Our professional photographs have finally arrived!!! Yay!!!

All variations of our photos (1608 pictures in total) have been posted to the following web albums:

Preparation & Bridesmaids at Wild Ginger		Wedding Party at Kitchener City Hall
Family at Kitchener City Hall		Ceremony at Walper Terrace
Reception & Mingling at Walper Terrace		Dinner & Kissing at Walper Terrace
		Enjoy!!! ^_^
Dancing at Walper Terrace

We have been lazy and did not upload many of our photos but are doing so right now! :)

Captions may or may not come into the picture later but we'll see.

It will still be another three weeks before we get our official wedding photos but when we get that, we will be sure to upload the full resolution here.

China trip was super fun but now we are fully back into the work life and busily scrambling to get everything done.

So...we're on a trip to celebrate our wedding...and what do we do, but attend another! :) It was fun - we attended a cousin's cousin's son's (2nd cousin once removed?) wedding. There were over 300 people at the restaurant, and the food was pretty good. The bride looked great, but she only changed dresses once. They had these neat confetti-blasting tubes that seemed to be a lot of fun (but a pain to clean up after) and the MC did a great job of keeping the crowd active. Of course, he was speaking way too fast for me to catch most of the content, but the stuff I did understand made me laugh.

During the dinner we were seated with some family, one couple brought their 2-year old daughter. I have never met a more well-behaved 2-year old. She was also very bright (although too shy/nervous to speak much) and understood almost everything said to her (even more complex instructions about how to browse through photos on the digital camera).

Also duiring the dinner, I was paraded by 3 different tables of distant relatives so they could "see the foriegner". The Groom's mother seemed to get a kick out of talking to me - weird. A bunch of them said I look like Dashan (a famous Canadian in China). Go figure.

Xiaopu: "Joseph got more attention than me :( And I'm the father's cousin's cousin - Joseph is just the father's cousin's cousin-in-law"

Two days ago we went to get our photos taken as a couple. These posed photo shoots are VERY popular in China. There were so many stores to choose from. They all offered wedding photo shoots. Since we already had wedding photos done, I wanted to take photos of us in ancient Chinese costumes! (see google images example from right -->)

It's weird, in Canada when you do wedding photos, one tends to hire a photographer to follow you around on your wedding day. In China though, you go to a photo studio to get specially posed photos in different dresses and outfits. They spend A LOT of time prettying the girl up.

My make-up and hair styling time took more than three hours! Mind you, I had two different hair styles and A LOT of make-up. I swear, my photos will not look like me... :( They made my eyes look pretty big... The whole photo shoot took about five hours. Very tiring after a while.

When we were getting my photos taken the photographer and his assistant refered to me as "mei3 ren2" (literal translation = beauty) and called Joseph "shuai4 ge1" (literal translation = handsome brother). It was very humourous.

I had originally wanted to get photos taken that were like Ming's (click here to see example) but we weren't able to find a store that offered similar clothing styles. In the end, I really liked the style of this one store and so we went there. The men's costume selection was somewhat limited but they had a nice selection of women's clothing.

Although the street had dozens of studios, what really sold me on this studio was their photographic style. We flipped through their portfolio and I really liked the look of their pictures. Other studios were too boring.

Anyhow, when we get our digital negatives we will be sure to post them here. Warning, the pictures will be cheezy.  

We arrived in Wuhan two days ago - and the air here is even worse than in Beijing :( We're staying with Xiaopu's family, and it's been a blast, but the air quality has left something to be desired. The apartment we're in belongs to Xiaopu's grandmother, and typically her uncle's family (wife and son) also live here, but since we're visiting, the son - Xiaopu's cousin Yang Qian - has vacated his room for us. He's staying at his girlfriend's house while we're here. Lucky him :)

The trip from Beijing to Wuhan was via overnight sleeper trains (an example of the accomodations is on the right) and it would have been a real pain to lug our baggage around if not for Pu's uncle Yang Bin who came all the way to Beijing to meet us, and help us get to Wuhan. As a note, although it was great to have the third set of hands, Yang Bin is a very outgoing person who enjoys bargaining, debating and generally causing a ruccus ;) He did, however, manage to get us access to the priority waiting lounges, discount drink prices, and such.

In Wuhan our schedule has been a lot less hectic than it was in Bejing, and so we've only been to see a couple of places - a park and a temple - in addition to some shopping and A LOT of great food. Pu's family has been very welcoming of Joseph, however it probably would have gone smoother if Pu's mom hadn't told them all he couldn't speak any chinese...as it is, they have assumed he doesn't understand anything that's going on.

We've also booked our flight back to Beijing - early enough that we'll be able to visit the Great Wall before heading back to Canada.

We'll post more about our exploits in Bejing later :)

We started off the day going to the Temple of Heaven - the VAST grounds of a temple right inside the city.

.. is a complex of Taoist buildings situated in southeastern urban Beijing. The complex was visited by the Emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer to Heaven for good harvest. It is regarded as a Taoist temple, although Chinese Heaven worship, especially by the reigning monarch of the day, pre-dates Taoism. www.wikipedia.org

We were told to get there by about 6:30am in order to see the temple "wake up" - it was to be filled with people practicing taichi, however we instead found it crawling with Chinese tourists...

