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goldboilermark posted:If you get your invitation letter, I would drive or fly to DC and go to the embassy personally. Is that your plan? They don't do same day processing anymore (as of October 2013, but this is subject to change at literally the whims of someone), but if you're there by like 10am you can get next day. If you get your invitation letter on the 30th, you can be in DC on the 31st or the 1st. You can have your Z-visa by the 2nd or the 3rd if everything goes smoothly. I don't know where the weekends are but you should be ok. The whole Nebraska being served by the DC embassy is the biggest loving joke, when we hired a guy from Bowling Green, Kentucky he was required to do everything through DC, and for some reason, so was a guy from Miami though that might have had to do with his personal address. I have no idea how this all works, and I'm not sure how strict they are about it. When I got my Z-visa in 2009, my permanent address was in Maine but I was living with my girlfriend in Madison, Wisconsin and I did it through Chicago and no one gave a poo poo. I had to buy it myself and there's no way I can afford to fly to DC. I don't have the time either, there's still a ton to do here. edit: The weekend is August 2nd/3rd Zoph fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 15:53
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Well, good luck. I have no idea what would be the best way to do that, I would guess another goon could chime in. Wish I could help out, I was almost going to be in DC that week but instead ended up in Chicago. I always recommend doing it in person because almost every person except one that we've hired in the past two years had problems the first time they went to the embassy, no matter what embassy it was. "Your background on this photo is the wrong color", "This form is out of date from last month", "This box you checked isn't very clear", "This stamp is in the wrong place", etc. Not trying to freak you out, but I'd make sure every single i is dotted and t is crossed before you send all that stuff to DC.
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Jul 25, 2014 16:04
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goldboilermark posted:Well, good luck. I have no idea what would be the best way to do that, I would guess another goon could chime in. Wish I could help out, I was almost going to be in DC that week but instead ended up in Chicago. I always recommend doing it in person because almost every person except one that we've hired in the past two years had problems the first time they went to the embassy, no matter what embassy it was. "Your background on this photo is the wrong color", "This form is out of date from last month", "This box you checked isn't very clear", "This stamp is in the wrong place", etc. Not trying to freak you out, but I'd make sure every single i is dotted and t is crossed before you send all that stuff to DC. I kind of am freaking out, because I'm sort of backed into a corner here. I pretty much have to use a visa service, and moving my flight back again isn't really a feasible option. Don't really have an option not to go either, I'm out a job here and I've spent everything I've got putting this in motion :/
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Jul 25, 2014 16:41
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I think they do that only because the US consulate are dicks like that, so they reciprocate. We had a Chinese guy trying to get his wife to visit on a B-visa get denied because, "You must have a picture of you and your husband together."
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Jul 25, 2014 16:46
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Zophar posted:I kind of am freaking out, because I'm sort of backed into a corner here. I pretty much have to use a visa service, and moving my flight back again isn't really a feasible option. A visa service is the way to go, its unfortunate you are going to have to pay to rush it like crazy. But in my experience they are connected pretty well to whoever does the processing at the embassies (I'm sure the whole thing is very lucrative for everyone involved), so there aren't any issues with getting it denied and you can usually get the maximum length visa (although I think one year is the longest available now?). I used these guys last time. I went through the chicago embassy though, so I can't vouch for how well they can rush stuff through DC. https://www.oasischinavisa.com/
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Jul 26, 2014 04:01
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https://www.abriggs.com/ very professional DC area visa expedite service.
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Jul 26, 2014 13:21
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Chengdu trip is one week away. What should I bone up on? Characters?
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Jul 27, 2014 15:24
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Remember when they moved the weekend last year around this time? That was fun.
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Jul 27, 2014 15:45
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Eifert Posting posted:Chengdu trip is one week away. What should I bone up on? Characters? Eating spicy food. La duzi -ing.
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Jul 27, 2014 16:03
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SB35 posted:Eating spicy food. La duzi -ing. EifertPosting is not good at spicy food. Can you recommend some safe and mild dishes?
