36 hours in Guangzhou

Tuesday morning Maggie, Casey and I crawled out of bed at the ungodly hour of 4:15am to head to the airport and catch a flight to Guangzhou. The quick two-day trip was a necessity so that we could apply for Casey’s Canadian passport and Maggie’s visa for a visit to the TNS&F in May. The …

March 16, 2012
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Haikou winters make me wet

As this has been our first winter in Haikou, I wanted to hold off with this rant public service announcement until I was confident it wasn’t just a passing thing. Unfortunately, I think I can confidently state, on the record, that Haikou winters suck. Crap winters aren’t something new to me. Growing up in Southern …

March 2, 2012
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Five Years – Wood, Water and Wine

I have a hard time believing that it’s been half a decade since Maggie and I exchanged marriage vows with sand between our toes. But there it is, for five years I’ve been married to the most beautiful, most amazing, person I could ever hope to meet. She is my partner, my confidant, mother to …

February 16, 2012
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New 2012 Site Design

Just over a year ago I retired my old “The Humanaught” moniker and replaced it with the current domain. The change-over brought in a new site design — but not one I was ever overly happy with structurally. It had some things I liked, and a bunch of awkward things that I was constantly working …

January 13, 2012
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Chinaversary: Seven Years in China

As of today, I’ve been in China seven years. I’m officially a 7 Year Laowai. In contemplating what having lived in China for three-quarters of the last decade means to me, I find it interesting that in a lot of ways I feel less sure or informed about this country now than I did in …

January 10, 2012
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Billabong Surfing Hainan Open 2011

The 4th Annual Billabong Surfing Hainan Open took place this weekend. I was hoping to go check it out, as we don’t have many surf competitions in Canada — particularly in the interior provinces, unfortunately I seem to have gotten the dates mixed up and thought it was next weekend. Bah. Anyway, check out this …

December 4, 2011
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A trip to Haikou Zoo

For the last few weeks Maggie’s been suggesting we take Casey to the Haikou zoo. I have deeply mixed feelings about zoos. Like the ROM for history, trips when I was a child to the Toronto Zoo instilled in me a great sense of wonder and a love for animals. On the same coin, I …

November 29, 2011
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Until Starbucks, Coffee World it is.

I never thought I’d be one of those people who craved a Starbucks, but the last few years in Suzhou spoiled me. Within a two kilometre radius of our place there we had four Starbucks. Four. That’s roughly on par with the number of mainland Chinese food restaurants in the same area. Haikou doesn’t have …

November 26, 2011
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