Pre-trip: Documents

The young Aussie guy was traveling in China at the time, so I called him and had a chat about all the details. He said that their group were waiting for confirmation from another girl in UK who contacted them before (damn it!!). They had to wait for her confirmation first. If that girl said yes, so I couldn't join them. He would let me know later whether the girl said yes or not. In the mean time, I should prepare the following documents and send it to him as soon as possible.

Document List

1. Scan/photo of signed Travel Disclaimer Form
2. Scan/photo of passport
3. Scan/photo of Chinese visa (if you're entering from China)
4. Scan/photo of letter of confirmed employment IF you are in China on an F or Z visa (visiting or working visas). If you are on an L visa (tourist) then you don't need this.
5. Scan/photo of receipt of 30% deposit transfer to Snow Lions, can be done by bank transfer, western union, or PayPal

I think other travel agencies would also require similar documents to confirm the booking. The guy was waiting for the Travel Disclaimer Form from the travel agency. I could get a photo of my passport and Chinese visa (type Z) in an instant. The money transfer could be done on the next day, no problem. My only concern was the employment letter. I had to get it from HR department which I didn't know how long it would take them to issue me one (since I was causing some troubles to HR previously about many things). It might take two days or so. I wasn't sure. I rushed to HR and told them that I needed the employment letter for my trip. Luckily, it only took them less than 10 minutes to issue to letter for me (YAY!!!).

So all the docs that I could prepare from my side were complete. I sent email to the guy and waited for his response impatiently. I was getting really anxious about the whole situation. I hate being in the situation where I wouldn't know the outcome. I checked my phone every few minutes to see whether the guy sent me any message. I cursed at the other girl and wished that she wouldn't join the group so I could take her place (I knew it wasn't her fault, but come on I wanted to join this group so badly). I barely worked that day or if I did, I couldn't really remember what I did. I was shaking my legs which I normally wouldn't do. Hate it!!

Later that evening, I got a message from the guy. He said that the travel agency would not let them add more people as the bank payment was already done. If they wanted to add more people, they would need to change the departure date. But one of their members could not change the departure date, so they wouldn't accept me. I called the guy and talked to him. I even asked whether it was possible for me to call the agency directly and negotiate with them to count me in. He said that I shouldn't do that. So from what we talked and based on my personal assumption, I believed that they were afraid that the departure date would be shifted so they didn't want to change anything. It was not really that the agency said that they couldn't add anyone more.

It was as if my prayer was responded. "Babe, you want it. You will not get it! MUAHAHAHA!!". I was really disappointed. I confirmed back to them within like an hour and sent them all the docs within that day. If they didn't want to add anyone in the first place, perhaps they shouldn't have asked me to send them all the docs. I remembered feeling down that night. I complained with my flatmates and decided to go walk my dog to get my mind of this thing.


"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us."


Luckily, I still had the other open door.