Saturday, 14 July 2007

Uhm... I can has dokumintz now plz? Kthx.

Well finally I've got my act together and decided to blog. Sadly though, my Chinese university of choice (新疆师范大学/XīnJiāng Normal University), has most DEFINITELY not got its act together. So, to get a student (X) visa to go to China I have to have an admission notice from a Chinese university, together with a JW-202 form issued by the Chinese government. Hmm. It appears I have NEITHER of these. No forms = no visa. No visa = no China. My flight is booked so I'd kinda like to know I'll be allowed in the country, y'know?
My English uni (Newcastle) has received faxed copies of these forms, so we know we're definitely allowed to study at XinJiang, but we're waiting on hard copies. Just found out from a classmate that actually the embassies only expect photocopies anyway. I'm stuck in a bureaucratic loop.
Besides that the visa itself seems a huge hassle. To get mine I have to go to London. I was originally going to go to Manchester but apparently my region of England is only served by the London embassy, and not by Manchester (which is CLOSER, GRRR!). As I have no idea when I'll be getting my documents I am loathe to book a train/hotel/day off work. And if my boss kicks up noise about me booking a last-minute day off, I could snap. I may or may not need a medical (something to check soon I guess, lulz) to get this visa. I am going to go for the same-day service which is an extra £20 on top of whatever I pay for the visa. A single-entry is £30, double-entry is £60, and for a year-long multiple-entry visa I have to part with 90 of my precious English pounds. I'm yet to decide which is best for me, as being the skinflint (read broke student) that I am, I'd prefer not to pay for something unnecessary if I can help it. [啊鑫 what are you going for?]
Anyway until I have a visa I refuse to allow myself to relax. Okay, that's not it. I'd LOVE to relax, but I CANNOT! I'm rather rapidly being put off by this. So it's not the worst hassle so far in the world ever, but why do I get the extremely ominous feeling that worse is yet to come...?

1 comment:

Liam said...

I'm getting a single entry visa, because when we're there we have to get a residence permit, although I'm going to confirm when I go to the embassy.