I didn’t even know there were 180 day visitor visas. I thought it was 30 or 60 days. Shows what I know.
I’m guessing it refers to a 60 day, which if stretched out for it’s full potential, becomes a 180 day visitor visa.
HG
I’ve always been given a 60 day visa before, which I can extend twice to 180 days, but the last time (on my 4th overstay) they actually gave me a 180 visitor visa, I’ve never seen that before either. Beggars belief!! If no-one believes me, I’ll be happy to scan it and forward it.
I have also seen a 180-day visa. Rare. But from the HK office…? They wouldn’t even give me one when I was an official government exchange student studying full-time at a uni here with a proper student ID and full financial support.
I told HK I was planning on marrying a local and I needed a visa to make the arrangements. They told me I should be able to do all that in 30 days and refused my request for a 60 day. It may cost another 3000NT or so, but Bangkok is my advice. Helluva lot cheaper in the long run, considering a decent hotel room runs about 800 Baht in Sukhamvit (sp?).
R/T tickets to Bangkok run between 6500 and 7000NT. And hotels on Sukhumvit are indeed about 800 baht.
Grrrrr!!! Delightful conversation with the Taiwan fake embassy here in HK just now. Couldn’t see one, but there really ought to be a seperate thread about this infamous office and the connundrums it throws up to people with genuine reasons to enter Taiwan.
I asked if I could travel to Taiwan with my valid ARC and an emergency passport, the very passport I used last week to obtain a landing visa in Bangkok - and by the way, I’m not a resident of Thailand - and the month before got me in and out of China.
Idiot 1: “No, you must go back to Taiwan and apply for a new ARC.”
Me: “Ah, so I can use my emergency passport and current ARC to enter Taiwan to do this?”
Idiot 1: “No, you cannot. You need the visa and re-entry permit which will be in your lost passport.”
Me: “I see, so can I get a landing visa? I am after all a resident of Taiwan attempting to get home.” (Idiot 1 puts me through to Idiot 2)
Idiot 2: “Hello, no you cannot get a landing visa, these can only be issued for proper Australian passports, not an emergency passport.”
Me: “So tell me, is Taiwan interested in international business? You see, in addition to being a returning resident, I have business in Taiwan in the coming week. I note that Thailand, a country in which I am not a resident, accepted my temporary passport, as too did China the month before. Are you not interested in perhaps matching China and Thailand, or would you really rather remain a piss weak version of North Korea?” (that’s really what I said.)
Idiot 2: That’s an immigration question”
Me: “Yes it is, and you are holding the levers, could you answer me?“
Idiot 2: (In a decidedly anger filled but constrained and wavering voice) “I mean that is an economic question. What do you want?”
Me: "I want to return to my loving wife (immigration don’t know we’re divorced) and business in Taiwan, I want to eat niu rou mian in Shi Da, to dance on the CKS memorial, to visit friends, to shit on your stupid backward little country just once more before it slips into the lost world with Chad and it’s other formerly notable friends. . .“
Idiot 2: (furious) “You can always apply for a visa from our office.”
Me: "Yes, I could, I know all about your grubby little office and the stupid beaurocratic Nazis you employ. They routinely confound and stifle the interests of many genuine travelers to Taiwan. No thanks, I’ll not be granting you the pleasure of infuriating me for even one moment longer. Bai bai.”
I may yet go and (try to) get a visa. It could be quite funny.
HG
I’d love to see a video of you repeating all that to The Dragon Lady (if she’s still there). :bravo:
Go here HG, you’re not the only one…
I was lucky though. In the ONLY visa run I had to do recently in 5 years of Taiwan life, I was lucky enough to get ‘Counter woman #2’ who was friendly and helpful. I was friendly straight off the bat, maybe thats the trick. Either that or she fancied me…Eeeeeeew!
http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=46536&highlight=hong+kong+visa+office
Doh, that’s right, there is an existing thread on this, there simply had to be!
Sorry mods, best chop this one over. 
HG
It’s their duty to keep unwanted specimens out of Taiwan … 
At least Chungking Mansions has good curry. They should throw the miserable insecure fucks out of the Taiwan visa office and open a curry house. First curry is the entire staff of that godforsaken monument to begrudgery served up as an offerring to placate the Bureaucracy God.
I woinder if there’s some government body that can be complained to regarding the shitty attitude of the people at the Chunghwa Travel Service. Sounds like a job for …the Control Yuan!!
I know it’s strange, but you know how that Lippo Tower thing looks weird, well it was recently explained to me those lumps sticking out the side are supposed to be koalas, a legacy of when it was the Bond (as in Alan, not Street) Building. Now there’s something even more offensive about me, an Australian, being treated badly by a Taiwanese office gimp in a building decorated with koalas. Maybe it’s just me.
HG
Those koalas are bad feng shui man. Seriously. The whole Bond Centre was doomed from the off. That’s why Bankrupt Bond got that spot of land. Go down and have a look. All the bad qi is just like focused right on that spot. You were lucky to get out alive. Why do you think the skinflint Taiwan government rents an office in there? You see a whole lot of high profile firms in the Lipid Centre? The qi bungs up their arses are making them uptight. A pox on them all.
Lucid Lord Lucan, you’re damned well right again! Why even the bagguettes in the ground floor Pret a Mange (or whatever the bloody thing’s called) are always soggy and tasteless. . . like. . . like they’d been left out for the dead, or something!
Crap! Do I have to feel sorry for the bunged up twats in that Chunghwa Travel now? That would be very hard.
HG
argh I am going there next week, last time I was there they were polite and friendly. I went in wearing kahkis and a button down shirt, the other guy I was with had a tshirt and long shorts on, they were a bit more frosty to him.
Last time I wore an expensive suit and an imperious manner. “Just get it done, you odious little cretin!” I barked when the woman claimed I didn’t have something she needed. “I’ll be back a 4 to collect it.” It was ready, along with a positively kittenish attitude from the servery staff.
But as you said, snafu, I saw some scruffy plebs getting a hard time.
You just need to know how to handle the lower orders.
I guess hell didn’t freeze over
[quote=“sandman”]Last time I wore an expensive suit and an imperious manner. “Just get it done, you odious little cretin!” I barked when the woman claimed I didn’t have something she needed. “I’ll be back a 4 to collect it.” It was ready, along with a positively kittenish attitude from the servery staff.
But as you said, snafu, I saw some scruffy plebs getting a hard time.
You just need to know how to handle the lower orders.[/quote]
Tank Top and tattoos x 2. No problemo.
Strangely enough, I was hassled in Thailand. They revoked my visa and I had to cry like a girly mon in order for them to assign me a new visa before my flight out in less than an hour. Took 15 mins of tissues and tears and BLAM…new visa.