Hi all.
Am currently in Macau trying to get back to China in order to clear up a few loose ends before heading back to "Oz" for family reasons.
On checking in with my normal travel agent this last Friday morning in order to get a new mainland visa she informed me that the "easy visa" scheme - which allows selected travel agents to accept your money, a photo, and get your visa approved for the following day - has been suspended until "at least after the Olympics". So if you were planning to use this method to get into China (whether via Macau or Hong Kong), you'll need to wait a while ... it might work out faster to get a visa through the embassy in your home country.
My agent also said that even the Foreign Affairs offices here and in HK are getting paranoid about handing out tourist visas and even most business ones, so I'll let you know how I go trying to hand in my application tomorrow.
I don't know if the "shopping visas" - ones issued on arrival in Shenzhen or Zhuhai have been affected - does anyone else have news of those??



