Travel Diaries Part 1: Jingzhou, My Cousin's Wedding

A couple of days ago, I arrived back home, 10am, face-planted on my slightly dusty bed sheets and slept like a log for 2 straight hours. I had just arrived home with a new found appreciation (or you could say obsession) for the show scrubs, and an endless craving for sweet potatoes. I had arrived home from my 12-day trip from China.

As I lay there on my familiar, comforting, a littly musty-smelling sheets, I couldn't help think that although it was good to be home, it had been a pretty damn cool trip. I did miss the lazing around, the all-consuming social media consisting of instagram, youtube, facebook etc. (although maybe not facebook) and the sweet potatoes (definitely the sweet potatoes - they weren't in season in China and didn't taste as good as the ones at home). Yet, I definitely got the time to appreciate spending the time with my aunties (some above), cousins, and enjoy some pretty good chinese food (I had so much lotus soup, I thought I was going to burst). And of course, binge-watching scrubs and downloaded movies. Of course, there was also some sight-seeing (I loved the food markets)...and definitely shopping.

We spent our time in three places - or five places of you include the stops - but three within my time in China. It was just my Mum and I, and Mum paid for cheap plane tickets (typical), and we flew at a delayed time of 1am (supposed to be 12am, but you know) in the morning for a 7 hour flight to Hong Kong, to which we transferred to another 2-hour flight to Wuhan, and then another 2 hour train trip to JingZhou, to which we arrived tired, puffy-eyed and hungry.

Part 1, reader, is my cousin's wedding. So in the timespan of 3 days later, my Mum and I were up and dressed for the day of the wedding (Sunday). It went through a couple of stages: The first being that the Groom (my cousin) had to first make the journey to the Bride's house and do little tasks to be worthy of being her husband. This was done by taking witnesses, namely friends and family, all journeying in a row of mind you, really cool kick-ass cars, to her house. The Groom had to call out to let him and his 'best men' in. (It was a real challenge, mind you) Then, when he did eventually get let in by the bridesmaids, he had to complete a series of little tasks and challenges set by the bridesmaids. It was pretty funny, some included having to squat and jump and say "I love you" 10 times and draw lipstick on his best man blind-folded, but really, to get his bride, he had to place the beautiful red shoes on her feet, so that they are able to journey away together, much like the fairy tale, Cinderella - though with of course, red shoes instead of glass.

Then, they both had to receive a blessing from both the Bride and Groom's parents, before journeying to where the event was held at. It was BIG, about 200+ people and we (or my mum) were swamped by relatives and old faces of friends from all over. The Groom and the Bride were wed on a stage, where all friends and relatives could see, and the event was also celebrated with a nice banquet, consisting of small special eats of Chinese cuisine. Yum.

Despite wearing tall pain-in-the-butt-but-made-me-look-good heels (totally worth it), it was a pretty individualistic, interesting wedding. At the end of the night, both mum and I were exhausted, had a fair share of a few blisters, but came home smiling and a need for a good 12-hour sleep.