Inside the temple's grounds, one of the first areas we found was a large, manicured forest. There wee some people practicing taichi between the trees, but it was hard to find them - and they kept yelling. Not a scream - more like calling out looking for someone, but it wasn't a name. It was more of a "OOIIII.......OOOOIIII....AAAAA" - we managed to catch someone in the act of yelling - she was just leaning against a fence stretching, yelling out for no apparent reason.

Within the temple grounds there were tonnes of cool sights, including the main Temple and a very lovely rose garden.

After the Temple of Heaven we tried to go to the Forbidden City, but the throngs of people kept us out. It was insane! The walkways to the front gates were so filled with people that you couldn't walk - all you could do was shuffle with your shoulders in contact with your neighbours the entire way...the stairs going up from the subway resembled a river of salmon during spawning season. In the end, we decided to try leaving the Forbidden City, but it was easier said then done - just trying to get out and find a taxi forced a walk of about 2.5 km. Our feet hurt so much, we decided that we wanted to go to get a massage. Following the recommendation of our guide book, we went to try out Bodhi -  but don't believe their website! There is no longer any location in the Choayang district - the entire block that held the place has been demolished! It was very disheartening :( So, in the end, after another 1.5 Km we got to Dragonfly - another spa where the full-body massage was very welcome :)

We finished off the day by watching Painted Skin - a new chinese action-thriller based on a story of a fox-spirit. It was pretty good and if it actually comes to North America, I recommend it!

Over all, things have been going really well - we're exhausted from all the walking, but it's been good. We have a very nice, inexpensive, breakfast restaurant by the hotel and that helps!

So we finally got around to posting up a place for photos - you can get there at http://www.muah.ca/gallery2 or by clicking "Photos" in the left menu.

So....China...wow it's been hectic! On our first day here, we didn't do too much - we arrived early afternoon, so we spent the day getting ourselves checked in and sorted out.

Day 2 - Oct 1

The next day, we left pretty early to spend the day at the Beijing Amusement Park! The park was pretty small small, but it had a pretty neat 2-story carousel. What was really neat about it, was that unlike western amusement parks where the majority of vendors sold sweet treats, here the majority of vendors were selling meat on a stick (skewers with lamb, chicken or squid). It was awesome. Xiaopu, however, wasn't very aggressive when trying to buy food, so we kept getting bumped in line when she was doing the buying.

Oh yeah, we also learned there won't be any fireworks :( It turns out that there are only special events for the national holiday every 5 years - so no fireworks for us.

When we left the park, we tried to find the Red Theatre to pick up our tickets for a show in the evening, but our streetwise checks were poor (not quite natural 1's, but pretty damn close) and we missed the place entirely even though it was right under our noses. We ended up walking to Qianmen Dajie - a long, pedestrian-only street full of newly cnstructed and not-yet-leased buildings that are reminiscient of ancient chinese architecture. What was remarkable, was that although there were almost no shops (a pharmacy and a restaurant were all we noticed) the street was full of people! This was also wher we saw our first "Volunteer Information Tent". These small tents, we learned, are littered throughout the city, manned by volunteers helping tourists to Beijing. Off Qianmen Dajie, though, was a small side streed just JAMMED with people. There were numerous silk and clothing stores, as well as a few curio shops. After a bowl of painfully spicy beef noodles, we went looking for a cab. It was almost impossible to find an empty cab - so many people!

We headed home via a massage parlour to get a foot massage (lots of walking today) ... the place was called "Massage by Blind Masseurs" - I enjoyed mysef, but Pu found the massage painful :( We stopped by a bakery on the way home - Weiduomei. This bakery is like a chinese Timmy's - they are everywhere! Sometimes more than one on the same block! The pastries, however, are more expensive than the pastries back in Canada.

That evening, for dinner, we were going to visit the restaraunt at the top floor of our hotel, but it *seemed* closed...the lights were off, but the door was open...The stairs up to the restaurant were eerily dark....However, being a brave soul, I ventured up the stairs - only to trigger the motion alarms complete with sirens and lights :P After bolting back down the flight of stairs, we agreed to go down to the lobby, admit our transgression and ask the front-desk to turn off the alarm so as to stop disturbing the residents at the top of the building....a suitably embarassing way to start our trip.

I'll post more a little later - for now, though, it's time for breakfast :)

We've arrived in Beijing, and I do believe our trip here was the smoothest trip through customs I have ever had. We had no line up at the airport in Toronto, and everything went smoothly, our baggage was transfered without a hitch in New York, and here in Beijing - again - not a question or a hiccup. If only it could always be this smooth!

Pu and I are going to take some time out of this week to hookup a place to put our photos from the wedding, but in the meantime, here's a teaser to keep you hooked ;) Thanks for taking the photo Sadisha!

I'm not sure what Sheila's doing - but she sure seems to be doing it with gusto!

So we have survived the wedding! It was such a blast - thank you so much to everyone that was able to come share our special day together - it was so great to see you all! We're finishing packing up for our honeymoon (we really should have packed sooner :P) so this is a short post.

We'll post information for photos here, as soon as we finalize where we're putting them all. Thanks again!

This past weekend we had our bachelor/bachelorette parties - I can't speak for Pu (I'm sure she'll post for herself) but it was a blast! We were going to go golfing, but the weather encouraged us to change our minds, so we went bowling instead.

Stuff we learned:

• Scott is both an incredibly fast and incredibly slow bowler
• Andy is impressed by big chips
• Ryan is Scott's best conscience ;)

Much beer was ingested, and many laughs were had by all. Thanks, guys, for the great time - it gave me some great memories :)