Off to the Malaysian consulate
02 August 2013 | Oceanview Marina
cloud with a bit of thunder and lightening.
We hopped on the 0830 taxi to the terry and headed to town to find the Malaysian consulate. I'd looked it up on Google and knew where to go. We grabbed a seat on one of the buses and made our way to "G" Mall as they supposedly have one of the better butcher's shops in town(Lisa"s Meats). Yes, they do but it's all labeled "lean beef". No clue as to where on the cow they got it. We didn't buy any as we still had to go to the consulate.
We flagged down a cab and had him take us to the Apo View Hotel(I have no idea what an "Apo" is and why you would want to look at it). The consulate was supposed to be right down the block. Well we missed the door that led to the third floor and had to get help from a local girl in one of the shops along the road. Even she had no clue and she works on the same block. It ended up just up the block near a door we had passed but were more concerned about not falling into the big deep hole that was right in front of the doorway.
We went up the three flights and signed in with reception. He directed us to one of the offices and there we explained our situation--we live on a boat and want to visit your country. She had no clue so she had to phone the embassy in Manila for directions on what to tell us. Ends up that we don't need to fill out any forms now, just show up and they will automatically grant us a three month visa. Now if we need an extension, she told us that we would need to fly back to our home country(USA) and file a request for the extension with the embassy there. We don't think that is the case and will check other websites that might have the correct info. Seems a bit drastic if you ask us.
After that, we grabbed a cab to Victoria Mall to have a quick lunch and then head for the ferry to make the 1330 shuttle back to the marina. No problem, we made it in plenty of time as did Doug off another boat that had been with us for the trip in. Made the shuttle drivers job easy as there was now no reason for him to meed the ferry at 1530 as everyone that had gone in was now back.
Tracy and I finished a game of Scrabble from yesterday and met Doug at the club house to share some of the ice cream we had brought back from S & R the other day. It's been a long time since we actually served ice cream and didn't just buy something on a stick at one of the stores.
While in town, I picked up the latest version of the new Star Trek movie. Only cost 35 pesos--about 90 cents and we got our moneys worth out of it. It was a copy shot at a movie theatre with all the laughter and noise one normally gets in a theatre. Sort of out of focus and with bad sound but hey, for 90 cents, what do you want?
That's it for today. Tomorrow more lightening and thunder is forecast. Guess we will see what Mother Nature has in store for us.
The picture is of the club house here at the marina from our boat.