Saturday, August 19, 2006

Can I go to China? Please?? Please?? Please?? Ohh, thank you Mr. Immigration Officer, Sir!!!

Ok, so its now bout 3 weeks since my arrival here in Paki-land… Nothing really eventful has happened so far… just messin bout, learnt about a dozen new card games from the kids here.. a few moments to ponder on this:

There’s nothing more embarrassing than a grown man (that wud be me, I think) surrounded by a bunchs of kids, learning their games, and then LOSING (Hey Kid!!! Get back here with my frikkin dignity!!!)… However, there is no moment more worthy of rejoicing than when you beat those very kids at their favourite game… (In Your Face, Kid!!! You think u can beat ME?? Who’s the BIGGER MAN now???) Yes, I know I’m way beyond help…

Neways, so I’ve spent my time learnin card games, stuffin myself with my aunt’s delicious cooking, ate a lot more chili chips (They’re addictive, I tell u), introducing myself to my newest kiddie cousin (she’s bout 8 months old at the time of this post… pictures to follow).. I cant help it, I just get along extremely well with kids (Don’t believe me?? Take a look at the previous paragraph again… would a kid-hating dude sit thru all those card games), and I had a couple of good solo workouts, just workin on my kicks n a going thru a ton of pushups… n ofcourse watching my collection of capoeira vids… I restricted myself to headphones when listenin to capo music for fear of freaking out not only my family, but the entire neighbourhood as well…

I met up with an aunt who used to live with us in Dubai… haven’t seen her in ages.. apparently her kids dun recognize me.. that’s alright, they aint seen me before neways :P…was great catchin up with her… she visited us for bout a week or so, every night of which was spent playing card games till 4am, which usually ended with me bein kicked outta the room (hey, I was bored… wuts a guy gotta do??) n headin to bed…

Moving on: I wasn’t able to apply for my visa to China straight away, as I was waitin for some invitation papers from dad.. those hadn’t arrived yet, so I was pretty much killin time.. even met up with another one of my uncles (dad’s side, this time) n his family…

So the papers finally arrive, and dad asks me to go meet some dude n pass him the papers, who would pretty much guarantee visa issuance upon acceptance of a generous sum of money… neways, I had to travel out of town for that (applause to my aunt for drivin me so far), n turns out the bloody assclown doesn’t do this service for people anymore… I dunno y he didn’t tell me this over the fone… n he cant do anything to help me, cuz it seems ive got pretty much every document I need to apply for a business visit visa (at this point, I did a double take: business visa?? Wutthe… I dun even know the intricate details of dad’s business here, n im gonna have to explain it to a bunch of immigration officers????), so I wud do better to head to the embassy n apply myself.. anyways, long story short, it was an unsuccessful trip all the way outta town…

At this point, it didn’t seem like I’d get to China, being banished as I had to the land of Pakis… Shit!!!

Neways, so I decided to head to the embassy myself… unsuccessful at the first attempt, I shud add, since I underestimate the crowd outside the embassy and could get inside before it closed down… Hence, I tried again the next day… Got up REALLY early (6am), made it to the embassy REALLY early (8am), decided to apply for a social visit visa using business visit papers (don’t ask.. but I made it work… apparently them Chinese immigration officers assume we pakis r angels… go figure :P ), and got everything done by 11am… dude said I could collect the papers in 3 days.. that wud be August 4th…

The visa problem being effectively solved, I next booked my flight to Shanghai (10th August, via Doha, Qatar) n then decided on a long overdue trip to Lahore, to visit the rest of my aunts, uncles, n cousins… Booked that for the 5th… n proceeded to shop my ass off in Islamabad until then…

N shop I did indeed… Bought bout a dozen reference books on computing, a stack of DVDs, n 2 suits… that’s pretty much the gist of it… along with some crap that preferred not to work when tested.. oh well, u win some, u lose some…

Well, that’s all I’ve been doin in Paki-Land…

Next Up: Gimme that damn tyre!!!

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