A month and a half ago, I left my comfortable life in Cebu in exchange for an expat life here in UAE. By far, it is the biggest risk I have ever done in my entire life. You see, there was no job waiting for me here, I was yet to go around, hand my CV to potential employers and wait to be called for an interview. It sounded pretty simple but the truth is, it isn't. I came here when the weather was a scorching 38-40 C every day. Also, it's easy to impress the employers when you score an interview especially that we, Filipinos speak better English but to get the interview is way too challenging.
To be honest, I stayed most of the time at home facing the laptop and scouting the internet for more job openings. To make the story longer, I got lucky to score an interview with a bank (I can't name the bank yet) and got the post. I was given the good news a week before my 1 month visit visa expires and they told me that they will process the employment visa and that I shouldn't have to worry. So I didn't worry was what I did.
3 days into not worrying, I started to panic not having heard from the HR so I called and tried talking to the manager who interviewed me and to a Filipino I met in the bank. They told me that the bank hired a third party agency to process everything for them. A day before my visa expires, an agent called me from the agency verifying my email address because the first email she sent out bounced. SHE SPELLED MY EMAIL WRONG. There were so many other mistakes she made which I won't narrate but eventually, I had to exit since with all the errors and miscommunication, I end up overstaying for 3 days.
I had 2 options:
a. Exit, send the exit stamp to the agency (PRO for the bank) and wait (in the country where you exited) for the employment visa to arrive so that when you enter UAE again, you are on employment visa already.
b. Exit, send the exit stamp to a local travel agency, get another visit visa, send the visit visa to agency (PRO for the bank), wait for the employment visa to arrive, do an airport to airport exit to have your passport stamped.
A lot of expats choose option A but for me and in my situation, it cannot be an option. You see, for Filipinos, we cannot exit in our own country due to some POEA rules, our only exit option is Iran or Oman. At that time, EID holiday was coming so the PRO told me that I might have to wait for 15-20 days for my employment visa to arrive. I don't want to be stuck in Iran for that long so I choose option B where I only have to stay in Iran for 2-3 days and wait for my employment visa in UAE.
There are 2 exit places in Iran, Kish and Queshm.
Kish is a 91.5-square-kilometre (35.3 sq mi) resort island in the Persian Gulf. It is part of the Hormozgān Province of Iran. Due to its free trade zone status it is touted as a consumer's paradise, with numerous malls, shopping centres, tourist attractions, and resort hotels.[1] It has an estimated population of 26,000 residents and about 1 million people visit the island annually.[2][3] Kish Island was ranked among the world’s 10 most beautiful islands by The New York Times in 2010, and is the fourth most visited vacation destination in Southwest Asia after Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Sharm el-Sheikh.[4][clarification needed] Foreign nationals wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain visas prior to travel. Valid travel permits are stamped for 14 days by airport and Kish port police officials. (Source: Wikipedia)
So to Kish I went. Here are some beautiful pictures I took from my Samsung S4. I did not bring my camera and iPhone for reasons I will tell you in the next post.
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| This reminded me of Shangri La Mactan and Boracay but theirs is cleaner and not yet commercialized. Anyone can just take a dip and swim away. |
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| They said this little house is not yet done. No one seemed to know what this is for. |
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| Another beach photo. |
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| No one can't have too much beach photo |
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| That's not a sand castle, it's made of brick-like material. |
xo,
jas
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