Woke up at 4.15am yesterday morning to catch the 5.35am National Express bus to London Victoria Coach Station. Why so early you asked? That's because I want to save money :p Well, officially one should get a queue number at the Malaysia High Commission in between 9am - 12noon, then come back to collect the passport at 3 - 4pm. So after some checking, I decided to take the bus instead of the train as the return ticket for the bus (~2.5hours one way) is GBP17.10 while the train ticket (~1hour) would have costs me GBP37 (that's GBP18.50 one way) !!! Of course taking the train means I can sleep for another hour more but since I'm no longer working so I can catch up on my sleep later.
The sun was just rising as I walked to towards the bus station and the bus was only 25% full. The journey was pretty ok and I reached London Victoria about 8am. Armed with the London map, I found my way to the Malaysia High Com at Belgrave Square about 20 minutes later (the actual journey is just about 10-15mins but I had to stop a couple of times to check the map). As I was nearing the place, I saw various flags from different countries . I guess the UK government specially grouped all the embassy and High Com offices from around the world here. I saw the Malaysian flag as I turned round the bend ... ahhh.... a sense of familiarism arises. The immigration office is at the lower ground and there weren't anybody around.
It was still pretty early so I decided to take a stroll around the area. This area looks pretty high class and there were also some private residential at the other end. After I got back to the high com building, it is still pretty vacated. So i sat down and waited. Then I saw someone (looking like a Malay immigration officer) who came and walked down the stairs. Afterwards, a chinese mother and daughter too disappeared under the stairs. I got up and walked down the stairs. Pushed on the blue wooden door (which I thought was locked but wasn't) and let myself in. Inside there were already about 8 people waiting at the reception area :p
At 8.55am, an officer came in and asked us to register at the registration log book. After 10 minutes, he came back and started calling our names one by one to go through the forms and documents to make sure they are correct and sufficient before issuing us a number. I had downloaded and printed out the required IM.42 form but he told me that it is not acceptable as the form must be printed double sided. So I paid him 25pence to get the official form and got my queue number 007. Another long wait before my number was called and this time, the lady officer told me that my photocopied IC must be on a whole sheet of paper (I cut out my photocopied IC from a sheet together with my Sg IC and driving license). There goes another 40pence for the photocopying service. Luckily my passport photo which I've taken back in Swindon was accepted, otherwise I would have to go and take another photo there. After checking the documents, paying GBP50 and taking my thumb print, she gave me a receipt and ask me to come back at 3pm. Walked back to Victoria train station and grab a Quarter Pounder meal from McD. I still have 3 hours to go before 3pm. Hence I decided to visit Tate Britain.
Tate Britain is a part of the Tate gallery network in Britain, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It was the first established of these museums, opening in 1897. It houses a substantial collection of the work of J.M.W. Turner. I reached there just in time to join the free guided tour at 12noon. A tate guide took us through a few paintings and collections and told us stories behind the paintings and also about the painter. It was such a delightful experience as I learned so much more about the painter and the paintings that I would not have if I just wondered around myself. The tour lasted for an hour and off I went to explore other parts of the museum. There was a special exhibition by Martin Creed on show - "Work no. 850" at the gallery where it centres on a simple idea: that a person will run as fast as they can every thirty seconds through the gallery. Each run is followed by an equivalent pause, like a musical rest, during which the grand Neoclassical gallery is empty. So every 30 seconds, you could see a person sprinting across the gallery. These people are actually volunteers and some of them are not from the athletic background.
At 3pm, I got back to the High Comm to receive my new passport. I'm so glad that they offered this same day collection service so I do not need to come back again to collect the passport some other day. As I've booked my return bus ticket at 6pm so I got another 2 hours to kill. Since I was tired and the sky looks like it might rain, I decided to just sit outside the station and read my guidebook on Scotland.
On my journey back home that day, it suddenly struck me that my first passport was issued in my hometown Taiping (1999), then 5 years later (2003) I renewed it in Singapore. Another 5 years after that, I got an issue from London (2008), UK. I wonder where will my passport be issued in the year 2013?
