Since Andy mentioned visas I would like to give some vague and unhelpful advice :-) It turns out that the DURATION of your visa depends on what country you are from, and even what consulate or embassy you apply at. In all cases the clock starts running the day the visa is issued. Real example: As a Norwegian, applying in San Francisco, I was only grqnted a single-entry visa valid for 3 months. I applied in March 2009 which was a mistake since the trip didn't happen until August, so I would have had a visa that expired sometime in June. They all say "must not arrive after <date>". I was able execute an "undo" on this particular occasion and came back again in July and received a visa that covered the period of my visit. Your mileage may, no, WILL, vary, so check the wiza wizards, consulates, embassies etc. Fred Baker regularly gets a one-year multi entry visa, but he's American and he uses the visa brokers, something I clearly should have done instead of foolishly applying too early. The form has a box which asks when you intend to arrive in China, but that information is NOT used to start the clock for the validity of the visa itself, in some sense that date isn't used for anything, at least as far as I can tell. How long you can stay in China again depends on what country you are from and what kind of visa you have. Ole Ole J. Jacobsen Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal Cisco Systems Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628 E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf