My Impending Visit to China

Posted by Edith Cook on Tuesday, March 12, 2013 Under: Personal

A wonderful book.Valuable reading as I prepare for my visit.

Regrettably, my efforts to obtain a visa to China has been anything but wonderful or valuable. The Chinese embassy required I send them my passport, which, it appears, has gotten lost in he process of FedEx return mailing. Now I have to rush-apply for another passport, and I still don't have the visa.

The embassy does not respond to emails. Though it lists two telephone numbers, one that supposedly gives voicemail instructions for applying, no one ever answers; there's not even a way to leave a voicemail message.

However, its website did give explicit instructions of the documents required for visa application. I gathered these together and sent them off--only to discover, the embassy won't accept mail from the public. to apply for a visa, one has to go through an agency. Unfortunately, my package, which I had sent ground delivery (thinking I had oodles of time), seems to have gotten lost; it never came back to me. The "tracer" efforts online only shows that at some point the package returned to FedEx's collection terminal in Maryland, but there the trail stops.

I also did not think to insure the package. Now I'm having to shell out $300 for the rush passport application, plus $290 for the visa application & the agency's processing fees.

Not an auspicious beginning.

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About Me

Edith Cook

South Of Wheatland In Wyoming

Though I now live in Wyoming, I make frequent return trips to California with visits to travel club members along the way. At home I play classical guitar, enjoy gardening and cooking, and participate in group yoga. Getting together with family and friends is high on my agenda. I value people who write or make music and love it when my adult children and their offspring play their instruments, sing songs with me, or discuss what they read and write. Such gatherings help me cope with the losses in my life, which have been severe. Next year I hope to visit family in Germany.