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After almost three years of government tyranny and abuse http://i67.tinypic.com/244ry45.jpg

Hey everyone! We just got back from Guangzhou so I figured I'd share our experience over the past few days to help those going through the process now... The perfect hotel for us We decided to stay at the Leeden Hotel just off of Huasui road. When I booked it I figured the walk would be 20-30 minutes to the medical exam center, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was actually less than 10 minutes, with the consulate under 15! I guess I'm just used to the huge city blocks of Shenyang... Anyway, the hotel was very nice with my only complaint being the daily room cleaner ignoring our "do not disturb" sign twice while we were out. I drew a map of the correct hotel, medical exam, and consulate locations since none of the map services I used got them all right: http://imgur.com/b21Dw09- The medical exam office is located on the 5th floor of the "Poly building" which is right on Huali Road. The left door goes to a Guangzhou tax office while the right leads to a variety of businesses including the medical exam location. Here's a Tripadvisor link for the hotel for anyone interested: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g298555-d1459913-Reviews-Leeden_Hotel-Guangzhou_Guangdong.html Medical exam The day before my wife's medical exam we gave the Guangdong International Travel Healthcare Center a call to do a last minute check/verification of the process. During the call we were notified that there was a new system in place for setting an appointment for the exam. You can read my play-by-play here: http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/46807-guide-to-ir-1-dcf/page-2?do=findComment&comment=621321- Long story short, we had to fill out and email a one page document to the center then call them to verify it was received. Be sure to bring a printed copy as well. On the day of the exam we arrived a little after 7AM and five women were already there and waiting. Over the next half an hour the fifth floor lobby slowly increased to maximum capacity until the center finally let us in to get tickets. Here's where having submitted the above mentioned document seemed to expedite things: Those who didn't email the document had to go to the side and fill it out on their own before they could get a queue number. My wife was #3, we got in at around 7:45, and we were out of there by 9:20. The exam consisted of an X-ray, blood test, eye/ENT exam, and vaccinations (MMR, Varicella, and Influenza). Even though we set the appointment, arrived early, and got an "expedite" stamp on her file, they still told us to come back the next day at 8AM to pick it up. If you've scheduled your visa interview for before 10AM I highly recommend you plan the exam two days in advance just in case of delays! IR-1 Interview We got up bright and early again and walked through light rain to the Poly building only to find 2 of the 3 elevators out of service. We decided to take the stairs to the fifth floor where we got my wife's exam documents after a ten minute wait. We were able to catch the elevator down and walked to the consulate for her 10:20 appointment. As you can see in the thread here: http://candleforlove.com/forums/topic/47726-ir-1-interview-final-checklist-and-questions/- I made sure my wife had everything I could possibly provide. This turned out to be overkill in our case. The Chinese document intake worker straight up refused to take any of our relationship stuff and only took one white book (the "Marriage" one) and all of the support/financial documents. Next she paid the fee and waited for her interview. She was called up by a middle-aged guy who was very friendly to her. The interview went something like this: Interviewer: So tell me why you married your husband? Wife: (Tells him my positive traits and explains how our relationship started) Interviewer: You should tell him I gave you a hard time. Wife: I can say that you denied me... Interviewer: Don't do that, you'll give him a heart attack! And that was pretty much it! All in all, just 2-3 minutes of light conversation. At the end he even gave the photo album we provided in July's I-130 application back. My wife came out and showed me the paper he gave her which says "Congratulations! Your visa has been approved." Surprisingly, it's just a standard white piece of paper. My wife said she didn't see anyone receive anything blue/pink so perhaps they've scrapped that system? We celebrated for the rest of the day/night and flew back the following morning (today). Closing thoughts 1. Stay somewhere close by. Being able to walk from our hotel to the consulate in under 15 minutes was just so convenient! 2. Schedule the medical exam appointment. You don't want to be #50 and have to spend more time waiting for your turn than the actual exam. 3. Bring all of your relevant documents. Whether the consulate wants them or not, it's always better to be safe than sorry in this journey. Finally, I want to give a big thanks to the fine folks who have helped me so much over the past year! Especially Randy and Dan, you guys deserve recognition for the countless people you've helped through this difficult process. It takes a special group of people to devote so much time to selflessly helping others Let me know if you have any questions or want more details!

Hi everyone, just wanted to update everyone on our situation. My wife got her visa status changed to issued on 9/17/2015! We started the application process on May 7, 2015 I believe (I handed in the materials in person in Guangzhou), and she went to Guangzhou for her interview on June 8, 2015. Since she is a CCP member she was told that further administrative processing was required. During our wait, we emailed the embassy once a month with a question about the process and also asking is there was any update (each time they just told us that further processing was required and that there was nothing else we needed to do but wait). Finally in early September they asked her to send her passport over to the Embassy, and on September 17 the status of the visa changed from "Administrative Processing" to "Issued!" Overall, this was right in line what we had heard on the forums here, about 3-4 months of administrative processing. Right now we are waiting on the visa to be sent out. How long does it take after the status changes to "Issued" for the passport to be ready for pick up at the CITIC Bank? We bought our flight for October 6 thinking it would be more than enough time but now we are still waiting and the status online says "Passport has been received from the consular section and is currently being processed for delivery." We are afraid because the mid-autumn festival and national holiday are coming up that we won't get the passport back in time for her flight!