What service

I went to apply for an India Visitor Visa this morning. The cost was five times than I would have done in Vancouver, CAD$22.00 vs CAD$100.00. Then the time Vancouver, next day, 7 working days here. Yikes. I might miss my flight. We'll see how it goes. Will have to call the embassy to fast track next week. Anyhow...

There is a visa service office for India, lots of countries have this setup in Shanghai now. All staff are young Chinese. Service was good though. After reviewing my application, due to the footsy loosy description on the Indian gov't website, I missed couple documents. No worries, the girl that reviewed my application just sprinted out of her chair and within seconds, a new form! She even told me "man man lai" (it's pinyin so not to pronounce this phrase without professional instruction) ; that meant, "take your time". Then, I need a photo copy of my passport. She just did it. No fuss, no complaint. Then when I asked when I could get it back, 5 staff in the background tried to count the days for me. Haha... Some even tried to use their phone's calculator function. How funny. But they were very helpful. Overall, a very good experience except of course, as expected you would see some staff sleeping on the job. Literally.