Renewing our Chinese Visa in Hong Kong

Most interns that stay in China may need to renew their visas at some point of their stay.  If you get a 1 entry visa and want to visit a trade show, then you need to apply for a new visa to get back to work.  This is really a simple procedure which will be explained below:

The most important thing we need to do first is call the agency before we leave China to check if our nationality can be able to get a visa in Hong Kong. When we give them a call we should also ask them if we can get our passport back in the same day and the price for the visa. We should also ensure that we have at least 1 blank page free in our passport. To add, we should also take one recent passport-sized photo that we will need when we fill in the renewal visa application form.

You can renew visas with Chinese Embassys around the world and with various agencies like China Travel Services.   Another option is to use agents like Forever Bright Trading Ltd, located in the New Mandarin Plaza. This is a China Visa General Agency.

The easiest way to get here from the airport / borders / ferry piers is using the MTR and getting off at TSIM SHA TSUI Station. The New Mandarin Plaza is around 10 minutes walking distance.  Once we are in the Mandarin Plaza, we should head to Tower B and get the lift to the 9th Floor. Next step is head to the Room Nº 916 - 917.

The agency will asks to fill in some application forms with details like name, passport nº, date of birth, chinese address, etc...This only takes 5 - 10 minutes.  Normally, if we finish our application by 9 am we could pick up our passport around 1pm. If we decide to go later and get everything done by 1pm we could pick up our passport at 6pm.

If we are interning for 1 year, I would strictly recommend everyone to get 6 months and multiple entries visa as it enables us to go outside China as many times we would like to.

A weekend in Xiamen （厦门）

Xiamen is a city located at the southeast coast of China and is one of the most popular attractions in the province of Fujian. The name of "Xiamen" refers to the Gate of China.

Firstly, in order to get to Xiamen, I had to go there by coach which took almost 10 hours. Therefore, the best approach we could always take in trips like this is getting the coach at night time to sleep the whole night.

Xiamen actually has one of the most busiest harbor ports in China where international commerce takes place. 

It is a typical littoral city with abundant tourist attractions such as islands, mountains, temples and parks, etc., providing you with a full sightseeing schedule. The well-known Gulangyu Island, South Putuo Temple and other tourist areas like Jimei, Hulishan Battery, Wanshiyan, etc. are highly recommended. A sea tourist line is also available for you to enjoy the amazing scenery of many beautiful small islands around.

In the evening, I had the opportunity to walk along one of the most historical streets in Fujian, where there was people were selling crazy seafood like the one below:

One of the greatest activities in the schedule in my visit to Xiamen was a trip to the university of Xiamen, which was really amusing as well entertaining. I had the opportunity to play a basketball game with one of the local students which was really fun and an experience that I will never forget as it was the first time I played basketball in China.

Xiamen is a mixture of Hong Kong and Zhuhai together as a city and possibly one of the cleanest & peaceful cities I have ever been to. Without any doubts, Xiamen really attract me since the first day I spent there.

A day in Guangzhou（广州）

Guangzhou is the capital of the province of Guangdong and it is considered to be one of the fastest developing cities in China and probably in the whole world.

Guangzhou is famous for its wholesale markets. It serves as a product distribution center for southern China, and attracts business people from all over the world. The city has hundreds of wholesale markets and the suppliers in these markets sell their goods in large and small quantities, and usually with fast delivery. No other city in China has as many and diversified wholesale markets as Guangzhou. This is what makes it very special and unique.

In addition, Guangdong is the only province in China where we will only find people that speak Cantonese. Therefore, Guangzhou is considered to be the capital of Canton. In Guangzhou, we can also find the tallest structure in China which is the Canton Tower. This is possibly one of the most famous and greatest attractions in this city as the views are just spectacular from the tower. The tower is almost 600 metres high.

Also, within the Canton tower there are several activities that are really thrilling and unbelievable. The most exciting one in my opinion is the sky drop which is relatively limited in time but incredibly great to experience. 

The tower is located around the Pearl River which has amazing views of buildings and offices in the area. One of the best activities is to get a cruise at night time and contemplate the superb views of the lights on buildings.

