Well, I didn’t know that getting a Chinese visa can be this hard. Since 14 April 2008 the Chinese government had tightened the visa policy which made quite a bit of changes on those visa applicants who want to enter Mainland China via Hong Kong.

Additional evidence is required to support visa application, including an visa invitation letter from mainland inviter, which has to list all the team members’ names on that letter. Without that letter, recently one of team members had been turned away twice by Chinese Embassy in Canberra and it seems the Chinese Embassy in this country is much more stubborn and reluctant to be flexible or compromise than those on the other part of the world.

Now we can’t do anything until one of Chinese local government fax the letter through. I am hoping this can be sorted out ASAP, as I have a lot of things that need to be arranged afterwards.

My husband got back from the trip meeting last night and now I am pretty sure that I will be the only person who won’t really paddle at all in the team. How about trying out as a drummer? That’d be fun. Hehe, I guess there is at least one thing I can do. I can be an interpreter who watches their tent, bags and gears on the bank while they are hitting the water.