Cute Pandas, Crappy Visas

  Chengdu, China
Monday, August 20, 2007

Doug and Esther's Guest Room

First the good.  At Tiger Leaping Gorge an American couple, one of whom works for the US consulate in Chengdu, suggested I stay with them when I came through Chengdu.  I took them up on the offer and let me tell you, and I so much enjoyed it.   They have a beautiful, large town home there.  I had my own, huge room with a delightfully soft bed and my own, huge bathroom with a separate tub and shower and toilet.  The place even had central air conditioning.  Mostly I enjoyed spending the evenings with Doug and Esther.  In them I found kindred souls and we share so many common interests.  Twas quite nice.  Before arriving at Doug and Esther's place I had started to grow a little road weary.  China had started to wear on me and I felt a bit homesick.  Staying with Doug and Esther gave me a much needed recharge.

Rough Life

The other good thing that happened in Chengdu was that I arranged through Sam's Guest House to go see the panda breeding center.  Sam's had a driver come out and pick me up at Esther and Doug's.  He arrived 20 minutes early, which was great.  By 7:30 AM I was at the center in time to see pandas outside before it got too hot.  Oh my god, I cannot even begin to describe how adorable baby Pandas are.  And I had no idea that they weren't really bears.  No one's entirely sure but apparently panda bears are more like raccoons than bears.  Red pandas really look like raccoons.  And I couldn't believe how small pandas are at birth.  They're born prematurely.  They're about the size of a medium rat at birth and have no hair.   They had a few that were one month old.  At that stage they start to look like pandas but they're still smaller than a human newborn.  Soooo cute!  The three that were a month or older were just passed out, spread eagle on their backs, slumbering away in their cribs.

Now the not so good.  I spent Monday, my first day in Chengdu, attempting to extend my visa.  First thing I swing by the Public Safety Bureau (PSB) and submit a visa extension application.  But I didn't bring a temporary residence registration.  I knew better than to arrive without one but for some reason thought they'd let me get away with it.  So, back in a taxi to the other side of town because I have to register at a Police Station near Doug and Esther's.  (Why you have to leave the PSB, go across town, only to register at the PSB is beyond me).  As best I could, I found my way to a police substation in the vicinity of Doug and Esther's house.  No one there had any clue what I wanted or could understand me for that matter.  Nor could I understand them.  I could not find the words in the phrasebook that I needed to explain 'temporary residence form' in Chinese and had failed to bring an example with me, which I did possess back in my room.  They did offer me a cup of hot water.  Luckily they dialed someone who spoke perfect English. 

People's Park

Turns out, though, that the station I stopped by doesn't handle temporary residence forms.  Of course.  But, the translator suggested to the chief that they give me a ride over to the office that does handle the forms.  Sweet!  So one of the officers gave me a ride in the chief's personal car over to an office not very close to Doug and Esther's.  Once there I got my temporary residence after a small wait.  Course, the faster thing would've been to have swung by a hostel, swiped a blank form, and filled it out myself.  Don't know why I didn't do that.  I think I was curious about what the correct process would be like. 

By now it was lunch time, so after a nice pizza and coffee at Milan Pizza inside a furniture store (no, really), I made my way back to the visa PSB (not to be confused with the temporary residence PSB or the PSB close to Doug and Esther's).  After a decent wait they asked me, did I realize that I would not be able to get any more extensions after this?  No, I hadn't.  And, they let me know when I could pick up my passport...on Friday...in five days!  Ahhhh!  No!  In Ningbo they processed my extension in an hour.  Furthermore, if this was the last extension which would only be valid for 30 days, that would mean I would have to leave China just about a week into arriving in Tibet, which is the whole reason I went to China in the first place, to go to Tibet.  Argh. 

Rather than submitting for the extension, I stuffed the forms into my bag and decided to go for a walk.  After 45 minutes I found myself outside Sam's Guest House.  I consulted with the friendly though harried travel agents and staff there.  They said I could get an extension in a couple hours if I went back to Leshan (near Emeishan, where I had just come from the day before).  But, I would still (most likely) not be able to extend anymore after that.  Argh.

I hopped on the Internet and verified everything that Sam's staff told me.  I searched for some type of agent in Chengdu that might be able to extend my visa for longer than 30 days for the right price.  I started asking around, too.  I couldn't find anything in Chengdu or nearby. 

So, I went with the only obvious alternative: bought a cheap plane ticket to Hong Kong.

And now, here I sit, back in Hong Kong.  As soon as I set my bag down, I arranged with the hostel's visa expert to get me my new visa.  He gave me more bad news.  I wouldn't be able to get a 3 month single entry visa.  There's some sort of pissing match going on between the US and China over visas right now and I'm falling victim to it.  The only thing available to US citizens applying for visas in Hong Kong right now are 30 day visas which cost HK$950.  Argh.  At least with this visa I start afresh, meaning I can extend, inshallah, for another 30 days in Urumqi before I head into Tibet.  And, at least he found a way to get it to me in 24 hours, hopefully (fingers crossed).

Part of me thinks coming back to Hong Kong was destiny.  I have to admit that I feel much joy being back in the land of sane traffic laws where nobody spits, where the drivers see no need to honk, ever, can drive by a bicyclist or a pedestrian without honking, where you find people covering their mouths when they talk on a cell phone rather than finding a dozen people screaming conversations back and forth from opposite ends of a block, where you're never more than 10 feet from a 7/11, where they have real super markets and those super markets have a wide variety of foods, where English is an official language, back in a place where no one thinks twice about the fact that you're white, or, for that matter, black, Egyptian, Arabic, Indian, purple, cross-eyed or anything, in the land of freedom of speech, and of no censorship.  There's no way I could appreciate Hong Kong so much without having spent three months in mainland China.

My old camera lens, $115

I also discovered that Canon's Hong Kong headquarters is next door to my hostel.  Perfect.  My camera has developed a moving black spot in the bottom right corner in the last couple days.  $115 US dollars and 3 hours later and they fixed it, this time for good hopefully.  I also bought an official Canon IXUS pouch for it.  Maybe that way I won't break it so much...

So, in the end, I think it was destiny that I return to Hong Kong.