alisaurus

This story is sooo not over yet.

Because I hadn’t been able to buy a train ticket, I didn’t know how I was going to get from Macau back to Kunming. Luckily, the lovely people organising the event were able to get someone to buy me a plane ticket. Here’s where it gets spooky. I had to give them my passport, so that the name they booked with would be exactly the same, and while they had it, Vahid noticed that my visa was single entry and I’d already used it up. Part of me was devastated. I’d gone to so much trouble to get my year long student visa, and spent so much money on it, and I’d gone and used it up in 1 week! It’s totally my own fault. I didn’t read it carefully. Once I got my resident’s permit, it would become multiple entry, but until then it was just single.

There were 2 other people, Andrew and Lindsay, who had to sort out visa things, so I went to the consulate with them one afternoon. Someone told me that it should be easy to fix, and I wouldn’t need to get another visa, but the consulate lady told me otherwise. First she just kept telling me it was still valid, then she realised what my problem was, and told me I needed to apply for another visa. I didn’t have any photos with me, so I had to go and get some taken, and by the time we picked them up the consulate was closed. Despite all the worrying and beating myself up over being so stupid, it was a fun afternoon. We got noodles, which I couldn’t eat, and ice cream, which I did, and went to an internet cafe.

The next day, or the day after, I went to the consulate in the morning, put in my application, and picked up my visa in the afternoon. I think I missed a lot of fun things that day, which I was disappointed about, but the visa thing had to be done.

It was on one of my trips to the consulate that I realised how unbelieveably lucky it was that I’d not been able to buy a train ticket. I have absolutely no idea why I wasn’t able to, but if I had, no one would have looked at my visa until I got to the border, and I’d have been kinda stuck. I’d come across this quote before, but didn’t understand it:

“My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy.” ~ Bahá’u'lláh

But now it made so much sense. I’d encountered quite a bit of calamity so far in China, but so many good things have come out of it. The visa thing was the most noticable, but I’d learned so much from it all. I’d learned what to avoid, what I should do in situations, and most importantly, how much I’m capable of. Part of me whished things would just be easy, but how would I ever grow? I certainly don’t like ending up alone in strange places or having to spend a fortune on visas, but I’m actually pretty thankful for it now, for what I’ve gotten out of it. I still can’t bring myself to ask for calamity, but I’m not so scared of it anymore.