Those who don't know yet, the work visa that the University was supposed to arrange turned out to be a student visa. Working on a student visa is not good for future travels, ask me. So it was time for plan B. Well, don't know where I am on the alpahabet with my plans. I know I am heading towards my 4th visa in two months. A friend that lives in Shanghai offered me a job a while ago, but me being fully focused on teaching didn't even think twice about that opportunity. But now, the other options started showing their true light.
As u can imagine, I had a decision to make. I am not the kind that take very long to make decisions. I can remember that since I was a small boy I hated to wait for things to happen. If I had a good idea, I wanted it to happen immediately. So after a couple of minutes conversing with my friend in Shanghai, the plans was made for me to head in that direction. But before that, I needed to face the Uni director, the police station and then myself. Almost in that sequence.
The Uni director wasn't happy! He demanded back the money for my accommodation, for my visa that they messed up, and fees for my agent. Needless to say, he didn't get too far with that. I gave him the money according to the accommodation contract I didn't sign yet. He wanted moneys for almost three months stay, but I wasn't planning to pay him that. He settled for the amount I gave him after I told him I had no more money left. He would have sucked me dry! Sometimes you need to tell a half truth. Oh yeah, the agent money... they need to speak to the agent about that. I was promised a work-visa not a student.
Well, the passport is at the police office once again as they wanted to cancel my previous illegal student-work visa. I hate those places! Sounds like i am getting my visa in 5 days, but hopefully sooner and then I am on my way to Shanghai.
The new job sounds like a good challenge. Will be selling furnished office space to all kinds of businesses. So will keep me busy.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself the question... "screw or be screwed?", and sometimes they coincide.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Banks... again
The last couple of days I have been mainly spending time at home and relaxing. Most of the shops have opened now, so I head to my local noodle shop every day for my 3RMB noodles. This is the best deal around town that you will find and the noodles are much better than other more expensive places that I have visited. Therefore this has become my local now. For 5.50RMB I can have a beer and a bowl of noodles! In some shops this is the price of one single beer. So I am a local there now and every now and again me and the shop owners share a couple of words.
I am sitting in McDonald’s at the moment for a coffee. They serve the best coffee in town. I have been told that KFC has good coffee as well, so I will need to venture there sometime to see if the information is correct. But for time being I am a McDonald’s fan and client. I don’t eat there, I just drink their coffee. This is the couple of minutes I grant myself in the western world, sitting in McDonald’s with a coffee in hand and typing on my laptop. There is probably some other places around that serve good coffee, but their prices are ridiculous.
Sorry for the delay, it is now two days after I initially started writing the top two paragraphs. My computer just crashed on me in McDonald’s. Or rather the battery ran out. It used to have a battery life of 2 hours, but it looks like I might need a new battery as it only lasts 10 minutes now. Good thing it is "Made in China", might be able to get a good deal here. Things are going great here apart from the Banks that are still killing me. You need to know that when you travel from province to province the same bank’s branches are not connected. I found this out the hard way only to wait a week for my money from Shanxi province and for the service charge of 45RMB. Oh yes, and you have to cough up the money first before they will do your transaction. Mmm… it was also a good thing my Chinese is very bad otherwise I would have said a couple of things to the cashier that I would have later regretted. I think my translator saw the anger and the good thing is that she understood the frustration as she had a running with a bank a while ago.
Well, to put it like this. Someone stole her wallet with all her cards and money. So she headed to the bank to close her account only to find that she is not able to close her account without her ID card, and off course her ID card was in her wallet which got stolen. You see the frustration!! So she had to go to a different province, get a new ID card and close her account. They don’t just cancel the old card and give you a new one, no; you have to open a new account. So a week later she cancelled her account, opened a new account which cost her 10RMB and got a card which cost her another 10RMB. Ohh.. I would have been red in the face. Maybe this is a good place to work on patience.
Linyi City, Shandong Province, China
I am sitting in McDonald’s at the moment for a coffee. They serve the best coffee in town. I have been told that KFC has good coffee as well, so I will need to venture there sometime to see if the information is correct. But for time being I am a McDonald’s fan and client. I don’t eat there, I just drink their coffee. This is the couple of minutes I grant myself in the western world, sitting in McDonald’s with a coffee in hand and typing on my laptop. There is probably some other places around that serve good coffee, but their prices are ridiculous.
Sorry for the delay, it is now two days after I initially started writing the top two paragraphs. My computer just crashed on me in McDonald’s. Or rather the battery ran out. It used to have a battery life of 2 hours, but it looks like I might need a new battery as it only lasts 10 minutes now. Good thing it is "Made in China", might be able to get a good deal here. Things are going great here apart from the Banks that are still killing me. You need to know that when you travel from province to province the same bank’s branches are not connected. I found this out the hard way only to wait a week for my money from Shanxi province and for the service charge of 45RMB. Oh yes, and you have to cough up the money first before they will do your transaction. Mmm… it was also a good thing my Chinese is very bad otherwise I would have said a couple of things to the cashier that I would have later regretted. I think my translator saw the anger and the good thing is that she understood the frustration as she had a running with a bank a while ago.
Well, to put it like this. Someone stole her wallet with all her cards and money. So she headed to the bank to close her account only to find that she is not able to close her account without her ID card, and off course her ID card was in her wallet which got stolen. You see the frustration!! So she had to go to a different province, get a new ID card and close her account. They don’t just cancel the old card and give you a new one, no; you have to open a new account. So a week later she cancelled her account, opened a new account which cost her 10RMB and got a card which cost her another 10RMB. Ohh.. I would have been red in the face. Maybe this is a good place to work on patience.
Linyi City, Shandong Province, China
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