Extra Pages

Its been over 3 years since I replaced my passport and I've finally filled up all the pages.  Since I've been been flying all over the place the last two months I was worried I wouldn't have enough time in one place to get new pages put in,  but luckily in the US embassy in Beijing had an open appointment time and they do it while you wait.  I decided to get two 24 page inserts put in at once because I have 7 years left in this one, so I'll probably need them all eventually. ;-)

I had been to the old embassy near the Silk Road market area back in the day,  but they've since moved to a much larger facility further out from downtown.  As you can imagine, the public section has a LOT of people waiting in line for visas to the US.  Luckily I was able to bypass the line because I was there for something else, but I was still shocked to see the disneyland-like snaking line they make people wait in to get their visas.  Although I guess its not that much worse than you see at the China consulate in HK or SF for that matter... 

The other notable thing (that I didn't dare take a photo of) was the huge barbed wire fence that they set up around the South Korean embassy.  I realized that this was not to protect it from spies or angry protestors,  but rather to make sure no defectors from the Hermit Kingdom could make it inside to claim asylum... :-P