Our Day at the Consulate

The story of our time in Korea should really begin with our visa troubles. At the end of July, Paul and I signed teaching contracts with Gyeonggi province and sent them to our recruiter, along with resumes, transcripts, two passport-size pictures, police checks, and our most recent degrees. Our company in South Korea took our documents to the Korean consulate and emailed us confirmation numbers. “Just take the confirmation numbers – along with your passports – to the Korean consulate in Toronto,” they told us. “It will make the visa process very easy.”

We visited the Korean consulate on the first morning we were back in Toronto, passports and confirmation numbers in hand. We waited ten minutes in line before we were pointed to a table in the back corner of the room where we found visa application forms. After filling out the forms, we got back in line, this time, we were told to sit on the bench at the back of the room. Fifteen minutes passed, and some new people were standing in our line. We stood up again. This time, the clerk asked us to photocopy our passports for them. She pointed to a photocopier in the corner. Since neither one of us had Canadian money, we left the consulate for the nearest corner store and ATM, returned with only quarters, and photocopied our passports for 25 cents a page. We returned yet again to the desk. “Where are your pictures?” she asked.

“We sent them with our other documents to Korea,” we replied. “We have a confirmation number.”

Without looking impressed with our confirmation number, she replied,“There’s a photo shop at Yonge and St. Clair. Bring back pictures and sixty-five dollars cash.”

We drove to the photo store because we didn't know how far away it was (it’s not far enough to warrant getting in a car), had to find a place to park, found another ATM, and got in line at the photo store. Thirty minutes; thirty dollars. Back to the consulate.

“Do you have the address of your school in Korea?” Our recruiter’s address was on Paul’s laptop, sitting in his dad’s office, along with his cell phone. We used the consulate’s pay phone and Paul’s dad found the address for us. We each finished our forms, and went, yet again, to the desk.

The clerk took our money, pictures, applications, photocopies, and our confirmation numbers. She typed our numbers into her database. There were the pictures we had sent to Korea, along with all of the information we had sent, and everything we had filled out on the application. “This says you have a degree from the University of Toronto. I’ll need to see that.”

We had sent our degrees to Korea. It was supposed to be easier that way. We had a confirmation number. And yet, we were stuck. They were disappointed that we couldn’t see our degrees, but seemed satisfied with the idea of sealed transcripts. We both had extra copies of our transcripts -in Etobicoke, a forty-minute drive from the consulate. A few hours later, we returned to the consulate a fourth time, carrying our transcripts.

They put all of Paul’s paperwork together in the file, and then looked at mine. “We don’t normally work with Americans. This will probably take longer than five days.”

It was not a happy drive home. I tilted my seat back, and we listened to Harry Potter while Paul navigated rush-hour traffic. We were frustrated, annoyed, nervous. We had managed to apply for our visas, but it had taken much longer than we had supposed, and there was very little hope that I would have mine in time to travel on the 28th. We were already anxious about our trip: our company had just let us know that we wouldn’t have an apartment when we landed – we would need to stay temporarily with a family in the next town over, or perhaps in very small temporary housing. Not to mention the fact that we had not left ourselves enough time to see our friends and family in Toronto before we took off the next week. We were feeling more than a bit stressed.

Providentially, we got an email the next business day saying that our Korean company had found us housing beginning on the 10th of September – would we mind coming a bit later? It was perfect. Paul’s visa was ready on time, but mine wasn’t ready until the day after we were scheduled to leave. We would have had to cancel my flight. But we have our visas in hand now, a place to move into when we land, and plane tickets for Monday morning.