Only 4 Weeks for the WGIN World Green Roof Conference 2012 in Hangzhou: Chinese Visa Tips

On October 22 through 26, greenroof and greenwall professionals from around the world will gather and share information, encourage multi-national participation and business, and see wonderful local green infrastructure projects with the opportunity to tour amazing cities and sites beyond at the 2012 Hangzhou China World Green Roof Conference.

Our Chinese World Green Infrastructure Network friends from the International Rooftop Landscaping Association put it more eloquently:

“[The] World Green Roof Conference (WGRC) will build a friendly public platform for elites both from the Vertical Planting industry around the world and those who share concern for the global environmental protection to exchange information on new concepts, technologies and policies of ecological environmental protection as well as to promote the development of Green Roof industry in all countries, thus contributing to tackling global warming and solving the conflict between human and land.” ~ 2012 Hangzhou China World Green Roof Conference

Hangzhou West Lake, via wallpaperstravel.com

I count myself honored (and lucky!) to be one of the keynote speakers for the event; I will be presenting Haven Kiers’ and my annual Top 10 List of Hot Trends in Greenroof & Greenwall Design for 2012.

The Forbidden City; Photo Courtesy of Wang Xianmin

Aramis and I are so excited about our upcoming trip! We hope you have also made plans to attend this once in a lifetime opportunity as well.

The Great Wall; Photo Courtesy of Wang Xianmin

Not only are we looking forward to reuniting with old friends and making new ones, we are thrilled to be going on Tour Two, the 6-day “Beijing and Xi’an, the Tour of China’s Ancient Capital Cities” afterwards. We can’t wait!

Yu Garden; Photo Courtesy of Wang Xianmin

By the way, Tour Two is a 4-day tour to “Suzhou and Shanghai.” Having to choose between the two was painful, so we decided to spend two days in Shanghai after the tour.

Century Avenue, Shanghai; Photo Courtesy of Wang Xianmin

One thing you will definitely need is your Chinese visa. It’s not hard to get, it’s just time consuming, so if you haven’t done the paperwork yet, hop to it!

If you are a U.S. citizen, visit the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. website for all the requirements.

Here are some tips for U.S. Citizens:

The People’s Republic of China currently maintains one Embassy in Washington D.C., but also maintains 5 consulates-general in the following U.S. cities: New York; Chicago; San Francisco; Los Angeles; and Houston, TX. If you live in any of these, you can walk your application in with no appointment necessary.

If not, you can use one of the online services available who will walk in your application to your corresponding state (check here). Since we live in Atlanta and our corresponding Chinese consulate is in Houston, we opted for this and used travisa – which can help any world citizen. Check out the U.S. citizen requirements, time schedule, and fees.

We chose the China Regular (5 Business Days) processing time and mailed it overnight, just in case.

About the # 5. Official Invitation from China – ask the 2012 Hangzhou China World Green Roof Conference organizers for this – they will email you an Invitation Letter in your name in PDF which you’ll print and include with your package. Contact William Wei, Secretary-general, International Rooftop Landscaping Association for complete information at: wrgmay2010@hotmail.com.

NOTE: Unless you have your own account with UPS, FedEx, etc., do NOT include a prepaid return envelope as travisa will mail it back to you using their own account (which you’ll have to pay for anyway).