Knobcottage in China

Job hunt.....................tick Found a job.................tick Interview.....................tick Job..............................tick Work permit................tick Flights booked.............tick Visa Applied for...........tick Visa Centre visit 1.......tick Collect Visa .................tick Journey to Heathrow....See later post Flight to Beijing.............See later post Bejing to Guiyan............See later post Chinese Medical...........See later post Guiyang to Tongren......See later post Tongren to Juangkou...See later post

Solomon...What can you say?  A big black guy with a voice to match..He'd been there for over twenty years. He kept everything moving, everyone happy, and most people laughing.  Like a stand up comic, an additional fallout system, a finder of seats, a child entertainer.  Classic. Even if you don't need a visa, pop along just to see him in action.  Classic! ...but of course no photos...It's the Chinese visa application service!

So,I thought I'd risk it and make some announcements to friends etc.   Most seem as excited as me...But maybe not as nervous.  Two hurdles to go.  Visa and then the weird medical in China.  More about that in a later post!

Well, what can I say!?  Firstly, the trip to London cost me £128!!! and the visa cost £155. The whole process looked chaotic, the room was bursting at the seams!  Queues of people, queues for queues and lots of people sitting down clutching receipts.  The process:. Sit down and wait for your turn to queue.  Queue. Get photographed, again, get a receipt.  Sit down.  Wait for your number to be called.  Go to a booth.  Hand in your documents.  Get a payment slip.  Hi down stairs and sit.  Wait for your number to be called. Go to a booth.  Pay the money.  Go.  All done took about three hours.....but only because I arrived early!!! If I had arrived on time it would only have taken maybe an hour and a half.  Those who were waiting were amused by Solomon…see next post!

  Well I got to section six, but to move to section seven I needed a flight number, but I wasn't going to book a flight without a visa and I couldn't get a visa or even an appointment to get one without a completed application form.  Stuck in the loop.  After much discussion with others, I bit the bullet. I booked a flight.  It took a nit of juggling.  Fourteen days notice for work, an available appointment at the embassy, and enough time to get the visa in time to fly.  To many variables for me!  However in the end we got to section seven.. well not quite.  See I have a work permit and it has two numbers.  A bar code on the top with 19 digits and a work permit number with 18 digits, but where did I enter this information? Was the employing school a: Well only 6.2 had a hole for a number, so I guessed that that was where I should type it! ..... So I typed in the number.  I then dutifully pressed the "next section" button and hey pr...

  Wanted:  Dead or Alive!  So it all seems quite easy until I get to filling in may parent details, however I managed, until "Current address of your Father".  Well I don't want to sound in sensitive, but he's dead.  So I ignored the current address of my father and thus bypassing some profound theological questions.  However the system was persistent, and in little red letters it said "This is a required field".  Mmmm.  So do I put his address when he was alive, just say "Deceased" or gamble on a religious answer?  Would the consular official have a sense of humour?  I decided to play it safe and gues that they wouldn't appreciate a funny answer!  "My father is dead.  Last known address Blah Blah Blah" Lets hope that works!

Oh dear...It's back to haunt me...The visa application form. So I start to fill it in .... and it asks for all my previous employments....maybe twenty jobs.  Who my supervisor was, phone numbers day date and year.  Ages later I had found all of the pedantique details and entered them.  Just about to enter job number six.  Clicked the 'next' button and " Only five entries are possible".  Now really, you could have told me that before ...this is getting really frustrating.