…after returning home last night; feeling defeated, I curled up in my squeaky dorm bunk and tried to keep warm; hours later I was awoke, along with the three other girls sharing the dorm, by a very loud, very strange sound. Snoring? But not; more like a cat dying…very very loudly. After some throat clearing and paper tossing that didn’t help rouse the sleeping dorm mate; we volunteered the other bottom-bunker to wake the dying cat girl. She did. “So sorry (in Chinese) but you’re keeping us all up, oh so sorry..aha” I slept better for a bit; until the noise returned and morning came. Today I was determined to get up and pack so that I could be at the Russian Consulates office by 9:00. By 8:00 I had checked out of the hostel, grabbed a bite to eat, and made it to the subway station and by 9:00 I was almost at the office of the Russians.
I walked in; greeted by the same old man as yesterday, and headed to the office. Andrey took one look and me and shook his head no. No? no. He said he had talked with the guy who got the forms for me in Russia, but that this guy had promised to sent necessary documentation proving that the original copy was in the mail; and even then he couldn’t promise that the visa would end up going through, it would have to be approved by his superior and he couldn’t make any promises. He suggested I try and contact the Russians in Russia and get them to forward on the necessary documentation. I agreed and headed back to Starbucks.
After ordered an iced tea I sat down, plugged in my computer and checked my email; thinking that maybe the Russians had forwarded that elusive document onto me instead of straight to Andrey at the Russian consulate; in fact I was not so lucky. No news from anyone. Although Moscow is 5 hours behind us here in China I decided to try and call anyways; although I seriously doubted anyone would be in the office at 4 am, I did have many other options. Time was a ticking; my flight left Guangzhou at 5:40 and I had to make a decision on whether to keep it or change it. I tried calling Glen again, nothing, tried Russia again, nothing. Saw my parents were on skype and asked them to try a few other numbers in Russia for me; answering machine in Russian and nothing. Things weren’t looking good. Then I received an email from Glen; which was just an email he had sent to Jon explaining my worries, I’d already explained this; and so after 2 hours of accomplishing nothing but growing my frustrations I returned to Andrey and his Russian office.
Any word? No word. What should I do? Andrey shrugged his shoulders and told me to sit down. I sat. Then he told me to come to the counter; there was nothing that could be done. He couldn’t give me a visa. I sat back down but didn't leave; instead I just cried. And thought about what I should do next; go to Hong Kong? Go back to Kunming without a visa?
After talking with Merrill on the phone I decided that I needed to do some more phoning around before I made any decisions and so found a new coffee shop with wifi to sit myself in. I called the Hong Kong consulate; they were on lunch. So I began to search for cheap flights from Shenzhen (a Chinese city bordering with Hong Kong) and discovered there were decently cheap flights the next evening; I found a hostel in Shenzhen, a few in Hong Kong and started figuring out which was closest to what and if I went what my game plan should be. Russian consulates only process visas from 9-12 and so today was out of the question, but if I took a train to Shenzhen tonight, then over into HK tomorrow; ah. There were still too many ‘what-ifs’; at 2:00 I called the HK Russian Embassy with skype and talked with a very helpful lady;l she didn’t know the answer to my questions but found someone who did. So I repeated my story:
I’m a Canadian who needs a 90 day religious visa to Russia, I have all the necessary documents; but only have a copy of the Letter of Invitation from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, would I be able to get a visa with this? No. I needed the original. Couldn’t they just post me the original. Yes. But. I’m in China. C.h.i.n.a. Seems to make things difficult when you’re a million miles away. Their answer? Sorry. You need the original, or try for a tourist visa, they can process it in one day; but. the letter of invitation, well they’re not sure how long that will take; and they’re going on holidays in a day. So there was my answer, with out a 100% yes, it was a no, so it was a no.
I packed up my computer after crying yet again and headed off to find the shuttle bus to the airport; to make a long story short, after asking countless people for directions and them all telling me different things I ended up lost in a city of millions of people with an hour to get to the airport, when I stumbled upon a random subway station, remembered that my Lonely Planet told me that there was for sure shuttles to the airport at the railway and so bought my ticket. When I arrived, there were no signs, so I asked a young girl also ogling the sign if she knew where to find the buses to the airport. She didn’t know but was also looking; so we set off together. We asked a stewardess and she told us not at this station, go to another station; so we did. We got off and asked again. Everyone pointing us in different directions, now I was getting worried, I did not want to miss my flight, and had less than hour to get to the airport. After a handful of people telling us the wrong ways we finally found the place. Bought our 20 rmb tickets and asked how long it would take; an hour. An hour? We thought it was half an hour! When was the driver leaving…not for 15 minutes. No dice; by then my flight would be leaving the runway, and her friend from Korea would be waiting, so we decided to suck it up and take a cab for 150 rmb, got to the airport, after exchanging contact info (she was actually really cool…)I ran to check in; the automated machines wouldn’t let me; I came too late. I ran to the check in counter, now line ups aren’t really popular in China, you more just push and shove until you make your way to the front, okay, again making a long story short; I budged in front here, got my ticket, pushed past hundreds of people in line at security and made it to my gate only to find out that my flight was delayed. *whew*
But at the end of the day I made it back to Kunming, less a ring, with no Russian visa, and a little bit of a broken spirit.
*sigh*
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