PR Card Delayed

It's already 3 months and up to now, our PR Cards have not yet arrived.  We encountered problems regarding our files and I hope to share some of them to you.

1. Make sure that your address is updated.  Upon landing in Vancouver, the immigration officer did not get our address in Toronto.  She told us to provide it via fax, phone or online.  Upon arriving, I immediately updated our file online hoping that our file will be updated faster.  And boy I was wrong.  After 6 weeks, our files were still not updated.  What we did was fax the form and in a couple of day, our address was updated.   Lesson:  Make sure to update your file via fax, online and mail.

2.  We received a mail today informing us that our height was incorrect.  We did not think that this would be a problem because I thought that it was an irrelevant information.  We provided them our height in inches while what they need was our height in centimeters.  We called CIC about the information that they need and they have updated our file already.  The latest our PR Cards will be delivered is on the last week of December.  Lesson:  Use centimeters as the unit of measurement for your height.

Hope you can learn a lesson from my experience.  =)

The Four Canadian Accounting Designation

Getting an accounting designation in Canada is not a simple process.  It's very different from the Philippine setup.  In the Philippines, we have the Certified Public Accountant, in Canada, there are four.  The four designations are the CA, CMA, CGA and the RPA.  There is even an ongoing discussion about merging the accounting designation in one and calling it CPA (Chartered Public Accountants).  The CA, CMA and CGA are the popular designations and a lot has been written about the pros and cons of each designation.

I recently attended an info session for the RPA designation.  I never really knew about RPA until the info session and I was surprised that getting the designation and maintaining it is easier and cost effective as the other 3.  In fact you may already have qualified for the RPA designation by having the other 3.  

I have already decided to pursue my CGA designation, but I am still thinking about pursuing the RPA because of the added cost of maintaining both designations and weighing the cost versus the benefits of the designation offer.

Niagara Falls

Visiting the Niagara Falls made me realized that I am indeed in North America.  It was a very long trip (about 2.5 hours), but it was worth it.  I must say that the pictures on the internet do not do justice to the falls' beauty.  In a couple of years, I hope to visit the Niagara Falls on the US side of the border.  On a side note, I am very sure that I went over to US territory during our Maid of the Mist ride. =)

Pictures are after the jump

Things I Will Miss 2

Chippy and V-Cut.

"Party Size" anyone?

Good thing you get one at your nearest grocery store.

Philippine Airlines - Business Class

As mentioned on my previous post, we were upgraded to business class for our Manila-Vancouver flight.  It was a welcome blessing and a very nice experience since i would never in my life pay for a business class flight.  Anyway, below are some of our photos taken inside the aircraft.

Pictures are after the jump.  Enjoy.

Welcome to Canada!

This post is a bit late since we completed our landing process last July 30, 2012.  That's almost 3 months ago.  A lot has happened since then but I will try to post everything I can remember. 

As mentioned in my previous post, we landed at Vancouver instead of Toronto because of a storm that hit Hong Kong that left a lot of passengers stranded at the Hong Kong International Airport.  We were rerouted from our original flight of Manila-Hong Kong-Toronto to Manila-Vancouver-Toronto.  Good thing is that we are now settled in Toronto and we were also able to visit Vancouver (eventhough its just the airport and the park near the premises).

First taste of  Canadian Air

First Canadian Meal

Sunset..... at 10 PM

Want an Ipad?

Blog Update

I can't believe its almost 3 months already.  Sorry for being outdated and not updating my blog during that time.  I promise to post more entries. =)