Man Man Zou

Guess what?

Yup, that’s right!

It was the second day of a little two-day trip to Lake Karakul, Xinjiang province. The elevation was 3800m, and the previous day we had been up to 4600m on the Karakoram Highway. At night I felt pretty sick (almost like being drunk), and in the morning I felt no better until we walked part way around the lake. The scenery was absolutely amazing. We were surrounded by peaks- some over 7000m high. All morning I kept saying things like “This is definitely the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.”

In the morning, part of my sickness involved me running behind rocks suddenly to go to the bathroom, and the same went for Mark. Even though we were both sick, we were still having a perfect time enjoying seeing all the yaks and camels grazing the grasslands, with the striking scenery.

I took lots of photos of the trip, 543 to be exact. One time, while I was waiting for Mark to finish his business behind a rock, I decided the spot where I was would make a nice backdrop for a photo of us. After thinking for some time (as Mark was taking a long time!), I thought it would be a perfect place to surprise him with marriage proposal.

We’ve been together for more than 7 years, and although we’ve never made any plans for marriage, it’s always just been assumed by both of us that we’d get married when the time was right. I used to always joke that I won’t marry him until he pays off his student loans- and he finally did about half a year ago. Then after that, the subject never came up, maybe it even became a little taboo, I’m not sure… I didn’t want to start talking marriage without a real proposal, so I guess we were just waiting for the perfect moment.

Well, obviously Mark didn’t see the potential of being at the most beautiful and perfect place we have ever seen, but I did! So when he was walking towards me from his ‘toilet’,

I said, “Bring out the tripod, we should take a photo together here.”

“Ok, but first I want to wash my hands in the lake.”

After he returned, I set up the tripod and changed the self timer to 20 seconds to give myself enough time.

By then, I was feeling pretty nervous, since I’m not at all a romantic person, and wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into (I’m not talking about marriage, I’m talking about physically asking the question in a suitable way).

So while standing by the camera with my hand on the shutter release, I was feeling uncertain and said, “Should we take this picture?”

“Yes, of course”

“Are you sure you want to take this picture?”

“Yes, it looks nice.”

“Mark, are you reaaaally sure we should take this picture?”

“Of course! Leslie, we set up the tripod for it, why wouldn’t we take the picture?”

“I’m just worried we shouldn’t.”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“I don’t know. Ok, if you’re sure. Ready?”

I pressed the button and ran over, grabbed his hands (to his confusion), and went down on one knee.

“Mark, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not joking, this is a real question. Will you marry me?”

“Oh! Yes, of course. How are you doing this?”

“With a 20-second self timer.”

click

I stood up (hugs, kisses, etc…) and said, “Is it ok that I asked you?”

“Yes, but I was supposed to ask you sometime.”

“Ok, you can go set up the camera and the timer, and try it again and this time you can ask me.”

So he ran to the camera and couldn’t figure out how to set it up because he was nervous- that was amusing to see. Then he got it working and ran over and proposed as well.

So that was our trip to Lake Karakul. I have lots of catching up to do with writing, but I wanted to report this asap.

Now on to the practicalities!

Date: I have absolutely no idea. It could be this year, it could be next year, or it could be the year after. We haven’t started talking about that, but I assume we’d need more money saved up before we can put on a wedding.

I’ll be the first to point out that neither of us have a job, a place of our own, or even a car. We’ll be living with my parents when we return to Canada (in separate rooms- don’t worry mom, I have no problem with that!), and Mark will be going to University for one more year to become a teacher and I will have to find some sort of job. There’s certainly nothing glamorous to look forward to in Canada, but I guess I’ve postponed the real world for too long now and need to go through the rough settling down part that most people go through earlier in life.

So I hope this is good news to everyone. I emailed our families last night, and was relieved to get excited responses from everyone the next morning. I don’t know, somehow I was worried that no one would respond. And then, to further increase my worries, of course I had a bad dream about the wedding last night: We screwed up and had the reception and photos done the day before the actual wedding ceremony and vows and everyone was angry!