I’m planning on a little afternoon outing to the 4 Beasts this Thursday, with some other ShiDa students. No real itinerary other than that, though I was thinking of focusing on the Tiger mountain trail. So, if anyone would like to join in, here’s what I’ve planned:
This Thursday, July 5th, 3:15pm
meeting at Houshanpi (blue line, right before Kunyang), exit 2
We’ll follow Zhongpo S. Rd. down to Fude St. Lane 251.
It should be fairly relaxed and easy-going, and hopefully the weather will cooperate.
Just let me know if you’d like to come along so I know to wait for you!
I’d love to join you, but I’m up to the ears in work and will be chained to my desk for most of the time from dawn deep into the depths of night until mid-July.
Sorry to those with work/class! But I’m already looking at some of the other trails (yangmingshan, tianmu) for a weekend full-day outing. We’ll see how this one goes.
Not this weekend though. I’m moving into my new apartment (yay!) and then hopefully heading to fulong beach for the festivities.
Bad luck, indeed! It’s quite unusual for it to rain as much as this in July. If it rains at all, it’s usually no more than short thunderstorms in the early to mid afternoon. But it’s been raining most of the afternoon here in Xindian, and is still raining quite hard now.
The Jiajiuliao Stream was already markedly higher when I went up there for an early swim at 6:30 this morning, so it might be getting close to impassable and unswimmable after this afternoon’s rain.
What’s all this about your not getting a visa extension? Surely it should be a piece of cake as you’re studying at Shida and you’re an “overseas Taiwanese” to boot. What’s the problem?
Except I’m here on a visitor’s visa, since my acceptance letter from Shi-Da hadn’t come yet when I applied for the visa. So now they wouldn’t accept any of the Shi-Da stuff.
So now I have until tomorrow to procure my birth certificate, household registration (?), and my mother’s ID so I can renew my visitor’s visa.
At least, that’s as much as I could tell between my broken Chinese and her broken English…
Or it’ll be a daytrip to Hong Kong for me! (is it even possible to buy a plane ticket that short notice? I’ve never tried)
I guess you can try it even directly on the airport, they can put you on the waiting list even if there are no available flights and if someone doesn’t show up you are on the way.
You can get the household registration in the township where your mothers family comes from besides she got married with your father here and got registrated on his household registration (are both Taiwanese?).
Thanks mingshah! I had no idea what a household registration was, and neither did any of my relatives when I told them in english, and I don’t know what it’s called in chinese. But I think we have it sorted out, and I’m going to the Immigration Agency (that I’ve come to love to hate) again tomorrow morning, with my aunt in tow this time. And if they still have issues after I promise them my first child, I am boarding the next flight to Hong Kong…
This is the kind of case in which, if you’re polite but firmly insistent, you really should be able to get your extension in the end without having to leave the country.
You’re exactly the kind of person the government wants to be attracting here, at least for a full summer and ideally to consider “returning” to work here in the future. You are properly enrolled in classes and genuinely studying at Shi-Da, loads of your relatives and even your dad are here, and everything dictates that this is a case where they should bend the rules in your favour rather than otherwise.
If the lower-level flunky handling your case is being difficult and raising objections, just keep insisting that it must be possible for her to find a way to give you the extension, make it more troublesome for her to refuse the extension than to give it, and insist on seeing someone above her if she won’t give way. That has always worked for me in similar situations of dealing with petty bureaucrats.
Good luck, and I hope you’ll have good news to report later today.
