Only about three more weeks in China before we head off to Arequipa, Peru at the end of this month. It has been a great four months here at Maple Leaf International School Tianjin-TEDA. We’ve met many new friends, had lots more good times and easily got back into life in China after being away from it for three years. But we are getting excited to move on after almost ten years in Asia.
This week we had to head into Beijing for one day. We stayed at the 365 Inn, a great little hostel right in the center of all the action of old Beijing. We have been there before and loved it. It has been around for awhile and located in a very interesting area close to many of the tourist sites that people would probably want to see. However, for us it was only for a trip to the Canadian consulate.
In typical fashion, I applied for my Old Age Security over a year and a half ago. Finally, after many months of contacting Service Canada and asking why the hell I hadn’t started receiving any checks yet, I finally got an answer. Turns out you have to be in the country for 40 years after your 18th birthday to get the full OAS amount. Fair enough, but why did it take them so many months to get back to me with an answer?
Anyway, I was there for 39 of the 40 required years so won’t be dinged very much. But I have to prove to them that I left Canada in 2008 and the only way I can do that, according to them, is with a certified copy of my old passport. Why they don’t know when I left the country is beyond me! And fortunately I like keeping old passports around. Bureaucracy never ceases to amaze me…
Anyway, we zipped into Beijing on the bullet train at 300km/hour so it was an easy trip all around. It was a national holiday on Thursday so the crowds were a little insane at the train station on the way home at rush hour but, other than that, a fun time was had by all!
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