All that effort...

In order for Mike to go to china for four months, as visitor's visas are a maximum of sixty days, we had to get our marriage license validated by Chinese consulate. This seemingly simple procedure was far more complex. First we had to get a stamped photo copy of our licence from the Ontario government. About forty-five dollars shipping and handling. Then, notarization by a lawyer, twenty dollars. The notarized document then had to be sent back to another branch of the Ontario government to have the lawyer's stamp, licence number and signature authorized. Again, about forty-five dollars. Next a trip to Toronto to the Chinese consulate; we'd planned to dash to Toronto to be there for one and then slip out of the city before rush hour. No problemo. Ha. When we got to the consulate, we discovered that because of some changes they had made in processing visas, they were only opening the consulate from nine to eleven a.m. On weekdays. They had not updated this particular tidbit on their website. So we had to spend the night in Toronto, rather than drive back to Petrolia and then make another return trip. So, with no suitcase or toothbrush, we set found a place to stay on Spadina. Very elegant, very basic and only two hundred dollars--it would be four hundred the following night due to the start of the Toronto film festival. We went out to dinner with Michael's sister, also visiting Toronto, and her son and his partner; dinner at a seafood restaurant that served trays of fresh oysters. The next morning we returned back to the consulate, duplicated the documents, filled out a form, and were told to return Monday to pick it up, and bring sixty-five dollars cash. Fortunately, Michael's nephew kindly picked it up and mailed it back to us 'expedited'. The darned thing cost us about six hundred dollars all told, but now we have it to present to the police in Wuxi when we register with with them within the first week of our stay there. So, far, no one has even asked us about this piece of paper, but apparently we have a trip coming up this week to the police station. Below is the six hundred dollar document.