Monday, December 31, 2007

Getting a passport in a hurry?


I had to get my passport ready quite quickly for a business purpose. I was able to get it done within 1 day from department of Immigration and Migration located at Punchi Borella. Place is commenly known as Passport office. So if you are also in a hurry this is what you want to do. First get 3 photographs of passport size. Then get a certified copy of your birth certificate. And you are ready to go. All you have to do it take them and go to Passport office. You can go there using 144 or 103 from Pettah and you will have to get down from the halt just after Ananda College, Maradana. After you get down ask for passport office and you will get many of people asking whether you need an application and JP signed. Just catch one guy and get him ceritify your photo and signature for about Rs 100.00. After you are done will application filling go to the passport office and handover the application. This should be done before 12 noon if you want it within a day.
And another one important thing is that you will have to take documents to confirm your profession and an acceptable one too. For example I took a letter from the Company confirming my designation. But they insisted that I should have the degree certificate. Since I didn't have a degree certificate yet I just had to get the passport without the designation. But sometimes you might get around this if you meet the less strict guy. But who knows! I was pissed off but there wasn't anything that I could do! Also don't forget to take Rs 7500/= per one day all countries passport.

Learning to drive


After a long long time I thought of getting the license. I have given up the driving practice priviously due to busy academic schedule of the university. Not that I'm quite free now but this time it is like now or never. So I decided to get some help from a Learners and get it done. At the moment I can faily well drive. But I'm poor in reversing :(...

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

ZOO



After 13 year of lapse I had a chance to see the Dehiwala zoo with Osandi. It was a wonderful experience for us. It both gave us lot of fun and remind me the child hood, when I visited zoo in 1994 as a school boy. Ticket for the zoo is Rs 50/- per head for local tourists. Don't remember the amount for foreign tourists :(. As I remember something Rs. 1000+. Also it was not far away from the Galle road. And it took about 8 Rupees from the Dehiwala Junction.




It took us about 6 hours to cover the whole zoo. Except for few ill directed directions errors, directions given was quite handy and was adequate for a tourist to find his way around the zoo in an organized way. And as in any zoo there were animals! (You know right?) And there were lot of them including many I don't know. All in all it was wonderful experience.
So here are the photos