Visa and other paperwork

I'll start this post with a joke:

A senior Senator called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China.

After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him that he needed a visa. “Oh, no I don’t. I’ve been to China many times and never had to have one of those.”

I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, “Look, I’ve been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!

As we all know, that is not the Visa they are asking for.  They are not asking for a credit card. The Chinese government is asking that all visitors that are coming for a lengthy stay, need to apply for a Visa.  Thankfully, DAIS put together the paperwork for us to apply for our Visa which came in the mail last night.  Our next step is to put together all of our documents that we need (passport, marriage license, etc.) and send it to an agency where they will process the paperwork on our behalf, in San Francisco.  Within a week of sending it off to the agency, we should get all of our documents back with a thumbs up that all is good to go.