Wednesday, August 27, 2008

ICA - Passport Renewal

I accidentally submitted my application to renew my passport online a couple of weeks back. I was just testing the picture to see if it fit in the online box when somehow a click went straight into submission.

It was pretty fast though so I was impressed by that. I could collect my passport within the week. I didn't get see the notification till much later, like the night before the collection date/time. So either my parents had opened the letter and didn't pass it to me earlier or the letter really came late.

I didn't know ICA had started specifying the time/date of collection and that if you could not make it then, you would need to call to re-schedule. Wow! I went to ICA and after scanning the notification card, I realized there were 91 people ahead of me in the collection queue. *Faint*

I didn't bring a book so I just listened to my mini ipod and watched ChannelNewsAsia on mute. Then I noticed I could actually sms to find out how long the wait would be. It replied it would be between 30mins to an hour. How reassuring. In the end, it took about 40mins before my number was flashed on the board and another 10 minutes to get my thumbs scanned and passport signed.

It was not too bad. 50mins spent at ICA with 91 people ahead of me to collect their passports. That was pretty efficient. I could name some banks or other places where you could wait for more than an hour and there were less than 25 people ahead of you in the line.

Yay! I could travel again :) Only hassle is that I have to remember my new passport number now. And the passport is only valid for 5 years instead of the 10 years given previously.

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