Originally Posted by
moondog
You can do the visa thing yourself. Back when I was living in Mountain View, Newport Beach, and Baltimore, this was my preferred approach.
Even then, the costs of going to the consulates (twice) outweighed the agency fees, but I placed a premium on the face-to-face time that often helped me fetch better visas.
Since I'm currently living in Portland (far from a consulate), using agencies is a no-brainer. Based on your posts, I assumed you were in Pittsburgh (equally inconvenient).
Nope - just routing through Pittsburgh to visit friends and take advantage of the promotion; otherwise, I'd just be doing the non-stop into HKG out of SFO. I'm about half way between the city and Mountain View, and am up in SF a lot, so it's a pretty easy hop - it might not really be worth the time to do it myself, but it seems like a worthwhile part of the experience and as long as it doesn't go over two hours (limit of the free spots I know nearby before a residential-permit or getting a pay lot is required) there's not much additional cost required except in time.
Is two hours likely to be enough to drop off and pick up my passport, or should I allow more time?