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Jul 27, 2014 16:46
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DontAskKant posted:EifertPosting is not good at spicy food. Can you recommend some safe and mild dishes? Nope not in Chengdu. Good luck!
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Jul 27, 2014 17:05
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You can always get fried egg n' tomato.
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Jul 27, 2014 17:09
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Arglebargle III posted:You can always get fried egg n' tomato. I can't get egg and tomato here. I actually miss it.
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Jul 27, 2014 17:24
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It's not hard to make. Watch a youku video about it. You can ask for (less) spice in Chengdu. There are plenty of general dishes that aren't spicy. You can even get hotpot in white/non-spicy/lame oil. We got a split pot when caberham and wonton came to Chengdu so cabe wouldn't die.
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Jul 27, 2014 20:55
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Jeoh posted:Remember when they moved the weekend last year around this time? That was fun. Whats this about?
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Jul 27, 2014 21:19
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Heading to Guilin tomorrow! Unfortunately it looks like both that area and all of Yunnan are suffering thunderstorms for the next several weeks. I'm considering changing my itinerary to take the train north to dodge the rain and check out maybe The Three Natural Bridges and Emeishan. I need to head back down and east at the end of three weeks to catch my return flight out of Kunming though. Does that sound reasonable? Or are there better areas I could head to to dodge the rain while still seeing sweet natural landscapes? DontAskKant posted:EifertPosting is not good at spicy food. Can you recommend some safe and mild dishes? Eifert is always embarrassing all the Korea goons by asking for "no spice" when we eat out.  Magna Kaser posted:3G service here is very strange in that is is actually really reliable. Everything is pre-paid here, so you should just get a unicom SIM. I know they do 300mb of 3G for like 69rmb or something (11USD). It'll work almost anywhere. Thanks for this, I'll grab a Unicom SIM first thing then. Any idea how hard it is to find the microSIM's for the iPhone 5? Most countries it's not bad, but when I went to Indonesia it was basically impossible and I had to do without internet the whole time.
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Jul 28, 2014 01:12
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Eifert Posting posted:Chengdu trip is one week away. What should I bone up on? Characters? Characters, basic phrases, and patience. Patience being the most important.
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Jul 28, 2014 02:23
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Bugblatter posted:Heading to Guilin tomorrow! Unfortunately it looks like both that area and all of Yunnan are suffering thunderstorms for the next several weeks. When you buy a sim you have 2 choices. #1 is to go to a Unicom office, literally all over any city in China, and get one. You need to show a passport but besides that it's pretty hassle free and quick. Then you pick what plan you want and load up some cash. I don't think there's a minimum, but you can always cash out if you close your account when you leave (but you can just leave). They'll definitely have a microSim there. #2 is to get one from a dude in a small shop/on the street. They won't ask for a passport but you also get less choice as to what taocan you want. They'll cut a sim into a MicroSIM if need be. DontAskKant posted:EifertPosting is not good at spicy food. Can you recommend some safe and mild dishes? haha good luck. Some of my Dutch coworkers eat at Subway or McDonalds every day cause even when they ask for not spicy*** they think it's too spicy for them. *** Usually this stuff doesn't even register to me or others as "spicy" so ymmv
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Jul 28, 2014 02:29
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This NYT piece is full of China gems.quote:He smiled and patted his not insubstantial belly. “I like to eat.” quote:Chen, who is 72, never planned on being a dumpling mogul. quote:Even after he became vice president of the Second People’s Hospital in Zhengzhou, a provincial city about halfway between Shanghai and Beijing, Chen remained bored with his day job. “I didn’t have enough to keep me busy,” he said, blinking earnestly, hands steepled beneath his chin. “I would wander round inspecting the building, and I had meetings, but I felt as if I spent most of my time reading the newspaper and drinking tea.” He engaged in lots of Rube Goldberg-like tinkering: jury-rigging the hospital’s aging equipment, fixing his neighbors’ radios and even building Zhengzhou’s first washing machine. And he cooked. For decades, his lunar New Year gifts of homemade glutinous rice balls were legendary among friends and neighbors. quote:His investigations found that, on average, a Chinese person experiences some kind of digestive upset twice a week — a kind of low-level recurring food poisoning, much of which is probably caused by the kind of bacterial growth that could have been prevented by keeping food cold. “Bad bowels,” Moriarty said, “is just part of the drill for being a food consumer in China.”
