immigration

In HK everyone, eleven years and older, is required to possess a HK ID card. Once a child turns eleven, the parent has thirty days to get the child's ID. 

Taylor just turned eleven last week, so we booked a morning appointment with immigration to make sure she didn't miss a full day of school. Perfect.

So, I took Taylor on Monday morning for a 10:15 am appiontment, and I arrived at 9:45, thanks to someone we know, who happened to be on the bus with us, and who happened to be getting off at Immigration Tower (he works in the building next door), and who graciously walked us to the very door of immigration. 

And, much like when Jeff, the boys, and I got our IDs, we were in and out in less than one hour (I find this massively busy arm of the governement to be incredibly efficient). Taylor and I walked in with our documents and were given a number; we watched for our number to be displayed on the screen, and we walked to the booth number that was displayed with our customer number. Easy.

But it stopped being easy at the escalator.  

We got outside to the bus stop near the tower, and we immediately saw bus 104!  Fabulous luck. We needed bus 104 because bus 104 stops right in front of the school.

But, within minutes, we were heading into the cross harbour tunnel, which takes us off HK Island (Taylor's school is on HK Island) and into Kowloon.  In the tunnel we became enlightened to our failure - we had failed to catch the bus on the correct side of the street. 

These roads in HK are unforgiving! We needed to get off the bus and get on the 104 going back through the tunnel onto HK Island. 

If we had caught the 104 bus from the opposite side of the street from Immigration Tower, we would have arrived at Taylor's school in about 15 minutes (11:00), but instead we arrived at 11:55.  It took us over an hour!  I love public transportation, but I am GREEN!