Thursday, November 27, 2014

The 6 Omens of Taipei 1.0

On 15 May 2014, my friends Gael and Celine, and I booked a cheap flight to Taipei for 21 November 2014. I was so excited that although the Taiwan visa application only takes 3 days, I applied for mine a month before.

As a woman of science, I don’t believe in things such as luck or signs. But in this case, I think bad luck sounds better than idiocy.

Omen 1: Case of the Colds
A couple of days before our departure, I unnecessarily spent hours packing and repacking for a local business trip and my trip to Taipei, which was back-to-back. I ended up sleeping late and waking up with a scratchy throat. I didn’t get to sleep well for the next couple of days and the night before my Taipei trip was spent in an 11-hour bus ride. On the night of our flight, I already had a runny nose and a headache.

Omen 2:  Can't find a Cab
It was a Friday. It was rush hour.  I had difficulty finding a cab willing to take me to the airport. It took me 30 minutes before I finally found a cab driver who would take me there—but he wanted a flat rate of 300PHP. I asked the driver to run the meter anyway. Traffic was relatively light, considering it was Manila Friday Rush Hour. I gave myself an hour and a half to get to the airport. To my surprise I got to the airport in less than 30 minutes. Even the cab driver didn’t argue when I paid him what was on the meter (PHP150). I arrived 4 hours before departure, before the check-in counter was even open.

Omen 3: Forgotten Visa
While we were checking in, Gael remembered that she forgot to print her visa exempt form. We asked the lady from the Cebu Pacific counter if there were printers in the terminal but she just shook her head and said they didn’t have any. But another Cebu Pacific employee told Gael to email him his form and he’d print it for her. So, Gael called her brother and had him fill up the form. It wasn't as easy though. After an hour of connection problems and browser problems, Gael finally got her visa and we finally got our boarding passes.

Omen 4: Immigration Migraine
While Gael and I seamlessly went through immigration, Celine was held up. As a government employee, she needed a travel authority to leave the country. But after about 10 minutes of convincing the immigration officer that she was on vacation and had a return ticket home, she was finally let through.

Omen 5: Kota Kinabalu
30 minutes before our scheduled departure, we calmly started towards gate 103, our boarding gate. We didn't hear any boarding announcement yet so I was assuming it was a few minutes delayed. I remember telling Gael about how my cousin missed his flight to China. When we arrived at gate 103, Gael mentioned that the gate was marked Kota Kinabalu. A part of me wanted to verify if we were indeed in the right boarding area, but I just shrugged it off and we continued with our conversation. *Cough, cough*Stupid, right?

Omen 6: Run! Run! Run!
Although I’m clinically mildly deaf, I could clearly hear boarding announcements from other flights, so I figured I would hear it if our flight was already boarding. We calmly chatted away and at some point, Celine was laughing at a couple of passengers running towards gate 106. (Guess who's laughing later?)

Implication of the Omens:

PHP 3,650. At around 11:00, an acquaintance that was also on the same flight called Celine and told them that we were the only ones left who haven’t boarded. I checked my boarding pass again and to my horror, the boarding gate read gate 106 (I bought a new pair of glasses the next day). There were three of us and none of us heard our flight being called. None of us bothered to check our boarding pass. Stupid, stupid, stupid! We rushed towards the gate but it was no use. The gates were closed. We were about to miss our flight. 10 minutes later, we missed our flight. There goes our PHP 3,600.00.

NTD 1300 / 3 persons. I don’t normally use an airport pick-up service but since we were arriving in the wee hours of the morning, I decided to book a car service (it would cost the same if we were to take a cab). We called the contact in Taiwan who booked us the car service but he said the car service was already on its way to the airport.

NTD 650. Well duh, we have already reserved 3 nights for 3 people in a hostel. We cancelled the rest of our stay right away. Fortunately, each of us was only charged the first night.

Priceless. We've been anticipating for this trip for 6 months. As a national scholar, I had to arduously obtain a travel permit (this is hard to obtain when you’re working and saving your leaves) and I didn't even get to really use it. But worse of all, this trip was going to be Celine’s first travel abroad.

Total Cost of Damages: ~PHP6,000(USD135) per person + a lot of disappointment

I really didn't expect something like this to happen to me. It reminded me of my trip from Bruges to Paris, when everything that could go wrong went wrong. Except this time, we only had ourselves to blame. But oh well, the silver lining to this experience is that we now have a helluva travel blooper to tell—how we missed our flight to Taipei. We also got to experience how to depart from departure area of the airport. LOL. 

We booked a new flight the following day with a new addition to the crew (so we aren't the 3 idiots anymore!) and this time we’ll be more than ready for Taipei 2.0!



Note: We got a full refund of our PHP1,620 travel tax and our PHP550 terminal fee was still valid for our next trip.

Taiwan Visa Application

15 May 2014
When I saw a PHP 3,650 (~USD 85) all-in roundtrip Manila-Taipei-Manila fare, my friends and I immediately grabbed the tickets. I knew we would still have to pay for travel tax upon departure but I completely forgot that I still had to get a Taiwan visa.

I hate visa applications. The visas from my previous passports had been obtained effortless, courtesy of a company travel agent or my mother. But two years ago, I applied for a Schengen visa... I was jobless at that time (hence no certificate of employment) and I was going to Eurail across Europe (hence no hotel reservations). I finally succumbed to the services of a travel agent and spent twice as much for the visa. A friend of mine ensured me that the Taiwan visa application was a breeze and as I went through the Taiwanese consular website, the process did seem easy. I thought that my companions all had valid US visas and I was the only one who had to go through the visa application process (I later learned that one of my companions also had to apply for a Taiwan visa). So, for the first time, I applied for a visa on my own… without a travel agent… without my mother.

Applicants were required to accomplish and submit an online application form. I find answering forms of any kind stressful.  I always have the feeling that I’d get something wrong (e.g. using today’s year as my birth year) and I have the tendency to complicate simple questions.
Should I use St. or Street in my address?
Should I use “Project Engineer” or “Engineer” in my occupation?
Do I use the Filipino-style middle name or the Western-style middle name? (In the Philippines, the middle name refers to the mother’s maiden surname)

I found this blog as a good resource for the Taiwan visa application although it’s still best to check the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office website for the most up-to-date requirements. The good thing about the Taiwan visa application is that it doesn’t require you to submit a hotel reservation. So, I simply wrote down the address of the hostel I was planning on staying.

27 October 2014
I submitted my application form online on a Friday and the following Monday, I was at the RCBC Plaza lobby with my printed out visa application form and requirements. At around 08:15 in the morning, there were already about 30 people queuing at the lobby.

 At exactly 08:45 AM, the queue started to move as we signed in at the RCBC lobby. Then, we were asked to wait outside, at the smoking area of the ground floor.  After a few minutes, the applicants names were called and numbers were given (according to when you signed in—or so I think). After I got my number (#31), I went straight up to 41st floor and waited for my turn. There were some people who missed their turn and had to go back to the lobby to get a new number. The queue was moving fast. By 10:00 AM, I was done!

30 October 2014

My visa was ready for pick-up by Thursday afternoon. I got off work early and arrived at the Consular Office at 03:30 PM, with the queue on number 64. My number was 94. The queue was initially moving slowly but after a short while, it began to pick up some pace.  And voila, at 04:07 PM, I had officially received my Taiwan visa.



See you soon Taipei! ….Or not?