Views of Zhuhai

In Zhuhai there are a couple of peak sites where you can observe and contemplate the brilliant scenery around the city and its main districts like Ji Da（吉大) and Xiangzhou (香洲). To do this, we have to climb the mountain Shi jing shan (石景山) which takes like 1 hour approximately.

Once in peak of this mountain, the views are just exceptional. I would personally recommend taking this trip in a sunny day to be able to see everything properly and without any obstacles. We can see the views in the picture below.

When it comes to going down the mountain, there is 2 options: we could walk down the mountain or go down in a roller coaster which takes 2 minutes approximately, which is really thrilling and fun times to enjoy with friends.

Islands around Zhuhai

One of the great things of living in Zhuhai is that there is almost 140 islands around it, which enables us to go for weekend trips and enjoy of the lovely beaches. One of the most popular islands is 野狸岛 which has amazing views to the city of Zhuhai.

These day trips that are worth spending with new people met during our internship as it is always fun times and involve a lot of social activities.

One of the best trips and memories I have of Zhuhai was when we spent a weekend in the 上川岛. The beach was just incredible as there were many activities to do like play football and volleyball with some random chinese people. Also, the fact that the climate was hot made us enjoy even more our weekend.

At night time we enjoyed having BBQ food and playing drinking social games where everyone was involved. We also camped in the beach over the night which was great fun.

Around Zhuhai there is many things to do in a daily basis, but one of the greatest things is visiting islands and staying over for the weekend in a crowd. There is many new people to meet and loads of activities to enjoy.

1 day in Kaiping (开平）, Guangdong

As an intern staying in Zhuhai for almost 1 year, one of my main priorities during this year was to travel around the different tourist sites in China.

When people come to China, they have in mind to visit the most common places like Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing. However, once you start living in China for a couple of months as I have done this year, there is time to go for weekend trips or even day trips. For instance, 2 weeks ago, I visited a small city in Guangdong province: Kaiping.

This place is full of tall multi-storied buildings which where listed on UNESCO´s World Heritage List in 2007 as China´s 35th World Heritage Site. These old buildings were built at the start of the 20th century.

Kaiping county was considered to be very weak during the battles held in those days, so their local people decided to build some towers and buildings to become a small fortress for protection.

This place is almost 2 hours away from Zhuhai city and not very expensive to travel to. It is worth going for a day to understand different cultural concepts and how people lived during difficult times. There are still people who are living within these old buildings which are very friendly to foreigners and in my case I got invited for an afternoon tea.

My first weeks with The ODM Group

My name is Deepak, I come from Spain and I´ve come to Zhuhai to complete my third year of university at a work placement. I chose China because it is such a diverse place to spend a year, it is a completely new culture that will accomplish my experience within this year and it will look exceptionally incredible in my CV.

I have already been working 3 weeks within The ODM Group and all I can say at this point is that I have learnt so many things that I could have imagined within this short period. I will be staying for 7 months more and I really look forward to it as it will help develop my skills to another level. I really have seen that this internship at ODM is really challenging me as I am always expected to give the best of my skills.

I normally work part-time from 1 pm to 6.30 pm as in the morning I attend Chinese language classes. My daily tasks involve some marketing and sales which include writing at least 1 or 2 blogs, finding new clients to offer them the opportunity to create promotional products for their brand, calling up clients, sending out quotations to clients, setting prices for clients, as well as emailing existing and potential new clients.

The environment inside the office is incredibly great and friendly. Since the first day I came I always felt welcome by everyone in the Zhuhai Office and in the headquarters in Hong Kong: ODM Asia. Even though there is Chinese staff inside the office I never seen a real language barrier as their English is not bad.

These 3 weeks have literally flied as I have had many tasks and responsibilities to achieve every single day. At the moment I am dealing with clients from different industries from Spain and South America. The only difficulty I have had during these weeks is to contact with clients from South America, especially when it comes to phoning them as it is quite challenging due to the fact there is almost 12-14 hours difference from China time. Apart from that small aspect of my roles, I am already finding this internship as a valuable experience which will hopefully contribute to my success in the near future.

Go ODM!