Visa Nightmare

Mom and I went and got my visa yesterday. Talk about CRAZY. We left around 7:30 and because I am new at the whole travelling/ foreign country thing, I forgot to bring my passport - or actually, didn't really know I had to bring it - So it took an extra hour to get to the visa place. We had to come all the way back home, get my passport, and then head all the way back. Boo on that.

We had another hour and a half wait in the world's longest line, and that line was just to even get up to the room where you can apply for the visa. Before we got up to the desk we talked to this line control guy who said that we needed to have an actual ticket to China to get a visa, but we're only going to Shenzhen so we didn't know how that would work. When you go to Shenzhen you go by MTR (which is like the subway) and pay for it via octopus card when you get on. An octopus card is like a debit card and a subway pass combined. You use it to get onto busses and the MTR and at different stores etc. Then we asked the consulate representative about the ticket thing and he said that since mom is a resident of Hong Kong and has her Hong Kong ID card then I could get my visa. So we waited for another hour to get called to the desk.

Once we got to the desk the lady told us it was necessary to have a ticket for me to get a visa. She was very nice and told us how to get one. It was just annoying that we had to get a ticket anyway. Just because you have a ticket doesn't mean that you're actually going to go to that place...but hey, it's all good.

After lunch and some shopping at the Wan Chai market (details to come) we went to get the ticket and got sent on a wild goose chase for the ticket. "You can't get that here, go to this place" was told to us over and over again. Boo on that. We seriously had to get on the MTR go to one stop to change tracks to go to another stop to go to the Customer Service booth there who said to go to the next booth who said we had to go to the east rail stop who said a ticket like that can't be purchased. If that was confusing, well...IT WAS! But we ended up getting some type of ticket and prayed that that would work.

We went back to the visa place and got in another line for another half an hour. The lady at the desk almost didn't let me get a visa because she couldn't tell that it was for Lo Lu (the ticket that we needed), but she gave me a visa! It only let's me into Shenzhen for two days only - which is great because it's all i'll need. I need to get to Shenzhen to get fitted for my sister's bridesmaid dress (trip one) and then go back and make sure it's what I want (trip two).

So after a long day of lines we finally got a two day visa for over 1000 HKD. I'm glad that's over. My dad will go pick up the visa on Friday and my mom, sisters and I will go into Shenzhen on Friday. It should be pretty interesting.

Yesterday I was thankful for understanding visa workers and the fact that there were no lines at all to get home from the visa place, because by the end of the day mom and I were SICK of lines.