Archive for August, 2007

Hello intraweb peeps, Tom speaking here.

While Dean has been organising and buying things I have been doing the important stuff. I have had a week of leaving Do’s and been bought lots of drinks. It’s been novel. Am gonna have a word with Dean about putting features up on this site such as a map, a dual blog, and a Tom’s Weight Metre. The third one is to see how my weight varies especially considering I have put on over a stone since quitting smoking 10 months ago.

Keep reading guys.

 Love,

 Tom.

I’ve been out buying ‘stuff’ this week. Trying to put every scenario through my mind to make sure I’m not missing any essensials. I think I’m doing pretty well at the moment, although I’m sure to wake up at some point between now and next Wednesday in a panicy sweat remembering some all important item.

Sod it! Less is more and all that jazz.

I’m currently working like a magician, trying to fit the oversized rabbit into the magic hat.

Have to see if Tom does any better… I will do it though, it’s all going to fit!

The Russian Visa’s have now arrived. They look rather swanky too! A fancy hologram, lots of Russian text and our names, wrote in Russian.

Now with the Passports back in our hands, I’ll be able to go to the Chinese Embassy tomorrow (working on my Birthday of all days) and apply there. Fingers crossed by tomorrow evening, we’ll be fully granted to enter both Russia and China, leaving just Mongolia to give us the challenge at the gates. A train ticket to Beijing should be enough to show that we’ve got a set passage out of the country to warrant a Transit Visa.

Still no sign of the visas as of yet. Tom rang the embassy, and after many attempts, actually got to speak to someone.

They told him that it can take longer than we originally thought (or they originally told us), and to expect them by Friday (which is tomorrow).So we’ll see what happens.

This does mean that there’s no chance for us to apply for a Mongolian visa now, because we can’t risk our passports being with their embassy so close to the set flight date.

So Mongolia now will be at best a 5-day transport visa, or at worst will leave us standing at the border looking like two lost puppies.

The visa for China needs sorting out too; Tom rang them this afternoon, they’re happy to let me apply for both of us. So I’ll be heading over to Chorlton to the embassy as soon as our passports arrive back, to get those visas.

We sent our passports, along with a invitation letters, visa application forms, money and a nice photo to the Russian Embassy in London. This was just over a week ago now, and as of yet, we’ve not received any reply, which is not good. Without our passports at the moment, we have no way of moving forward and applying for our visas in China or Mongolia. Nothing like leaving it all to the last minute eh?

Hopefully we’ll receive our visa’s tomorrow and all will be well, if not, I’m going to release the hounds, or Tom as he’s known, to go and retrieve them.