[FoRK] TRAVELMAN: foiled by Chinese bureaucracy...

[Rohit Khare]

On one hand, our hard-fought, long-shopped-for, ever-elusive *pair*  
of first class award tickets on Air China's "Forbidden Pavilion"  
sleeper service (ah, the joys of Communist classism!) just in time  
for WWW2008 in Beijing this week and a friend's wedding in Shanghai  
this weekend seemed like the perfect excuse to finally go visit China.

On the other, well, the Chinese do have a few more millenia of  
experience with paper, as well as paperwork, than us wild and crazy  
Americans. I just had to cancel the entire itinerary because the  
consulate demands two entire blank pages in your passport (one for  
the visa, one to piss off last-minute frequent leisure travelers... : 
() Couldn't manage to convince them to use any of the last three  
blank pages, and enough lazy border agents have put one stamp on a  
page that I hit a brick (er, paper) wall...

So there you go, chalk one up for the Mandarins :(
   -- TRAVELMAN