We recently dropped by the Philippine Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand to have our passports renewed. The Embassy is located near the city proper and is actually based in a stately house.
The first concern I had about going to the place is actually the parking. I heard that the parking areas there have very limited time slots. We parked beside Queen Margaret College where the sign read "P 5" which my wife assumed it meant "5 hours" but I had the feeling it was more like 5 minutes. An embassy personnel did confirm that it was only for 5 minutes, but if we moved our car to a slot near the park, he said the time limit there is 2 hours, which is more than enough for our purpose.
However, this being a school holiday, we were hoping that the council would be a bit more lenient. And we were right. We got back to our car an hour later, with no parking ticket in sight. We were told that the parking fee here can range from $30-$40, which I can definitely use for something else.
The Embassy itself is quite homey. We chatted with a couple of other families who were there for various purposes. We were allowed to take photos so we took the opportunity to take some shots of the decor.
It was a pleasant visit overall, but we were a bit dismayed to learn that the processing of our passports will take between 10-12 weeks (we thought it would take half that amount of time). Oh well, we'll just have to wait then.
(update: we were able to get our passport after 6 weeks)
The Philippine Embassy's website is at philembassy.org.nz
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