Remember the pain that I had to go through when getting the police check? If you haven't, then please read the entry before this to get the whole context thus far. It turns out that pain isn't done with me yet.
When I accepted the slot given to be by the seriously rude lady on the phone, I didn't realize that on that day there are no flights to Canberra such that I will reach there on time for the appointment. Since I was very apprehensive to call again to change the day to a day where there are flights, I decided to look for alternate means of transportation to the nation's capital. After awhile of looking, I found buses that goes there. Caveat: The only feasible bus leaves at 8 pm and arrives in Canberra at 4 am. And my appointment is at 9 am. Nonetheless I took the bus to go there. Knowing that there is going to be 5 hours of very free time, I pre-planned a route to bring a camera and try and shoot around at night until it is time for me to go for my appointment. Not expecting much since my camera isn't great at night plus I'm going to have to live with the noise. Because Canberra is rubbishly cold at night, there is no way I'm going to be sitting still doing nothing outside.
To maximize my energy intake, I had a very heavy and late lunch before going on the bus and hoping to catch some shut eye on the way there. It was a good thing that I did that because the only stop that was made on the way there was at a truck pit stop just past Albury. Had a sandwich and a chocolate milk and this was going to be the only thing I would have eaten for the next 21 hours. The bus was alright, fairly comfortable and they even screened a movie when we left Melbourne, Something's Gotta Give. But for most of the time on the bus I was just playing Words With Friends (side note: Optus has pretty good coverage for me to be able to do this. 3 and Vodaphone users, take note) and looking out of the window. It was a very clear night and for most of the time you would be able to look out and see thousands of stars and even make out the Milky Way. A bit later on, the moon had just risen and seeing this rather large looking half moon hovering just above the horizon was something.
When I set foot in Canberra began what was to be my rather epic "photo walk" for 5 hours. Armed with an iPod and my camera, I set forth to cover at least a half marathon's distance in that 5 hours. The streets were ghost town empty, large open spaces and a lot of parks. Lots of rabbits and kangaroos about as well near the War Memorial site which was rather strange. There was even one time where I was "attacked" by an angry bird. This bird circled around me squawking and even flew past my head just a couple of feet away. This bird practically followed me around for a good distance until I had crossed the road into a park. I think if I were there a bit longer that bird would start pecking my head.
And then the real pain starts. After 5 hours it was time for me to go for my appointment. My legs were super tired and starting to get sore so I was hoping that this police check thing would be over quickly. Went to the section where I was to send in my application and everything is so archaic. You take a number by taking coloured laminated cards from a tray when you walk in. The interior looks like it hasn't changed since Mahathir was in power. The only thing that I can see that was up-to-date were Tourism Malaysia posters on the twin towers and Cyberjaya. I even thought that the potted plant next to where I sat was older than me. This lady came out and started calling out numbers to get the applications for the police check and all I thought was "Oh no. Please don't tell me it is that lady." I was the fourth person called and when she asked for my documents (rather rudely of course) it turns out that I didn't have one of the documents. The documents that was stated in their site were largely inconsistent so I didn't know that I had to bring in this document which was the Australia Visa documentation. Since most Australia visas are electronic visas and attached to the passport, I thought that this wasn't going to be a problem but of course it had to be a problem. The lady said that without a physical copy of the documentation they cannot process the application. So now I am really stressed that I now need to find a place to print the documentation and God knows what other things that can go wrong.
The nearest place it turns out to be was the Australian National Library and that was a good 2+ km away. On my way to the High Commission I noticed quite a number of taxis around. But when I was in need of a fast transport to the library, no available taxi is in sight. So with my very sore legs, I brisk walked to the library. I've had so many frustrations just to get the documentation printed out in the library such as I need to have a library account with them and had some hoops to jumps through for me to do that, some of the computers there blocked GMail (wth?) and the set of computers that did work couldn't send the documents to the printer for printing. So much time lost and I wasn't even sure what sorts of surprises the High Commission are going to throw at me even when I am done. The librarian there was probably the most helpful person I've met today so I was very very grateful to him. After finally getting the things printed, again I couldn't find available taxis to get back to the High Commission as quickly as possible so I brisk walked back again. My left leg socket was starting to act up at this point which is a pretty bad sign.
