Visa Fun for Everyone!!

After all of the fun I had getting my paperwork taken care of, I was ready to start sending things off to get my Visa.

Some of the things go to Korean Immigration, in Korea. I gather the documents and mail them off to my recruiter, who gets them to the school, who take them in to Immigration. Immigration looks everything over, which takes about a week, and then if they approve you, you are given a Visa Issuance Number. Perfect.

You then take the rest of your documents, along with the issuance number, and those go to the Korean Consulate in Houston. The consulate will take that number, plus your visa application and passport, and then decide if you will be given a visa or not. You can either mail them, or take them in person. That can also take about a week.

*I'm going to clue you in with my time frame here for a minute or two. I am supposed to start teaching on March 4th. I would like to get to Korea a few days before that so I can start to adjust to the time different, get over my jet lag, and get things done that I need to do before I can really start working. I have to go to the doctor for a physical. I have to get a phone. I have to set up a bank account. Figure out what to eat. Unpack and organize my apartment, (because I hate when it's done livable.) There are things I need to do and I'm a little worried that I'm running out of time.
Jiyeon emailed me my Visa Issuance number from Korea on February 21st at about 8pm. If I'm going to leave for Korea with enough time to get there early, I need to hurry and get my visa...

On February 21st, I was babysitting my 3 favorite short people in the whole world, my friend Melissa's kids, so I didn't get home until about 10pm that night. I decided that I would get all my consulate paperwork together and then overnight it the next morning. It would get there Monday morning, the 25th, and then if I was lucky it would come back to me by overnight on the 27th or 28th. I could then get on the plane and head to Korea.

As I thought more and more about this, I realized that it might not work that way. I talked with my mom and told her my worries and she asked how much it would cost for me to fly down to Houston and turn it in myself. That got me thinking. I looked up the flights and the logistics of it all, and realized that renting a car and driving myself would be a better idea. By midnight, I had rented a car for the next morning, had all my papers ready for the consulate, and tried to go to sleep.

The next morning, my mom and I were on the road, in our nice rental car, headed for Houston. You might think this is a tad ridiculous, but this was my logic. If I personally hand in the documents on Friday afternoon, they might be able to get them done by Monday afternoon and I can get my visa by Tuesday morning. If not, it might be Tuesday and I could get them back by Wednesday. If I had overnighted the documents, they would have received them Monday morning and I may not have gotten them back until Thursday. That is, IF I was lucky!! It took about 4 hours to drive there and  5 minutes to turn it in at the consulate, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I got to have a fun little road trip with my mom. We left in the morning, went to Bucees for a potty break and lunch, then went to the consulate. Again, it took about 5 minutes there, but I felt better knowing it was done. After we finished that, we stopped by a restaurant/pie shop, called House of Pies. We picked up some treats and then we came back home, again stopping at Bucees.

Along the way, we: saw the huge statue of Sam Houston, went to Bucees, saw a horse swing it's head up and down out the window of its trailer on the highway, (like a dog would do, it was awesome!!), went to the consulate, saw the Mexican consulate, saw Downtown Houston and some cool buildings, saw 2 deer by the side of the highway, and my personal favorite: were given the bird by an interesting lady driver as we passed her on the highway. She was lovely...(hehe).

I'm desperately hoping that I will get my visa back by Tuesday or Wednesday. If it all goes as Jiyeon and I are planning, I will leave for Korea on Thursday, the 28th, and get there Friday early evening. Then I will start teaching on the next Monday.

This whole process is going pretty fast and has been a little crazy along the way, but I'm still super excited to go. I think we're pretty caught up with the process before Korea now, so I'll update you with my last few days in the states going forward. Today is Saturday, February 23rd. I am having lunch with a friend today, and then I hope to hang out with my brother. Thanks for reading my crazy blog about this adventure, even before I start my adventure. I'll teach you some Korean. I'll show you some crazy food and some cool places. We'll have a great time together. LOVE YA!!!!