Luckily, I live in Hangzhou…just a 90-minute D-train ride from Shanghai—home of the US Embassy. I had visited their website about a year ago when I took another look at my passport when returning to Hangzhou from visiting the States and realized what little room there actually was in it. Turns out, in China, we are able to add pages when our passports get full.

So noticing that the time had come to do this, I again visited the Consulate General of the United States website.

http://shanghai.usemabssy-china.org.cn/adding_pages.html

I made an appointment and got my butt to Shanghai to avoid deportation due to lack of visa.

The office is open and available for appointments Monday-Friday from 8:45am-3:00pm. The system allows you to make an appointment as much as 2 weeks in advance.

If you are unable to go yourself, you CAN send a representative in your place, but you will still need to make an appointment.

When making the appointment with their online system, make sure that you use a computer attached to a printer (preferably one with ink and paper in it). You will need to be able to print the last page that has your appointment confirmation number and password, time, etc.

The appointment confirmation system gives you the address of the embassy in English, so it couldn’t hurt to have a friend that can write in Chinese translate and write it for you, especially if you go to Shanghai yourself.

They do have the address in Chinese on another part of the website:

http://shanghai.usembassy-china.org.cn/acs_contacts.html

OR copy and print this:
美国驻沪总领事馆美国公民服务处
American Citizen Services
American Consulate General Shanghai
办公地址：南京西路1038号（近江宁路）梅龙镇广场8楼
Street Address: 1038 West Nanjing Road (by JiangningRoad),
Westgate Mall (MeilongzhenSquare), 8thFloor
路线指示：地铁二号线（南京西路站）
Directions: Subway Line 2 (West Nanjing Rd Station)

The website includes a map, but it is pretty useless.

The website suggests arriving at least 15 minutes (another spot on the site suggests one hour) before your appointment to clear security.

Note that the Embassy is, in fact, located in a mall. Weird, right? When the taxi dropped me off, I was initially a little confused. You can go in through any entrance. Make sure that you take one of the elevators that actually goes to the 8th floor. If I recall correctly, they are in a section off to the far right.

Show your form or the address above to anyone on the first floor when you enter the mall and they can point you in the right direction to the elevators.

Something NOT included on the website is what clearing security entails… This was the biggest struggle I encountered while there.

First, you are not allowed to take any electronics into the embassy with you. You must turn off your cellphone and hand it over to security. This also goes for computers, iPods, cameras, etc. I had gone with the intention of staying overnight in Shanghai for some fun, so of course I had BOTH my laptop and my iPod with me.

Not having had access to a printer when I made my appointment online, I had emailed myself the page and saved it in my iPod. BIG mistake, as they wouldn’t allow me to take it with me. I had to beg for paper and a pencil to write the info down while security was trying to wrench everything from my trembling hands.

Treat the embassy as you would an airport. Wear shoes and a belt that are easy to take off and keep your change in a bag. Trust me, it will save you a lot of time.

Again, PRINT your appointment confirmation page and take it with you—don’t make the same mistake I did.
The second thing to make sure of is printing and filling out your forms before you go. They DO have them at the embassy, but you have to go to a window and ask for them—they do not have them available in any of the lobby areas as I had expected them to.

I tried using the computer they have there first, but it was so slow that it was basically useless, even though it is set up to only go to the US Embassy website.

https://pptform.state.gov/?Submit=COMPLETE+FORM+DS-4085+ONLINE

When you get through security, they will direct you to the correct room for adding pages. Despite the fact that you have made an appointment, you still have to take a number from the machine inside the door of the room. At least people that have made appointments get their own button and set of numbers.

All in all, despite my security and form struggles, it really only took about 45 minutes total and I was done. Now I have 22—count them, TWENTY-FREAKING-TWO!—brand new pages to continue filling with visas. As an added bonus, the new pages are much more colorful than the old ones with historical American scenes and quotes from famous Americans on them. Looking through it will certainly kill a bit of time on the train ride back to our fair Hangzhou.

