Our visas have come through, phew. It always seemed likely they would, and really, given the global lockdowns where could we go, but it’s still a relief. After our Chinese lesson this morning we went straight to the Bureau of Consular Affairs to collect our passports. There was about a 10 minute wait, then we got them back, each with a big visa sticker giving us a total of 180 days in the country. It’s an odd sort of visa extension granted only to Canadian and UK passport holders, I can’t imagine why.
We went on to another excellent lunch at the first restaurant I have genuinely enjoyed going to with the GF since he stopped eating meat (all very well in India or in parts of Europe/ America, but a hassle in the rest of the world). Did I write about it before? It’s a Sichuan temple restaurant, so with ingenious tricks with gluten, tofu and mushrooms to substitute for meat and no compromise on fierce flavours and nuance.
We went for coffee near there as well, to a place of great renown as its barrista has won all sorts of global awards. The entrance as though it belonged to a bar or a club, with a red velvet rope and a bouncer who took our temperatures and make us clean our hands with alcohol, then warned us that we would have to stay 1 metre apart at all times. This was unexpected, but we acquiesced and were led to a long table and made to sit at opposite ends from which we had to bellow at each other. So, my first proper bit of social distancing.
I am nervous about Taiwan’s ability to keep the disease at bay. But that is nothing to my terror at what lies ahead for Pakistan.