Day 27

September 16, 2010 - Xi'an, Shaanxi Provence, China

Sigh. Today was exhausting. With our visa deadlines quickly approaching, Jordan and I made plans to go to the security bureau to drop off our passports and paperwork. Jordan picked up his documents from the Foreign Student's Office yesterday, so I stopped by to get mine today. The office is always full of people, and the one or two people who are actually working there are stressed out beyond belief. I sat down with one of the counselors, the other was out, and she thumbed through my paperwork:

"Did you turn in four photos?"
"Yes, almost a month ago."
"Copies of your passport?"
"I turned them in at the same time."
"A copy of the receipt for your housing?"
"Yes."
"None of that is in here. Can you just come back next week? When does you visa expire?"
"Monday."
"Monday?!"

Yes, Monday. Which wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that your office lost everything I had already turned in. It's not as if I could do any of this earlier, since I didn't get my health exam results until last week. So, I spent the morning running back and forth from the school to my room trying to find the items I needed to complete my visa documents. I missed one session of my second class (we have two sessions per class per day), in order to accomplish this. After I got everything I needed, I sat down in a chair while she v-e-r-y s--l--o--w--l--y c---h---e---c---k---e---d o----v----e----r t-----h-----e f------o------r------m------s....I was worried that her speed would cause me to miss the second half of my class. Luckily, she finished just after the bell rang, 15 or so minutes later.

This would be mirrored in my later experience at the security bureau. Let's cut past the fact that we left two hours late, and that I didn't get to eat lunch because we were waiting on others to go to lunch who were apparently at lunch and didn't bother to mention it. We'll also cut past the 20 minutes it took us to get a taxi during this sudden September heatwave, and my complaining about how they won't pick up foreigners. We'll cut right to the security bureau, where we waited in the un-air conditioned building in a long line while one woman poured over every single person's documents. ONE! This is so typical of China, there are 8 million people here, any given store employs 30,000 of them to jump on you if you seem remotely interested in buying something. But banks? Or government offices? There will be dozens of desks and one person running the whole show. If you need to get something done, it's probably not happening today. Other employees even came in while we were waiting, made a joke to/at the lady and then walked off. AND she took, like, three phone calls while we waited. You know, just hanging out in a line sweating to death.

God we were sweaty. Anyway, the actual document "interview" consisted of sitting in a chair while she looked to make sure everything was in order. It was, so we went downstairs and paid (400RMB, by the way, on top of the fact that we paid $200 to get our visa already).

We hunted for food or water or a taxi, and found water. Then a taxi. This driver was actually quite a change for the better. He was so friendly. And, he explained to Angel, our Chinese friend, that he had been going on his lunch break but decided to take pity on us.

We ended up eating at Subway, which was not my choice, but I was starving. I ordered a foot long, and they cost about the same comparatively. I got somewhere around 2/3 of the way into it and didn't think I could make it. Chinese food has shrunk my stomach.

"Come on, finish it, you wimp." Angel said.

Hayden