LeahAndMark.com

Okay, back in Atlanta and this weekend has been great so far. I want to post waaaaaay more about China, but I sort of have a wedding on my mind now. And Mark says I probably need to do a brain dump because there is all this stuff running through my head that I just never thought about before. I mean, I really haven’t ever truly thought about actually getting married and what the ceremony would look/feel/be like. I thought lots about BEING married, and having kids, and all that other stuff. I’m so excited about getting to celebrate our partnership and commitment to each other, and getting all our loved ones together for a amazingly fun shebang. But other than the overall idea of saying vows and having a party and spending time with our friends and family, I haven’t thought about a wedding and all the details involved.

Okay, that’s not totally true. In high school I took this elective called Family Relationships or something… it was basically a Home Ec type class. And one of our projects was to make a wedding book, where we cut out pictures from wedding mags and planned our dream wedding, tracking the budget or something… I think. I’m not really sure what the point of the project was, other than maybe to keep us busy for the hour and half that our block schedule classes lasted. And asking a relatively shy, somewhat insecure drama freak whose friends were all gay, single, or both and who had never been in a serious relationship or even had a serious make-out session and never had more then $150 to her name at any given time to plan a wedding from magazine pictures? Not very useful or practical. I don’t even remember what I chose for my fake wedding. I didn’t even think I’d been getting married. Ever. And my tastes have changed considerably since then, anyways.

And so now I’m doing all this reading- books, internet, etc. And I never realized how MUCH goes into a wedding. Granted, everyone’s wedding is/should be unique to them, and primarily centered around what the couple a.) wants and b.) can afford. I’m not stressed out or anything, it’s more that I’m just a little surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed. Not in a bad way, because it’s for a very happy occasion and I know we will have a wonderful and very special wedding no matter what. It’s just that there are so many more decisions to make than I anticipated. When to have the wedding, where to have the wedding, who to invite, what colors, will there be a bridal party, do I need to get a facial, what vows do we want to say, do we want a live band, an open bar, a buffet, casual or formal or somewhere in between?

So … lots to consider. I am not-so-secretly hoping that we hire an awesome wedding coordinator to walk us through all this. I’ve never had a good eye for design- I’m much happier looking at other people’s designs and pulling what I like from that. But…there’s the cost issue. In the end, it might be worth it. Wedding planners have vendor relationships which usually lead to discounts. Plus, the time-saving factor. And obviously a wedding coordinator will have waaaaay more experience planning a wedding than me or Mark or even my mom. I am her only daughter, after all. But my parents are footing the bill (thank you times infinity, Mom and Dad!!!) and I don’t want to make any expensive requests. So I casually suggested the idea in an email to Mom and we’ll see if they go for it. If not, it’s okay. I can do this. We can do this. I’d just love a little direction or guidance, ya know?

I always meant to post these videos, but slow internet connections and editing always got in the way - so before we get even more caught up in our lives here in Atlanta, I thought that I’d post this set of videos from China, and then mostly leave it at that until I do some real editing and get streams of clips and photos ready for our house warming/China slide show party in July/August.

SO much to do, and just short of the time I would like to do it all in - the pace is just faster than I would like. Well, the pace plus it’s just a list of things I don’t want to really do however, it’ll be much quicker when I just knock them out instead of talking about, procrastinating about how I don’t want to do them. Mow the lawn. Spreadsheets for work. Stay awake and not take a real nap today to really combat the jet lag time difference (we stayed up ’til practically 4 am last night, although we are awake at 7am today.)

It’s Sunday. I have work and we have breakfast to go to - just us, but that’s all we need most of the time. Today’s breakfast - Belly General Store. Well. They have bagels or something. We’ll see. Until we get back. Here are some videos.

This first one is on the train we rode from Beijing to Guilin - 24 hours overnight. At some point, they stopped coming by with the drink cart so we went off in search for a bottle of water. We ended up going to the far end of the train. This is our walk back to our bunks and you can see the size of the space, the feet hanging off the beds, and just get a feel of how close the quarters are in there. We slept in the hard sleeper section which isn’t exactly hard - but it’s not soft. Open bunks three levels high. I think most travelers would recommend this level since you get your own space, but you’re also close enough that you really must interact with the other people near you. So rather than riding the whole time without meeting anyone - it’s an easy bet that you will.

This second one is when Leah and I met up with Amy - she’s an artist from Baltimore, MD and she was there in China working with our other artist friend, Alonzo Davis at that artists commune area on the far fringes of Beijing. She had been ‘on the reservation’ for practically the entire time she had been in country (she was working) so it was nice to be able to take her out and show her around - I do feel bad that on her back, things went horribly wrong with the bus route (they didn’t go back the way we came and had different stops) and I’m sure that it took HOURS longer for her to get back - I hope it wasn’t too bad. We had a lot of fun hanging out with her, exploring a few areas that we ourselves hadn’t been to yet.

The next two are just short clips, one of the Sichuan Opera (which is more like a variety show) and then one taken at a hot pot restaurant also in Sichuan. Sichuan food is pretty hot, as in Spicy. The stuff is good although I’m not sure I’d have it everyday. Still, it was a fun experience - much better than many hot pot restaurants where instead of cooking your food in flavored broths - you basically boil everything.

Now I need to get a full version of a video editor (hence the ‘trial version’ stamp at the top of that train car walk video) and then get to editing… of course, there’s so much else to do.

*looks like it’s going to rain most of today so thankfully, no lawn mowing will be going on (now I need to lower the shades so no one can see who lives in this house with the embarrassing overgrown lawn.)

Oh yeah - and one more. I know I know - but you have to realize that what we’ve posted here on our blog is only about 20% of all the stuff we actually filmed and photographed. There’s SO MUCH more - and fortunate as it is, our lives have already started moving on, and there is little time to reflect on the past month in China.

This last one is just one of the nights we spent at the hostel community room in Beijing. The Red Lantern House. The manager plays several instruments, including the Violin and Guitar - this is the erhu - a traditional Chinese string instrument.

Okay. I’m done. For now. Ha. But don’t worry, I have actual work to do today so you know that means I’m going to procrastinate and post other things on here.