Australian Visa part 2

Well, it didn't take long and the first visa is here. I just got an email notifying me that I was granted the visa. This was about 4 days after filing the application, so not too shabby. I did try to check on he progress of it yesterday, however, the system was temporarily unavailable (at least that is what they said). The second visa application is going out this weekend, so wish us luck.

Australian Visa Application

Our first Aussie visa application was submitted online. Such a neat and comfortable way to file a visa application. If you are one of the few lucky countries, you can apply for so called ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) subclass 976 visa which is quite painless and there is only a processing fee of 20 AUD. Or you can also file the subclass e676 visa if you are part of EU which can still be done online. I wasn't part of the lucky countries, so had to file the 676 application. It takes about 1 hour to complete with tons of questions, but it is free :) and no hassle of standing in lines. One can also save the application with a unique ID and password at any time during the process, so that is quite convenient.

Some tips:

• I am not sure if it works in Firefox as I got some problems.
  
• Do not enter any special characters as they will be garbled. Stick to regular US alphabet.
  

It is suppose to take up to 2 weeks to receive, so we shall see if it goes smoothly. I have added our travel itinerary and bank statements to the application just in case, so unless there are any unforseen issues, we should be ok. The progress of the application can be checked here.

Chinese Visa

We have applied for Chinese double-entry visa in Dublin, Ireland. It took about 1 week to get it, which was quite surprising. However, the date of issue is the same date we have filed the application, so we probably could have picked it up earlier. It took just one application and 50 euro. We had bunch of paperwork ready such as flight tickets, hostel address, but the Chinese officer did not want it at all. So, I guess the Chinese government doesn't mind tourists too much :).