Gary and I are thinking of going to China for an extended weekend to visit my friend Ellen Mac0ratti. She married an Italian man who got a job in Suzhou, and moved my Park Ridge friend across the world. They might leave China soon though, so we are trying to see each other one last time--do the Great Wall, Tiananman Square, *sigh. I love to travel.
I have been browsing websites and the Chinese embassy website--it seems that Americans pay more than triple what every other country pays for a tourist visa. WHAT?!
Funny: Here is a question thread from the consulate webpage:
--
Mar. 19, 2009 06:55Mr.Jay Han(U.S.) said:
Please explain why American Citizen vs Korean Citizen single entry visa fee is big different from another? Currently I am residing in Korea and I want to visit China for a tour.
Mar. 25, 2009 02:30Mr.Zhongguo(China) replied:
America is a rich developped country.
--
Well, there you have it folks. It doesn't always ppay to be an American.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Memory of my mom part I: The Bomb
(I remembered this the other day. It happened many years back, when we were still living at our old house in Edgebrook Towers. Classic mom tale).
My mother received a cake-sized unmarked parcel wrapped in generic brown paper in the mail. So of course she then was convinced it was a bomb. Oh yeah, why target an up-n-coming young and brash politician, when instead you can terrorize a 68 year-old Korean woman who still pronounces naked as a monosyllabic word? She rendered her suspicions to me on yet another occasion where she had entrapped me into endless conversation/aka. life lessons in our kitchen. When I asked her what she did with the package, she lightly pattered off one of her “me-I’m so silly, but always still a genteel lady” laughs, while informing me that when she finally was convinced it was indeed a bomb, she calmly walked out into her backyard and threw it out into the great beyond with a rigor of a pro-baseball pitch. She said she got nervous and felt that at the very least, it wouldn’t be staring at her from the dining room table.
My mother received a cake-sized unmarked parcel wrapped in generic brown paper in the mail. So of course she then was convinced it was a bomb. Oh yeah, why target an up-n-coming young and brash politician, when instead you can terrorize a 68 year-old Korean woman who still pronounces naked as a monosyllabic word? She rendered her suspicions to me on yet another occasion where she had entrapped me into endless conversation/aka. life lessons in our kitchen. When I asked her what she did with the package, she lightly pattered off one of her “me-I’m so silly, but always still a genteel lady” laughs, while informing me that when she finally was convinced it was indeed a bomb, she calmly walked out into her backyard and threw it out into the great beyond with a rigor of a pro-baseball pitch. She said she got nervous and felt that at the very least, it wouldn’t be staring at her from the dining room table.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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