Thursday, February 01, 2007
"Things I never dreamed of having to do: Renew my passport while in a communist country…"
My Chinese visa expires in February. I planned on re-applying for another one when I returned to the US at the end of January. Talking with one of our visa experts, a passport needs to be valid 6 months beyond the desired expiration date of the visa…oops..my current passport was expires in early ’08. So, I could spend a day when I return to the US sitting in the Philadelphia passport office getting an expedited passport or I could try to get a new passport while in China and just get a new visa when I get back to the US.
So, off I went to find out if I can actually get a new passport in Beijing. It turns out that the US Embassy processes passport renewals, so off I went on Friday afternoon to start the process.
First, I had to get 4 AMERICAN standard passport photos in Beijing. It was not as hard as I had anticipated.
Then off I went to the US Embassy in Beijing. The security is very tight around the US Embassy. I entered and walked down a closed street towards the Embassy. I was stopped every 100 feet by 4 guards who did not speak English and asked for my passport before they would let me proceed. I had a long way to go, so put my arms in the air and held my passport above my head as I walked down the street. 5 more Chinese guards stopped me on my way. At the 10th guard (American), I get told that they liked my cautious approach and had not seen that before as I walked a cool kilometer down a gauntlet of security people. They had radioed ahead :-)
I was feeling very uncomfortable as I got to the Embassy. However, I got the best service ever from friendly people at the Embassy. They said that my new passport would be ready in 7-10 days and then I just needed to go to the Chinese Public Security Bureau to transfer my current visa to my new passport, which would take 2 days.
I was feeling very good about this approach. Sure beats sitting all day in Philadelphia.
So, off I went to find out if I can actually get a new passport in Beijing. It turns out that the US Embassy processes passport renewals, so off I went on Friday afternoon to start the process.
First, I had to get 4 AMERICAN standard passport photos in Beijing. It was not as hard as I had anticipated.
Then off I went to the US Embassy in Beijing. The security is very tight around the US Embassy. I entered and walked down a closed street towards the Embassy. I was stopped every 100 feet by 4 guards who did not speak English and asked for my passport before they would let me proceed. I had a long way to go, so put my arms in the air and held my passport above my head as I walked down the street. 5 more Chinese guards stopped me on my way. At the 10th guard (American), I get told that they liked my cautious approach and had not seen that before as I walked a cool kilometer down a gauntlet of security people. They had radioed ahead :-)
I was feeling very uncomfortable as I got to the Embassy. However, I got the best service ever from friendly people at the Embassy. They said that my new passport would be ready in 7-10 days and then I just needed to go to the Chinese Public Security Bureau to transfer my current visa to my new passport, which would take 2 days.
I was feeling very good about this approach. Sure beats sitting all day in Philadelphia.
