Excellent

Yeah we have our cat with us so hope he doesn't die in flight

oh god

my cousin works for a public service news station

hes not a journalist hes just a sound technician

he was gonna go to a vacation in china and his visa process was horrible

first got denied when they saw he worked in a news station

he then was trying to explain that he wasnt a journalist

and they said "ok come back in 2 weeks"

he comes to the embassy, enters a big room filled with mao zedong shit

receptionist denies that he has an interview

even when hes showing the mail

on his phone

receptionist finally agrees to talk to others

hes in the wait room for 1 hour

comes back and say "yeah you have a time, just wait"

he then gets to go into a huge room with a huge round table

and hes like 20 meters away from a guy interviewing him

he got questions like "what do you think about *his news station* reports about china?"

"what do you think about the chinese political system?"

then they say "we'll call back to know if its approved" this was like 1 week before his plane was gonna go

they never called back

he got 3 phone number to the embassy

none of them picked up the phone from any of those numbers

so what he had to do was waking up early and going to the embassy before the staff was there

to get in contact with them

he did that 3 times

the other 2 times he got stopped by 2 chinese agents everytime

3rd time he saw them coming a bit late so he took his chance

then got in contact with the guy who interviewed him

and he said "ok come back at 4PM with a paper that is basically your life history + CV"

he was doing that while working on his work day

he arrived at 4PM

and they say "well contact you back"

he got a mail friday, he was gonna go saturday

at 3PM he got the mail

"you can come and pick up your passport and visa, hurry we close in 4PM and do not open until monday"

literally rushed to the embassy

got his passport + visa

Fuggin Chinas.

But at least he was persistent enough to get it all sorted.