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Jul 28, 2014 02:37
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quote:Chen, who is 72, never planned on being a dumpling mogul.
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Jul 28, 2014 03:41
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Real Phone Talk: I bought my wife a Xiaomi and she gave me her bigass Samsung GT-N7100 phablet, which I don't really want because it's so goddamn big, but I figure if I upgrade to Android 4.4.2 kitkat and root the phone, it will at least be useable. The current firmware has all sorts of terrible Chinese software installed that you cannot delete. But I'm worried that Google isn't working without a vpn now, and I might end up with a phone that only works as a phone, am unable to download apps or whatever. So what should I do? I already tried to trade it for an iphone 4s (my 3gs finally broke) at the computer market but nobody wants this thing. I figure I can use this for a while, but know nothing of custom firmwares or google play or whatever it is people do on android devices. Help!
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Jul 28, 2014 04:21
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Haha, while Zhengzhou is equidistant from Shanghai and Beijing, it is NOT halfway between the two cities, unless you go really far out of your way.
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Jul 28, 2014 04:31
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Be Depressive for my sanity please post more in China threads on the forums, thanks a lot!
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Jul 28, 2014 04:36
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Be Depressive posted:Real Phone Talk: I personally like Notes even though I have baby hands, but that's besides the point. If you do root the phone and do an install of either stock Android or a custom ROM like CM it should get rid of the Chinese stuff and give you a clean, working Android phone. If you go to IYG they have about 100 guides for how to do this. The Note II is alright, it should still be plenty usable by today's standards. The bad part is you are unable to access Google Play in it's entirety without a VPN now. There are other app stores (Amazon, etc...) you can use in lieu of Google Play, or you can just hunt down APKs, but neither is as good/as easy as the App Store for China. Also Xiaomi 4 comes out tomorrow who is PSYCHEDDDD
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Jul 28, 2014 04:37
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Magna Kaser posted:When you buy a sim you have 2 choices. Okay, any chance there will just be a station in the airport for super convenience?
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Jul 28, 2014 04:49
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Ok so I could theoretically get Astrill from a different app store and then use Google Play? That would work for me..
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Jul 28, 2014 04:53
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I could probably send you the .apk file if you can't get it otherwise.
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Jul 28, 2014 04:57
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I know Astrill is a favorite, but we know that HostVPN works in Chengdu yeah? Bugblatter, good luck i spent way too long trying to get a simcard in Nanjing. All of the stores were variations and combinations of useless and incompetent and I was in the main shopping district. 2 hours later (because I'm more stubborn than wise) I gave up and used lovely roaming. Problems i could understand were: This Nexus4 is something I haven't seen, it is impossible. MicroSims don't exist, wtf are you talking about. Oh I see that you have one, but I rolled a 20 to disbelieve. It is not possible for foreigners. You have to be a member. Foreigner!  Let me talk to my boss, *vanishes* Hey lets ask 10 people sitting by 2 chairs, oh we don't know how. Do you want to buy a phone? Okay, let's try that, oh it doesn't work... Oh well. Maybe try someone else. Nexus4 doesn't work in China because... What? I can't hear you there's 3 dogs barking and jumping on the counter. What? Are you speaking? I can only hear this screaming baby. Sorry we can't help you we have no electricity in this store.
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Jul 28, 2014 06:24
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DontAskKant posted:I know Astrill is a favorite, but we know that HostVPN works in Chengdu yeah? You should have said you had an LG instead of a Nexus 4 and they would have given you a card. Though if you were at Telecom or Mobile they were probably correct.
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Jul 28, 2014 06:30
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Magna Kaser posted:You should have said you had an LG instead of a Nexus 4 and they would have given you a card. Though if you were at Telecom or Mobile they were probably correct. Yeah, I tried to communicate it was an LG phone, but that I'm pretty sure i failed at. But like, aren't microsims common enough or should i bring my own scissors?
