Can't believe there's two weeks left scrambling with the last visa for china and can FINALLY start thinking about packing :)
Stay tuned
Saturday 28 July 2012
Sunday 8 July 2012
Panic! Visa Time!!!
Well it has indeed been a while hasn't it. Finally we have plane tickets and our letters of invitation for Russia, Mongolia and China. So with 32 days to go off we trek to the consulate with a whopping great visa fee PER visa, many an appliation form, photos and our beloved passports.
Cannot express enough the anger related to timing on this....travel agents can be seriously hopeless.
6 months ago-Me "Do we need to do anything else to finalise our visas??"
Agent "No all taken care of your paperwork will be with you 45 days prior to departure"
4 weeks to go- Agent Emails us "here you are girls, here are your LOI's now all you need to do is fork out another $300+ dollars for all three VISA applications, fill out the form make sure you have passport photos for each one and make sure you mail them off to the consulates ASAP because they take 2 weeks to process per VISA."
Ummmmm ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?!? Oh the profanities!!!!!! Talk about a panic attack.....Aimees frantic call to the consulates reveals it should only take 4 days per VISA, still ridiculous considering we were told don't worry!! At least we were able to calm down :/
Following my earlier post about 10kg limit..... *sigh* had to scrap it when I was informed its only 7kg! Still trying to work out a packing list in my brain and deciding which camera lense I can do without.... :(
All 3 of us are scrambling to get our funds in order at the moment especially considering during our entire trip we change currency no less than 8 times!!! Travellers cheques for me I think and American Dollars to exchange.
Was very excited when I realised I have 4 weeks paid leave accrued :D very very pleased considering all my cash seems to be floating off elsewhere at the moment. Still trying to work out a daily cash budget otherwise I'll be broke before Beijing (mental note for excellent Blog post title should this occur). Debating the great laptop question...... do I take one or do I just use my phone?? what about photo uploads, goodness knows that I won't have room on my memory cards.....new camera BTW sony a55 my new baby and dirt cheap from eBay in tippy top condition :)
ah well that's enough from me.....until next time
Cannot express enough the anger related to timing on this....travel agents can be seriously hopeless.
6 months ago-Me "Do we need to do anything else to finalise our visas??"
Agent "No all taken care of your paperwork will be with you 45 days prior to departure"
4 weeks to go- Agent Emails us "here you are girls, here are your LOI's now all you need to do is fork out another $300+ dollars for all three VISA applications, fill out the form make sure you have passport photos for each one and make sure you mail them off to the consulates ASAP because they take 2 weeks to process per VISA."
Ummmmm ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!?!? Oh the profanities!!!!!! Talk about a panic attack.....Aimees frantic call to the consulates reveals it should only take 4 days per VISA, still ridiculous considering we were told don't worry!! At least we were able to calm down :/
Following my earlier post about 10kg limit..... *sigh* had to scrap it when I was informed its only 7kg! Still trying to work out a packing list in my brain and deciding which camera lense I can do without.... :(
All 3 of us are scrambling to get our funds in order at the moment especially considering during our entire trip we change currency no less than 8 times!!! Travellers cheques for me I think and American Dollars to exchange.
Was very excited when I realised I have 4 weeks paid leave accrued :D very very pleased considering all my cash seems to be floating off elsewhere at the moment. Still trying to work out a daily cash budget otherwise I'll be broke before Beijing (mental note for excellent Blog post title should this occur). Debating the great laptop question...... do I take one or do I just use my phone?? what about photo uploads, goodness knows that I won't have room on my memory cards.....new camera BTW sony a55 my new baby and dirt cheap from eBay in tippy top condition :)
ah well that's enough from me.....until next time
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