Dead Cat Immigration Office

Sidewalk fish sale in Tagbilaran.

My goal today was to go to the Immigration office in Tagbilaran to extend my visa that was ending on May 6th. I was extremely careful to make sure I had everything I needed and enough time so I wouldn’t have to make multiple trips -- I left in the morning in case they closed early in the day, went several days before my visa expired, gathered all my documents, lots of money, and even wore pants and shoes because I heard they wouldn’t serve you if you didn’t. There was nothing I could think of that would prevent me from getting my visa extension today.

While leaving the house, the landlord’s rotwelier dog dragged a dead cat into my area. As with anything dead, I was disgusted. And to see this limp dead cat being mauled by the dog made it even more disgusting. I hastily ran out the gate in case the dog would bring the cat to me.

I eventually made it to the Immigration office by 1:20 PM to find it closed. The sign on the door said the office closed from 12 - 1 PM for lunch. Well, I’m in the Philippines, tardiness is the norm. I decided to go eat, get a haircut and then come back to give them enough time to come back from lunch, but before they closed at 5 PM. While going to get a haircut, I noticed the bank was closed. I asked the lady at the hair salon why the bank was closed and she said it was because of a holiday -- Labor Day. Damn, just my luck.

A severely off-key child sings at BQ Mall.

Having little hope the Immigration office would open, I went to BQ mall to make my trip less of a waste. I went to the Fuji photo lab to make prints of some photos from Vilma’s birthday celebration. It wasn’t cheap to make prints -- 6.5 pesos per 4 x 6 print (0.16 USD/print). I was interested to see how good they would be because I’ve never professionally printed anything from my digital camera. The pictures came out quite nice and were close to what they looked like on my computer. The rest of the time at BQ I spent making sure I had everything I needed for my house -- groceries, cleaning supplies, etc.


- jason