Visa Stories

While we were back in Chicago we also took some time to head down to the Chinese consulate and see if we could get our visas updated from a 30 day maximum stay up to a 90 day visa.

After what we went through trying to get our visas in Hong Kong, we tried to make sure that we were prepared this time. We had a new invitation letter, and it had Tina's name on it as opposed to just inviting me and my wife, which should allow her to get the same visa that I do.

One thing that we weren't sure of was if the consulate was open, being New Years' eve, and their web site doesn't really explain when they are open all that well. At the beginning of December Tina emailed the consulate to ask their hours and received a "We don't know yet when our holidays are, please check the web site when we are closer to the date." Ah, three weeks isn't close enough?

We got up early, got our visa photos taken, and made it down to the consulate at 08:30, a full 30 minutes before they opened and, yes, a line had already started to form. We stepped in and patiently waited for them to open.

By about 9:10 we were up to the window and then the new fun begins. The girl working looks through all of our documentation and tells me that I'm all set, then she looks at Tina's and says "I'm sorry, you can't get a 1 year multiple entry visa, for non-US passports we can only give you a 1 or 2 entry visa." What? That doesn't help us, we explain that we need one and that nowhere on the web does it mention that they can, "New rules," she says "they just changed them." Finally she decides to go in back and ask someone else, just to see if she might be able to make an exception for us, that's when we notice that right on the window is posted the new visa fares, and they have pricing for 6 month and 1 year visas for foreign passports...

Turns out she was wrong, and they will gladly provide both of us with new visas. We selected the same day turn around, seeing as we were flying back the next day, and she told us that we needed to make sure that we were back as soon as they opened after lunch to pick up our visas.

The consulate is open from 09:00-11:30 and then from 13:00-14:30. Not a very long day, but she informed us that because it was New Years' eve they would be closing early. "How early?" we asked, but they didn't know, just that it would be earlier. So, we made sure that we were there right at 13:00 to pick up our visas, as fun as it sounded we didn't want to have to spend another few days in Chicago.

We get our visas, beautiful 1-year multiple entry visas that allow us to stay in the country now for 90 days at a time. Tina's old visa was clearly marked with a giant red "CANCELLED" stamp, but my old one was not. Not good, I'm thinking, in case they let me in using the 30-day, I'd hate to end up in a Chinese jail for something like that, and we've heard stories about that happening to others...

I go back up to the window and ask to have my old visa stamped cancelled, and the lady looks at my passport, the old and new visas, and starts asking questions. "Why you get a new visa? Old one still good until September. You don't need a new visa." Great, I'm thinking, she's going to want to take my new visa back. I explained the need to stay in the country for more then 30 days at a time, but it didn't seem like she liked that answer and she finally said "Wait" and disappeared into the back.

She came back and had stamped my old visa cancelled, all is now good in our world. This visa experience was much less painful then Hong Kong, but still with just enough questions to make us worry a few times that we wouldn't get exactly what we wanted.

A quick New Year's recap....

Even though we are back home in China, we are still thinking about the short lived fun that we had while back home, and therefore we are going to continue to bore you with those stories...

After a relatively easy Sunday night, being a work night where we needed to get visas and I had to run into the office, we decided that we should try and do New Year's eve right and really enjoy ourselves. Thinking ahead, as Tina often does, we had booked a dinner party at La Petite Paris at 17:30 on Monday night.

I say that we thought ahead, but not really enough to get a late dinner, only enough to get that oh so early 17:30 sitting, where one needs be finished by 20:00 for the people who think to reserve their New Years' in advance. In retrospect, this worked out better for us.

We dined out with Heather and Mike, and fully enjoyed the dinner. Tina knows the owner, Alain, and he too was shocked to see us when we walked in. Again, the beauty of having someone else make the reservation for us, he was shocked to see us, and it was nice to be able to talk to him for a short time on this busy night.

As dinner finished we moved into the bar area, so they could set for their 20:00 reservation, and we enjoyed a few hours of happy reminiscing of the year past and what all it had seen. Around 22:00 the SIM cards in our phone quit, so no late night obnoxious calls could be made to our friends, and by 23:00 we left Heather and Mike to head home. They were heading out to another party where we presume they partied until at least 05:15...

On the way home we were happy to see that it was snowing, a nice thick snow that was beautifully sticking to all of the trees and cars. We got home and were in bed before midnight, ah that's a happy way to welcome 2008, with a sound sleep...

The next morning we arose early and finalized our packing and then strolled the streets to enjoy this new coating of snow.

From there we left for the airport and our 14 hour flight. Due to the snow that we so appreciated, once we boarded we had to wait for well over an hour for plane de-icing, so our flight stretched into the 16 hour range.....

But, after the completely hectic week that we had at home, the flight and the sleep went quick and before we knew it we were back being greeted with Chinese that we had just started to forget. It was a great trip and, again, we are glad that we got to see everyone that we did, and we are sad that there are still more people that we wanted to see or spend more time with.

A night on the town

Knowing that it may be another year before we head back to Chicago, Mark and I gathered a few of our friends together to enjoy a dinner at Sushi Mura (our favorite sushi place) followed by drinks afterwards.
As we met up with Mike and Heather we walked into Sushi Mura, and the owner Monica was almost in tears (or so we thought) when she saw us. She was in total shock. We were regulars here and Monica was quite upset when we explained that we were moving to China. I would like to think that she was going to miss our sparkling personalities. After dinner, she presented us with 4 bottles of sake. Mike (the expert of Japanese tradition) continued telling us that this was a big deal in the Japanese tradition. My concern was, we don't have anymore space in our luggage after my shopping trip from Jewel. Nonetheless, we really appreciated her kindess and will truly miss Sushi Mura.

There were about 10 of us, and many haven't seen each other since the night before we left for China, so it was good for everyone to get together again. The original thought was to go to Green Mill, however, due to the fact that one shouldn't talk if you are listening to jazz we opted for a local bar where we could continue our conversations and laughter.
After a few shots of Jameson for the boys, we finally called it a night about 2:30am.

Back in Xiamen.

Well, a full day and a half after leaving the beautiful snowy scenery of Chicago we are finally back home in Xiamen. Because of the fresh snow in Chicago, and the added requirement of de-icing the plane, we ended up sitting on the plane for an additional 90 minutes before it backed out of the gate. I never like being delayed, but adding that time to a fourteen hour flight is just mean.

Last night we arrived in Shanghai and made it to the hotel around 19:00, we were slightly less tired then the first time we came here, so instead of going straight to bed we went out and enjoyed a nice Chinese noodle dinner. We realized that we both had actually missed having noodles.

Back in the hotel we also realized that we hadn't missed the hard beds, and were thankful that it was only one more night before we were back in our, now well cushioned, bed.

Now comes the fun of unpacking everything that we brought back with us and organizing ourselves back into a normal routine....

Happy New Year...

Welcome to 2008, today we are up bright and early to finish up our packing and then off to the airport for our flight back to China.

This has been a whirlwind trip back, through Canada and the States, and it was great for us to be able to spend this short time with family and friends. When we get back into Xiamen and are finally unpacked and settled in we will post up all of our pictures and share some of our stories about our time in Chicago.

But until then, for the next few days we will be traveling and we just want to thank everyone for making last year such fun and we hope that you all have a great 2008...