goodness he had insurance and the guy didn't beat the crap out of us.

Upon entering the immigration office, the other teachers had no problems renewing their E2 visas. I on the other hand was denied a renewal on the basis that "I" had not submitted my criminal record check. Complete bullcrap as I had submitted everything with my application the year previous. Anyway, after flipping out for a little while, as I'm known so well for, I remembered that I had an extra copy of my criminal record check at home. The lady told me that I could fax it to her and then they would send my passport to me in Wonju. I told her that since I was going to be leaving to another city for the weekend, this would not be possible. She said that I would then have to come back the next day (Friday) and bring it with me. WELL!!!!!!


I went back to the school(office) with the hope of finding a signed and sealed criminal record check. The next morning upon arriving at the school, I look into my file and find an OPENED signed and sealed criminal record check. WTF!!! Who opens something that has been signed and sealed for the immigration office....stupid people, that's who! I literally said out loud "you've got to be fucking kidding me!" in the middle of the office. At this point I was furious!

Anyway, I drove the 1 hr to the immigration office with my letter in hand. Upon arriving, the lady told me that this letter was acceptable however, it now needed to be notarized by the Canadian Embassy, because it had been opened!!!!!! Note, notarization costs 60.00CDN! Thankfully, the woman processed my visa with the stipulation that I submit the notarized criminal record check upon returning to Korea. Wonderful.....super duper....the school better pay for this.


*Update....I have now gotten my criminal record check notarized and will be taking it to the immigration office on Friday....cross your fingers that they don't say "I'm sorry, this criminal record check is a year old, you are going to need to submit a new one".