A good half of the bar is outside – large downstairs terrace and good outdoor space above lets you see out easily. The location is on the way back from the Qiantang River on the Hupao Road junction with Jiuyaoshan Tunnel and so makes a fitting stop on the way home from your Meijiawu bicycle trip. The pints came a little slow – that’s only important for the first pint I guess, but the first is the most important… And the din that is Hupao Road can be a little oppressive at first. But if you have been in China for more than a week I bet you can block that out with a little mental effort.

At night there is supposed to be a band and a good vibe.

On a Friday afternoon it was a peaceful place. The happy little teahouse was thriving with chirping oldies strewing watermelon seeds just about everywhere except the bowls provided. There was one table in the middle of a feast of very local looking Hangzhou food – hongshao rou, bamboo shoots, fish heads, the usual. The rape is in full bloom and behind it some pretty purple looking things that made me think of linseed, but probably wasn’t. On one edge of the field is the Farmers Calendar etched out in stone detailing all the growing seasons, the stars, moon, and probably pi to 28 decimal places (apparently that was invented here too). The calendar was invented by Wang Zhen and recorded in his book finished in 1313. You cant so easily make out the octagonal shape from down here on earth; my friend even had to ask why it was called bagua. She got a kick in the ribs for that. There was nothing to be done except climb the hill.

Not before a quick wander into Yuhuangshan Town (玉皇山) for cigarettes. I asked two or three people about the ‘other’ bagua. I was kinda hoping there would be hushed tones, embarrassed looks and fidgeting, signalling that my advanced investigative satellite research had uncovered some covered-over secret landing site or something, but I’m afraid to disappoint you. Nobody had any idea what I was going about. Where were my horns? (Or maybe this is a really hush-hush facility, an Eyes Wide Shut playground for local officials?)

Of course, you always end up paying. The park farm is free, but the whole mountain is not. Got ya! Mr. Legacy is grinning. It is just 10Y to enter Yuhuangshan Scenic park, and I guess somebody has to pay for carrying all those immense stair stones up the hill. The place is littered with grottoes and temples and pavilions, allowing you to peak at one step over the West lake, and next step over Qiantang River. In Ciyun Temple (慈云宫) a few angry looking demons guard over the ‘Long Life Vegetarian Noodle’ place. The boss wasn’t anywhere to be found…

At the top, just a 20 min easy climb, you come to Zilai Cave (紫来洞), and this spectacular view from the terrace. What can I say?

Not liking to go back the way I came, and smelling on the wind a faint, but so definitely there, pint at the bottom, we went down the other side into the Jiuyaoshan tunnel cutting, and lo and behold on the corner with Hupao Road, was Norway Woods Bar. (挪威森林酒吧) The sun was still up and the pint beckoning to go down. Cheers.

Whoever Mr. Guo Shilin was, he must have had some cash and guanxi. His house was built in 1851 and to have the pull to get a spot right on West Lake he would have pulled some strings. Big strings. The house has smallish living quarters and large gardens stretching in all maybe 100 metres along the lake. The style is very much East China garden, with rockeries, ponds stacked with Koi, windows that somehow look like mirrors – except you are not in the reflection, solitude, and views, some manicured, some natural. Guo’s place faces absolutely east, so the morning sun rising must have been spectacular. From his err breakfast terrace Guo would have seen the whole of Sudi Causeway, an expanse of water and felt a cool breeze.

These days Guo’s Villa is a part of the extensive garden parks of Hangzhou that surround much of the Lake. Of course Sudi is still there, and in the hazy distance Hangzhou is shimmering.

I bet you all know them, but just in case you’re new in China here goes anyway – these intros are from Google(-ish).

