Next stop: UK

Dreaming about a visa refusal, I jolted out of sleep at 2am today. Luckily, it was just a dream.

After 12 days’ waiting, I finally got my tourist visa to the UK this morning. The excruciating experience is a test of my patience, which I really really lack.

Traveling should be spontaneous. What had stopped me from traveling abroad in the past was the complicated visa application procedure. The documents I had prepared this time might have added up to 50 pages. Besides paper work, you also need a bit of luck.

Last month our HR director in Singapore head office quit her job and she said in her farewell email that she was going to take a break to travel to places she’d never been to and see the world. I was impressed. It will not happen in China. An unemployed person can’t even get a visa. His motive will be questioned in the first place.

Isn’t it a paradox of life? When you are employed, you don’t have many long holidays to travel; once you quit, you can’t get permission to enter another country; when you are retired, you are probably too old to move around.

Well, I’m very happy to get the visa and I’m looking forward to my first trip to the UK in August.