The official website says the address of the visa office is 26 Harbor Rd. on the 7th floor of the China Resources Building, so that’s where we went. The funny thing is, there’s nothing there. The building is there and it looks like the kind of building that would have a government office, but if you go up to the 7th floor, it’s all under construction. That wasn’t a good sign.
Fortunately there was a good sign, in English, telling us that the visa office moved around the corner. The sign is set up so you see it as you’re leaving the main entrance. You can’t see it on the way in. I think it would be better to have the sign where you can see it before you go indoors. The new entrance is around the corner on Fleming Road. It’s in the same building, and once you see the new entrance it’s obvious that you’re at the right place, but you’ll never see it if you go to the original front door.
When we found the right entrance, we were surprised that there wasn’t any line. We thought it would be crowded, but there was no one there except two security guards and they weren’t too interested in doing anything. They just waved us through without checking our bags. You’re not even allowed to take up a bottle of water – there’s a sign saying so and even a trash can to throw it away – but the security guards never said anything, so I kept the water I had with me.
Another girl passed through the security checkpoint while we waited for the elevator. There were only three of us going up.
When the elevator doors opened, we realized why there was no one downstairs. All of Hong Kong was in the visa office. It was beyond crowded. I’ve been in Hong Kong for over a year, so I’m used to crowded by now. This was not just crowded, it was incrowded.
If you go left, there’s a large counter full of forms to fill out. We were smart enough to fill them out before we got there. You can get everything online and lots of instructions, which is a good thing since the entire procedure is more complicated than it needs to be. If you don’t check what you need before you go, you probably won’t have everything you need and you’ll just have to make another trip.
Ryan needed to bring his passport, a copy of his passport, a passport picture, his Hong Kong ID, a copy of his Hong Kong ID, an invitation letter from the owner of the club, the club’s business card, a copy of the club’s business license and two different application forms. We also brought along information showing that he works at Disneyland, just in case. If we hadn’t checked online we never would have brought all the club information. I’m glad we made copies beforehand because the visa office only had two coin operated copy machines in a tiny corner just outside the office. There were almost as many people pushing and shoving to make copies as there were in the visa office.
On the right side in the visa office was a line of people waiting for some officials to look at their applications. We didn’t know what that was about, but we waited in that line anyway because there were people in uniforms there and if nothing else, they could at least tell us which line we were supposed to wait in.
It turned out that was the right line. The officials checked to make sure the applications were filled out correctly. The way it was all set up, they seem to assume that most people won’t fill out the right forms correctly. People probably don’t because none of it is straightforward.
The official guy told us that our forms were filled out correctly and had us go to a machine to get a number, kind of like every other government office in Hong Kong. At the end of the office was a big board telling you which number was next. Ours wasn’t even close.
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No hate, please. There's enough of that in the world already.