[esquire]

^ I don't know how Regent handles visa applications as I've never used them. I could be wrong, but I would think you fill out what you can and then they help with the rest? At the very least they can answer questions about what is a somewhat confusing form.

As to the trip itself, that sounds pretty amazing! IMO you wouldn't run out of things to do on a 9 day stop in Beijing especially given that your first day will be mostly battling jet lag, but you may want to consider cutting it down a bit to add another interesting place. For instance, 6 days in Beijing + 3 in Shanghai would be a pretty nice mix that would still leave you plenty of time to hit the high points in Beijing. They're two very different cities and Shanghai is in many ways a much more walkable, human-scaled city (well, apart from building heights) with some fantastic architecture to enjoy. HSR makes it quite an easy trip these days.