Visa (two)

I got my visa to travel to China today (or "mainland China" as many people say here), that is, the People's Republic. Now I can board the plane on the 25th to go to the East Asia young astronomers meeting (EAYAM2008) at Jiayuguan in Gansu. The travel agency took care of everything. I guess that it is a little more expensive that way, but I only had to care about getting all the documents they asked for and to take new passport photos.

I will get the flight tickets any day now. Several students from Taiwan, from different universities, are also attending the meeting and booked the tickets all together. A student here has helped me a lot in all the needed procedures, working as a liason with that group of students. Much easier, because if not I would have been flooded with e-mails written in Chinese. Now I must make my mind about how much money I change. In order to attract more people to the meeting, the local organizing comitee is paying for everything there, but there are always extra expenses.

Let's see how it all turns out. I still have to finish the talk I must give there, which shouldn't be so difficult. I must also prepare my camera for the total solar eclipse of August 1st. That's the real reason for the trip... but don't tell anyone.