Visa

A big adventure is on the horizon! Nick is moving to South Korea...next week! While it's all very exciting, the entire process has been frustrating. A lot of "hurry up and wait". The biggest hurdle (so far) has been in obtaining a work visa. You can visit South Korea without a visa for up to 90 days, but they kind of expect you to have a return ticket. We've been unsure of a lot of things from the start, but when things got moving, they moved fast. In a matter of days, we've received a start date, itinerary and airline ticket from Los Angeles to Seoul. Ready to go, right? Not so much...

We live in Phoenix, not Los Angeles. And still no work visa.

More waiting...

Less than one week before his expected start date, we're told that we should have a visa number by the end of the week. Then, we need to visit the Korean Consulate...in Los Angeles. We have to convert the visa number to a real visa (whatever that means). At this point, we're contemplating our options. Do we drive to Los Angeles, spend a few days, drop Nick off at the airport and the girls and I drive back (six hours in the car with two little girls...not my idea of a good time); Have Nick fly there and back in a day (on Friday) and fly out again on Sunday to catch his flight to Seoul; or chuck the whole thing and go back to normal life (not really an option). But we can't really decide anything because we still don't have the visa number...and it's Thursday.

Finally, we have news: still no visa number. We should have it later today which means we can contact the consulate and ask if there's any way we can get the visa in one day (not likely). Or, we can delay the start date and change the flight to Korea (extremely expensive and, in the words of our contact "the most painful"). Finally, we can book a return trip with every intention of cancelling it so that he can go on a tourist visa and plan to visit the Korean Consulate in Japan or China.

What?

This is what confuses me most. He's not going to Japan or China. He's going to Korea. Why would we need to visit Japan or China to get a Korean visa? In any case, this is the option we're now pursuing. I have no idea what will happen next but it's sure to be exciting.

Anyo hashimnika! (Ok, so that's actually hello and not good bye or anything that might seem logical to end a post, but not much has been logical at this point and it's really all I know how to say...other than turtle, car and banana.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Easter

It’s Holy Week.  I remember being confused by so many pieces of Easter when I was young.  Why was it called Good Friday if Jesus died?  Wasn’t that BAD Friday?  Why did we eat so much fish?  Ick.  Why did it always seem to be a gloomy, rainy, week?  Did God do that on purpose?  How could Jesus ride into the city of Jerusalem with such fanfare on Sunday and be beaten so brutally just 6 days later?  As I’ve grown in my faith and age, I understand so much more.  When Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ played in theaters, I went to see it.  My sobs could hardly be heard over the sobs of others.  This wasn’t a movie where you munched on popcorn and sipped a soft drink.  This was a chore—a duty as a Christian to come face to face with the brutality endured by our Savior.  To come to terms with what He experienced so that I could, what?  Show up late to work with no excuse?  Watch movies with foul language?  Tell the occasional lie and not suffer the consequences?  Was it worth it?  What jus
Read more

Shoes=Outside

Image
When Nick comes inside from anywhere, he takes off his socks and shoes. He just likes to be barefoot inside. He also doesn't like shoes on the couch or beds, so when Ivy's inside, most of the time, her shoes and socks come off too. Naturally, this necessitates putting shoes on when we've been home and then decide to go somewhere. Ivy seems to understand this. She LOVES to be outside. She's tall enough to reach the door knob, so it's locked all the time now. She'll go up to the door, try to turn the handle and say "side" when she wants to go outside (which is all the time). When she sees one of us putting our shoes on, she naturally goes to the door and says "side". Yesterday, Nick took Ivy out to the pool for a while before I got home from work. They put their feet in the pool and splashed a bit, but no real swimming (water is still cold). When I got home, they were back inside, shoes off. Ivy wasn't quite done being outside for the day.
Read more

The Wonderful World of Meat Substitutes

I didn’t become a vegetarian until a little over two years ago. I used to think it would be absolutely impossible for me to do—I’m in love with chicken! Can’t give that up. No way. Well, clearly, I did give it up (although so many non-vegetarians say things to me like “you eat chicken, right? Chicken’s a vegetable.” Um, no.). I often encounter someone that is unaware of my food lifestyle and after the initial shock wears off, they want to know if I miss meat. The answer is a resounding no. I hardly notice it at all. I won’t go into why I don’t eat meat (not now anyway). There are different types of vegetarians. I am what is known as a lacto-ovo vegetarian—I eat eggs and diary but nothing that used to crawl, swim, walk or fly. No chicken, no cow, no pig, no lamb, no fish. (Nick and I went to a restaurant today that basically wanted to know how you want your beef cooked, but did include two of what they called “Meatless sandwiches”. They included fried fish and baked fish.
Read more