We still haven’t got visas done. Embassey just keeps requiring more and more stuff and it’s lack of clarification about what on the earth they need. Yesterday they said they need the faxed document, then today they said they need original document.

We still don’t know yet if they need booking information about accommodation or other things within travelling in Mainland China yet, though the senior visa officer said it should be okay with only the visa notification letter from China. But who knows? She used to say it’s okay with a faxed document. Now she is asking original. If that was the case, I guess we would all have to jump into the lake and kill ourselves immediately.

Everytime we go there, they changed a bit about something, and everytime we get back from there, I felt my heart died a bit. This is something that I hate to admit, but it’s too difficult to deal with Chinese government’s bureaucracy and inflexibility. The officer was very pleasant but they just don’t do things. They told my husband “once you get the visa, you can stay in China as long as possible”. My God, this is totally irrelavent comforting words…we don’t want to be there as long as possible, it’s a sport event and we need to be there on the particular dates for race.

Now I even doubt if we can ever make it before the time. Also Quantas is going to rise the price very soon. If we can’t get tickets confirmed and issued before 13th May, we have to pay more. There are still someone in the team who hasn’t got the passport yet, which means there is no passport numbers that we can provide to one of Chinese governments to write up that letter to us.

This is such a shitty situation. I am not the person to deal with it, but it’s enough to ruin my mood. Especially I am a person who is particularly stressed with pre-travel arrangement. This one is going to kill me, I suppose. I have to take a big breath to calm myself down.

The thing is I couldn’t do anything. Without a visa, I can’t prepare and buy things, I can’t pack the luggage, and I can’t book the flight tickets within China and I can’t really arrange my next month’s work schedule. The clock is ticking and I am draining out.