We left Sacramento around 7am and hit no traffic into San Francisco. Most people were probably out of the city for the long President’s Day weekend. The Chinese Consulate’s office is located on the corner of Laguna and Geary Street. We found the Consulate building and were pleased that we got there just as they opened. But when we turned onto Geary Street we saw an enormous line of people waiting to get inside the Chinese Consulate’s visa office.
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| The waiting line to get inside the Visa Consulate |
The line was long and wrapped around the building. My husband took one look and said he's not going to wait in that line! It wrapped down the street and around the corner. But we parked the car and walked up the hill and got in line anyway. I looked at my watch and it was 9:05, the consulate just opened for business 5 minutes earlier. We were on the East side of the building and the morning sun was keeping us warm. There were at least 150 people in front of us. Soon more people lined up behind us as we moved about 6 inches forward in the first 30 minutes. I told my husband that I'll go and get us some coffee. I got out of line and started to look for a Starbucks on Fillmore Street.
My Apple map shows about 4 tenths of a mile to the nearest Starbucks, or an 8 minutes walk. I followed the directions and walked faster to beat the very cold air. At Starbucks I ordered two coffees and used the restroom. I walked back, worrying that I was gone too long. No problem. The line was even longer behind us and my husband had moved forward about 4 feet.
I started to make conversation with the young college-age man behind me. Turns out he’s a freshman at UC Berkeley and was using his day off to get his China Visa for a trip this summer. In front of me, a young lady and her dad were here for their visas too. They came all the way from Shasta the night before and stayed at one of the hotels so they could be first in line at 9am. But they didn’t know many would line up even earlier.
My husband googled his surroundings and let me know that there are little shops in Japan Town that looked interesting if I wanted to check them out. Once again I left the line and walked toward Japan Town. I went in several stores in Japan Town, just about a block from the visa waiting line. I stopped and tasted mochi, then bought some bread and pastries. Walking back I saw my husband at the same spot when I left 30 minutes ago. We munched on the pastries and I asked my husband to go and move the car since we parked at a 2 hour time limited parking spot on the street.
He left to check on the car. The line moved a little and I made a comment to the young man that we are making progress, a few more feet and we will move past the corner and head for the straight line on Geary Street. At 11:36 I got a text from hubby asking if I would like a cup of coffee. “No thank you” I responded. We inched up little by little. At almost 3 hours the young lady and her dad from Shasta decided they couldn’t wait anymore and they left. We took their spot and moved up a foot. My husband came back with coffee in his hand and said the car is fine. I left the line and went up to the entrance of the building and asked the guard at the door if we need to come back because the visa issue hours are 9:00am - 2:30pm. He said don’t worry, we'll get in. It was 11:50am.
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| Office Hour |
I came back to the line and told my husband and the college kid the good news. I noticed we were still in the same spot. About 30 minutes later another guard coming down the line asking people if they were in line for a visa? We said yes and he handed out a number, A079. He asked the college kid and also handed the kid a ticket. Now that we had the ticket, I guess we can leave and come back? But the other people who got tickets didn’t leave. And the entrance was still very far away.
I left the line and went to ask the guard how I'll know when my number is called? He looked at my number and looked inside, and explained to me that right now the number is 30. Go back in line or come back at 1:30. I walked back to the line, by now the husband had moved about six inches. Around 1pm, the same guard walked down the sidewalk line and asked those here for a visa to stay in one line closer to the building and those here for “documents” to stay in a different line closer to the curb. There was some shuffling. Now there were two lines and we moved up quite a bit closer to the entrance of the building. By 1:00 pm the guard that was handing out visa number tickets now started to hand out a different ticket to the people who waiting in line for “documents”.
Since we got our ticket and were waiting to be called I started to get out of line more often. I could see a third line formed opposite from our line, down the sidewalk in the other direction. Someone told me that line is the appointment line. Then we froze. From 1:00pm to 2:50pm we were in the same spot. I got out of line and asked the guard again and explained to him that I can’t hear my number and asked if I missed the call? He said they haven’t got to my number yet.
People moved around and some were hanging out at the front of the entrance, crowding the front. The bigger guard, more like a club bouncer in uniform, started to asked people to stand back. He started to move the barrier in front of the entrance and he put down red tape on the sidewalk and told people to stand behind the tape. He also let more people in the document line to get inside while the visa line hadn’t moved an inch for over an hour. Finally he let three people in the visa line enter the building. It was a big deal. I was so excited because we were next to get in.
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| We are next to get inside the building |
Minutes later, the overworked but friendly bouncer waved us in and we went through a metal detector.
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| The time we were inside the building |
Once inside I saw it was a single large room. There were dozens of people sitting on the airport-like chairs, and many people were filling out forms. Toward the back I saw about 10 windows, some with lines. Clerks behind glass were scrambling. I had no clue which window to go toward or which line to wait in. I went back and asked the door guard which window. He looked at my ticket and pointed to the window 8 and 9 and said one of those two. Then I realized there were only two windows processing the visas and that they are working on numbers A073 and A074.
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| Which window? |
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| Number A079 is next |
We hurried to the copy machines we saw at the back of the crowded room, dug out quarters, loaned out a few to other who brought no cash, and the machine we picked didn’t work. So we waited in line to use the one working copy machine and I could feel the anxiety starting to get to me. After the copies of passports and driver licenses were done, we came back to the now busy window and waited again.
Finally a gap. We slipped up to the window and it took the lady about 5 minutes to carefully review all the documents, checking dates, flight information, addresses, etc. She handed us a receipt, keeping our passports and applications, and told us to come back on Friday to pick up the visa. And that was it! We walked out of the building by 3:50pm. A total of 6 hours and 30 minutes of waiting to get inside the building, and about 45 minutes once inside.
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| Our receipt |
As we left the building I was so happy because we could come back on Friday and our visa will be ready.
On Friday we took our time to come in the city to get our Visa. I was confident that we wouldn't have to wait. But there was a line, a long line like on Monday. But I knew we didn’t have to wait in that line. With a confident posture I walked straight in the door and the same guard stopped me. I showed him my receipt for picking up our passport. He didn’t even look at the receipt but pointed at the line outside and told me to get in line. I looked at the people in line and saw that smirk that says get in line sista, we're here to pick up our visa too.
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| Friday line is now the pick up our Visa line |
This time it took only two hours. Once inside we got our Visa we paid $140 each for a total of $280. We are ready for Cathay.
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| Expensive 10 year visa |
But the big Friday surprise was the extra ticket, a parking ticket. The signs say 2 hour parking, not two hours and 5 minutes. There goes my happy hour fund.
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| San Francisco parking ticket |