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Jul 28, 2014 06:35
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DontAskKant posted:Yeah, I tried to communicate it was an LG phone, but that I'm pretty sure i failed at. But like, aren't microsims common enough or should i bring my own scissors? I think microsims are the default now since every phone uses them, and they cut a micro into a Nano if you buy an iPhone. I just looked at my Unicom card which is living in my Nexus 5 right now and it looks like it was originally a micro. I don't remember cutting it.
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Jul 28, 2014 07:02
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Yeah when I got my local SIM in Chengdu it was just a Micro-SIM with an adapter to regular SIM. But I got my gf to set me up so I never had any of the mystical laowai problems.
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Jul 28, 2014 07:16
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Be Depressive posted:Real Phone Talk: I don't see you having any problems. Upgrade, Root, Reset phone and wipe cache will leave you will a stock phone with root. Now use something like Titanium Backup or something else to start hibernating or removing the Chinese bloatware. Also, check the Chinese Samsung store to see if they have Google apps in there. I was able to get an official signed google apps package through the Chinese HTC store that installs to /system. If you go through a custom rom (like Cyanogen) be careful. Oftentimes the Chinese phones have different baseband or radios and you can brick your phone flashing a custom rom. If you're worried about phone activation, most of the time activation can be skipped by tapping the 4 corners in a clockwise direction at the Google activation screen. If you have a VPN, get the OpenVPN client and use that. It's so much better than the built in VPN service. As for apps, I've been using the Google play store for overseas things and Baidu for the Chinese applications. Don't download the Baidu app store, just search at Baidu.com for whatever app and download it from the web interface. As long as you're not stupid and look at permissions, you're not going to get 1000 popups unless you're installing shady poo poo. And if you're really worried, get a free "antivirus" program. I have an HTC One M7 and a Google Nexus 7 and both run perfectly fine as long as I keep my VPN on (I use the goon run HostVPN). If my VPN is off, the only thing that doesn't work is GoogleNow (search). Maps, gmail, and play store are all slow but functioning. Magna Kaser posted:Also Xiaomi 4 comes out tomorrow who is PSYCHEDDDD I want to try the MiBand fitness band they have. I wonder how fast they will sell out on JingDong.
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Jul 28, 2014 07:41
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DontAskKant posted:I know Astrill is a favorite, but we know that HostVPN works in Chengdu yeah? Yeah man, but you are also you and I am me. The two of us have very different kinds of luck, especially when traveling. I think I'll be okay~
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Jul 28, 2014 08:17
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Aero737 posted:
Out of curiosity where are you/what service do you use? Here in Chengdu with every wifi connection I get on (Dianxin/Liantong/Aipu, business and personal) the play store 100% does not work (working for a company that makes apps for Google Play, this is a big annoyance). On my Unicom 3/4G it sometimes works, but usually only sporadically and I only notice cause I'll get emails or the Play Store telling me my apps can be updated. Normally I can't even send email without my VPN on. I haven't successfully downloaded an app or update without my VPN in months and the Play Store won't even load 95% of the time.
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Jul 28, 2014 08:32
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Magna Kaser posted:haha good luck. Some of my Dutch coworkers eat at Subway or McDonalds every day cause even when they ask for not spicy*** they think it's too spicy for them. Kant is loving with everybody.  Eifert Posting is expecting to eat six meals a day and wants his blood to have so much flower pepper in it by the time he leaves that it would numb a vampire. Please assist him in this quest.
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Jul 28, 2014 08:41
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多放点辣
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Jul 28, 2014 09:05
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Write 麻辣辣 on your forehead and point at it.
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Jul 28, 2014 09:11
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Grand Fromage posted:Write 麻辣辣 on your forehead and point at it. Actually in the Sichuanese spiciness tiers 老麻 is the most 麻。
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Jul 28, 2014 09:34
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Eifert Posting posted:多放点辣肚子
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Jul 28, 2014 09:45
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