Yearly Archives: 2011

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
 // 2 Comments
 // Read More »

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
 // 4 Comments
 // Read More »

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
 // 4 Comments
 // Read More »

Things Well Done: Tim Minchin / Storm

Last weekend I was introduced to comedian Tim Minchin by my friend Nicki. Thanks to her I’ve spent the last few days firmly entrenching myself in the Tim Minchin fanclub, watching damn near all his videos on Youtube, as well as his “Ready For This?” DVD last night. Minchin’s act is a combination of comedic …

October 25, 2011
 // 3 Comments
 // Read More »

Getting Canadian Citizenship in China

When we first started the process of getting Casey his Canadian citizenship here in China, I had intended to write a post about the experience. The long delay between the application and us actually picking the thing up left the post in permanent “draft” mode until I received the following comment from Cam in Xi’an …

October 19, 2011
 // Leave a comment
 // Read More »

Oh, so this is the rainy season…

According to Wikipedia, Haikou’s rainy season falls between May and October, with the most rain in September. We knew moving down here in April that we were essentially moving into heat and wetness. We waited for the rains all summer, not out of excitement but out of curiosity regarding this new and strange climate we …

October 8, 2011
 // Leave a comment
 // Read More »

Review: Penn Jillette’s “God, No!”

Back in 2005, during a visit home after my first 8 months in China, a friend introduced me to “Penn & Teller’s Bullshit!“, and I’ve been a fan of the duo ever since. And while Bullshit! certainly hinted at the pair’s atheistic views, it wasn’t until I started watching Penn’s podcast on Revision3 that I …

October 7, 2011
 // Leave a comment
 // Read More »

Nesat – our first typhoon

Waking up this morning and peeking outside, you’d hardly believe 150km winds were sweeping over us just a handful of hours earlier. Actually going outside, however, was an entirely different story. The first casualty of Nesat was our papaya tree, which had fallen before dawn yesterday. I say “our” papaya tree, as it’s right outside …

September 30, 2011
 // 4 Comments
 // Read More »

State Mandated Beach Day

I’m not sure if it’s just our perpetually “under construction neighbourhood, or Haikou at large, but I’ve suffered more sudden power outages living here for 6 months than I did in 5 years in Suzhou. As such, yesterday when the electricity went out shortly after we woke up, it wasn’t a huge surprise. I took …

September 17, 2011
 // 3 Comments
 // Read More »

Things Done Well: 27bslash6

I was cleaning out one of my inboxes this morning and came across an e-mail my sister forwarded to me a little over a year ago. Titled “Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus have a sword fight” I can only assume that the reason I didn’t pay more attention to it when it arrived was …

August 27, 2011
 // 11 Comments
 // Read More »