Got back to the High Commission, a good 1+ hour since I was "ejected" from there, and I took a number. That number was the next number after mine which means that no one else had come for the police check since I've left and the people who were in front of me were still there. Very inefficient but that is probably good news that they are still going to entertain my application. Barely 5 minutes from arriving and getting my things sorted out, the lady saw that I came back and sounds almost frustrated that I didn't call her the minute I reached there and she sounded like she is making a very big deal out of this. At this point, the people who were in front of me went on to see the lady's boss while I sat on a chair near the lady's desk for her to sort my application stuff. In that time, her phone was ringing quite often and all of them were asking for an appointment to get the police check. How she answered them proved to me that she was that lady. I am staring at the face of evil, an evil so vile it makes your blood boil the second she utters a single word. After each call, she mumbles to herself mostly in frustration while I scan her desk to find a name for this person to remember.
Then I got into a glimpse of the "appointment management system". And true enough, it was this calendar log book filled with the names and contact numbers of those who were to come in for the police check. On each day, there were no more than 12-14 names on it and that was the definition of a full day. As I will soon discover, the way they do things around there, they could have served double the number of people and still have time for all the usual breaks and an afternoon nap. Everyone who placed an appointment for a particular day, there is only one appointment time, 9 am, regardless of whether there is no one or 10 people booked in for that day. I soon realize that you could just rock up to them without an appointment at any time they are open to submit the application and they would still accept it. They didn't check whether the person booked in for that day had arrived or rather, they didn't check that the person being served is booked in. This means that ALL of my transportation changes in the past that I had could have been avoided altogether, saving me a lot of money and hassle. I could just go there, pretending like I should be there and things would be fine. Simply and crudely put, they really didn't give a damn about appointments. Oh my blood boils.
Soon it was my turn to see the tiger lady's boss. She didn't say which room it was in. The first room with the door open I see this guy and I asked if this is where I was to go for the police check application. His first reply was "Do I look like a police officer to you?". Got stunned there for awhile because how do you reply to such questions. He did say that this was the right place and I now have a feeling that the following conversation is going to be more of an interrogation. What then happened was a series of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with what I thought a police check (or interrogation) would be like. It's almost like I was being questioned on my loyalty to the country disguised as "general knowledge" questions. Despite my really poor attempt (read: fail at Malaysian political scene) at answering the questions I was issued the certificate anyway. So confused. One more thing to do was to sign a declaration form which was handled by the tiger lady. The couple of people in front of me said that they were a bit afraid of her, out in the open that she could hear it. I think a bit was a severe understatement. So we all signed the forms and she said "You better make sure you sign and attach everything ah. You don't want to see me again or me to call you." I'm sure Death himself would sound less scary than her. And just like that, everything was done. From the time I came in (after I had all the documents) until the time I got out was no more than say 15 minutes. How on earth does 12-14 people in a day be a full day when each person takes less than 15 minutes each?
Took a cab back to the airport and I was pretty glad that I didn't take a cab when I really needed to. It is seriously expensive that it was as though the meter ticked every time I blinked. A 6.5 km journey with smooth traffic and little traffic lights costed me $21! I was nearly broke because of that. The cab driver was an interesting fellow. He was Bruneian and he has been in Australia for 37 years. Quite a nice fellow and even described that he once went to Penang from Singapore on a taxi back in the old days. This is only something I've seen in a P. Ramlee movie. But he asked a very confrontational question when he realized that I had been in Australia for 7 years which was "Why are you still holding on to your Malaysian citizenship?". I gave some lame excuse just to stop the conversation thread. I know my country has some pretty bad problems but I still don't think that it is grounds for giving it up. On that note the cab trip ended, on a weird stance. At this point I'm too tired to think about it. All I want is to collapse on my bed and sleep the rest of the day away.
Some pictures I took along my half marathon walk.
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Turns out that that was just a random stab in the dark. Secret's still safe. For now.
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goodness.. for all that trouble it may have been worth it taking the trip back to putrajaya. they're way friendlier.
According to my sister, the people in Putrajaya have their own issues too. But I think it is safe to say that anything else would have been better than this.