A wedding was planned, but the two sides of the family hadn't yet met. So in the days before the wedding, as Joan rushed around madly trying to get everything prepared, everyone got together.

The first photo shows (from left) Ben (Nick's brother), Theo (Nick's aunt), Nick's Mum and Dad, Joan's parents and Joan, at the first visit to Joan's parents place. Much to Joan's Dad's amusement, Nick's Dad was most keen on san-pi, the beer you buy by the kilo in shopping bags from kegs outside nearly every corner store in Qingdao. Tip for new visitors; it's around A$0.50 a litre, and it's bloody good beer!

Photo number two shows Nick and Ben, groom and best man, trying on the suits they had made in a little tailor shop, tucked away in a cloth market in the main shopping strip in Qingdao. The material and tailoring cost less than hiring a suit in Australia, particularly with Joan's mum, master bargainer, talking down the haberdasherers.

Photo three shows the whole Wills-Johnson clan, the night before the wedding, ebing treated to dinner at a restaurant near Joan's parents' place. Starting from Joan and moving clockwise, we have Nick's Mum, Ben, Ben's girlfriend Delphine, Suze (Nick's sister), Nick, Nick's Dad, Joan's Mum, Joan's irrepressible nephew Xiao Xiao, Joan's Dad, and Joan's sister LiLin.

The final photo shows Nick's Dad and brother Ben, finding salvation. Yes there really is a street in Qingdao called "Beer Street"; further proof of Chinese civilisation (as if the San-pi wasn't sufficient!). Qingdao was originally a German treaty port, and the good Germans, quite naturally, built themselves a brewery to utilise the pure spring water produced at nearby Lao Mountain. The beer, Tsingtao, is now world famous, and the street which runs alongside the brewery is full of restaurants who source their beer in pipes direct from the brewery.

Needless to say, that's where the groom's scaly mates headed on the Buck's Night; apparently a very enjoyable and cultured evening about nothing at all will be said in these pages!