Koubei means literally ‘word of mouth’ and it was based much around user comment. People also referred to it as Yahoo Koubei as it’s one of the websites linked to Taobao 淘宝. Now, it is China’s largest life services website, covering dining, entertainment, housing, housekeeping services and tourism covering pretty much every city ton village and hamlet in this huge country. Since its founding in June 2004, it has always been supporting and promoting the domestic life of the e-commerce service industries, as well as to meet all the wonderful and weird demands of Chinese people. The Founder Li Zhiguo 李治国 worked for Alibaba 阿里巴巴 for five years. (So, now you kind of know the reasons it’s relating to Taobao, huh)

大众 means ‘everybody’, and 点评 ‘comment’, so 大众点评网 means ‘Everybody’s comments’. As such it can be a bit of a free-for-all. It was founded in April 2003, is has become China’s largest city life Consumer Guide. It’s mainly focused on providing reviews and comments on food and beverage, leisure, entertainment, lifestyle, and an information-sharing platform for Chinese people. On top of all this, it is a very focussed city guide with more than 460,000 merchants in over 300 cities. Currently it is the most popular and the largest restaurant reviews website. It is also largest local search portal web2.0 style in China. Call it a cross between Craigslist and Google, in Chinese. CEO Zhang Tao 张涛 studied and worked in America for a few years.

In Beijing, 饭统网 Fantong seems more popular. In Shanghai, Dianping is much more used, and in Hangzhou, Koubei is the best. Membership is free for all of them and as a member there are discounts and special offers. Have a look at these websites before you head out to eat, or pay a little attention when you dine out or spare a second asking the staff, and you will save taxi fees or other little treats. Dianping includes merchants Hatsune, Banana Leaf, Westlake One, Double Star, Papa Johns, Zen, Burger King, Ladinna, Jura Restaurant, Iceason, Dairy Queen, Segafredo, etc. Koubei has Mingren Mingjia, Bro Ding’s Black Fish Restaurant, Xiang Wei Guan, Fengdu Restaurant, Yun Shui Yao, Yoho, and loads more. As you can see, there is a broad range of restaurants on offer.

Rumour says in Shanghai that even the best restaurants care about their reviews in Dianping. Newly-opened places beg for the diamond level reviewers attention, but woe-betide if those diamond Level reviewers write something terrible; there’ll be no business. A diamond level reviewer friend of mine once wrote a critical review of an Italian restaurant on Dianping and the owner emailed him, apologised profusely, and invited him for a free dinner there.

I hope the same will happen soon for VH reviewers.

And here for Sherpa restaurants that VH has been too

The link to NCIKU.com from this site has been up since the beginning and has had several thousand clicks. This is pretty cool as nicku is pretty awesome and anybody trying to study Chinese should definitely have it in their toolbox.

I first ran into nciku on Sinosplice.com, a site that, despite its obvious popularity, I find patronising. (I must be the odd one out.) The Sinosplice post is about how we should all say ‘NCIKU’, because it clearly isnt a pronounceable name. Pasden argues that it comes from the Chinese name for the site 词酷 or cíkù. The ‘n’ is for the nth number. n词酷 then means ‘cool gadzillion words’ or some such, and one should said ‘n-cíkù’. n词酷 is much more than dictionary though. It is a thorough language tool, and while they plan to expand into other languages, its power and versatility will probably shine most with Chinese.

The mobile search too – http://m.nciku.com

n词酷 is owned by Korean search engine market leader NHN, who, since conquering Korea want to colonise elsewhere. Rather than plowing on into Japan and China with their own brand, they are testing waters with a new product – n词酷. This helps explain the main interface on n词酷 – a search bar. There is no need to define what language you input – it will automatically recognise English, pinyin and of course both simplified and complex Chinese characters, n词酷 then simply runs a search of its daily updated database. Listed in the returns are definitions, translations, pronunciations both phonetic and spoken, and examples showing usage. Pretty much everything is clickable, wikipedia style, taking you onto public dictionaries, etymology and more.

Pretty novel as well is the handwriting entry tool. Nothing very special about that in itself but this one is built for us paleface who might not know the stroke order of a character. Just ‘draw’ it, and n词酷 will offer suggestions, then show you what the meaning is, how to use the character, and there is an animated pop-up showing you the real stroke order. No more conting srokes or trying to figure out the radical in order to look up a character.

n词酷only started in 2007 and already has an Alexa rank (in China) of about 1600 – ie the 1500th most visited website. In just 2 measly years. They must be getting something right.

Note that the original form is printed on both sides, you had better try the same…

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