chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
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| 60 Views | [diary=473642]
804 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 30 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
| 60 Views | [diary=473642]
 chinacanuck | Steve LePoidevin | Travel Blog |
AfricaAntarcticaAsiaCentral America CaribbeanEuropeMiddle EastNorth AmericaOceaniaSouth AmericaOceans and Seaschinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin
After teaching many years in Canada, I moved to China in 2007 for a different experience. Teaching a few more years, and seeing a bit more of the world at the same time, seemed like a better idea than retiring. I am now in my third year at Wuhan Maple Leaf International School where I teach Mathematics and am head of the Math Department. An avid motorcyclist (over 60, 000km of North American road trips during the last five summers), I now ride a Chang Jiang 750cc sidecar bike here in Wuhan. This blog was started to keep our friends and family informed about our adventures. I hope anyone else who stumbles across it also enjoys reading about our experiences in our new home. 
Joined on: February 26th 2008
Last Login: February 8th 2010
Blog Entries: 84
Photos: 1398
Last Login: February 8th 2010
Blog Entries: 84
Photos: 1398
Status: BLOGGER
Blogs & Travel Journals
by chinacanuck, order by Date newest first.
It has been a few days since we headed north from Trang and a lot has happened! We just arrived in Chiang Mae in Northern Thailand after a four hour bus trip from Mae Sot. Our internet connections have been sketchy at best so it has taken awhile to post a new blog entry. We left Koh Lanta by minibus on Monday morning and headed directly for Trang, where we caught the overnight train north to Bangkok. I thought the minibus would be mostly tourists but it turned out to be all locals headed for the mainland. It was a fairly [View Full Entry]
By chinacanuck
January 30th 2010
Ko Lanta...Far from the madding crowd Asia » Thailand » South-West Thailand » Ko Lanta
January 30th 2010
Finally, a place where there are more locals than tourists, a lot more, and people who do not speak English. We feel like we are in a different country for the first time since we arrived in Thailand. The hedonistic beaches of Phuket were not a lot different from those of San Diego or Miami, except there are a lot more restaurants serving Thai food. It was difficult to find a local person walking along the streets! Seeking a slower pace, we boarded the "ferry" for Lanta Island yesterday and headed through open water on a two hour trip to Phi [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
481 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 35 Photo(s) | 2 Video(s)
| 75 Views | [diary=471649]
481 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 35 Photo(s) | 2 Video(s)
| 75 Views | [diary=471649]
We spent the last few days in/on Phuket, a major island tourist destination in the southwest part of Thailand. This is the busiest time of the year so it was packed with vacationing tourists from all over. It could have been any commercialized tourist area in the world except for the million Thai massage parlours that lined every street along with the women all competing to get you to enter the front door. Both of us are still nursing sunburns picked up in Sanya and it was 6 or 8 degrees cooler there. We have burned off our first layer of [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
421 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 3 Video(s)
| 69 Views | [diary=471447]
421 Words | 2 Comment(s) | 11 Photo(s) | 3 Video(s)
| 69 Views | [diary=471447]
Yesterday we took the bus 35km out of town to Yanoda Tropical Rainforest, a brand new park in its first stage of a 2 billion yuan investment. If what they have done with the first 200 million is any indication of what is to come, it will be pretty incredible by the time it is finished. It had just opened before our trip last year but we couldn't fit it in. I guess you could call it the equivalent of a national park in Canada. We were picked upright outside our place by the shuttle bus, another reason why we like [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
362 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 41 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 71 Views | [diary=470099]
362 Words | 1 Comment(s) | 41 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 71 Views | [diary=470099]
Here are a few more pics and videos! Most of the pics are taken in the Sanya Bay area where we are staying. The fish chomping on my hand were filmed at the Sanya Nantian Hot Springs. [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
37 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 15 Photo(s) | 5 Video(s)
| 56 Views | [diary=469650]
37 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 15 Photo(s) | 5 Video(s)
| 56 Views | [diary=469650]
1 beer $2 BBQ street food $1 Fresh fruit pocket change Bottle of water $0.25 Five weeks holiday in the tropics in the middle of winter .........priceless Yes, we are back in Sanya on the south coast of China for the first week of our Spring Festival holiday. Once again we are pigging out on Western food for now at Fat Daddy's and Casa Mia, both a five minute walk from where we are staying. We have had breakfast at Fushan Coffee down the road a couple of times. They don't quite have the North American breakfast thing worked out but [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
347 Words | 7 Comment(s) | 28 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 104 Views | [diary=469143]
347 Words | 7 Comment(s) | 28 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 104 Views | [diary=469143]
Great music! Great friends! Great food! God, I love this place! Last night we all trekked over to VOX, our nearby weekend hangout, to watch our friend Colin and his band, Man Made Lake, open for the well-known Canadian indie band, Great Lake Swimmers. Outside it was chilly and damp but inside the atmosphere soon warmed up as the evening's music began. A little plug for the venue, "VOX is considered, among Chinese music aficionados, to be one of the country's finest rock clubs. Offering live music almost daily, VOX is situated in Wuhan's student district and regularly hosts China's top [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
422 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 14 Photo(s) | 2 Video(s)
| 90 Views | [diary=466295]
422 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 14 Photo(s) | 2 Video(s)
| 90 Views | [diary=466295]
Whether it is lunchtime, dinner hour or 2 in the morning after a night out at the clubs, you can't beat the street food around here. There are always places to choose from during the day but at night, the number of street vendors explodes wth a variety of food and other items along every sidewalk. And everything is delicious! Although these "meals on wheels" can be found everywhere in the city, there are also several well-known "food streets" where a large number of them congregate. A lot of these areas are found near the numerous universities that dot the city [View Full Entry]
chinacanuck - Steve LePoidevin | Read The Full Entry | Subscribe
277 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 14 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 106 Views | [diary=464308]
277 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 14 Photo(s) | 0 Video(s)
| 106 Views | [diary=464308]
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all our far away family and friends!! I hope everybody had a great day. We had a great Christmas Day here in Wuhan. Outside, it was business as usual in the city but inside it was Christmas Day for all us expats. Nancy gave me a foosball game for Christmas which took most of the day for me and my two helpers to asemble. How she got the thing home from the store and up our staircase is a story in itself; let's just say that the box was too heavy for me to [View Full Entry]
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223 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 26 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
| 113 Views | [diary=462705]
223 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 26 Photo(s) | 1 Video(s)
| 113 Views | [diary=462705]
Our busy weekends continued this week as we took in a show at the Wuhan Music College on Friday night in a beautuful theatre and carried on Saturday night watching our friend, Colin, debut in China with his band, Man Made Lake, at a small packed venue, the Folk Hand. Every year, a show takes place at WMC for the foreigners in the city. It was great last year and this year the tradtion continued. Over the course of the evening we were entertained by a variety of Western and Chinese opera, tradtional and classical music, acrobatics, martial arts, and dancing. [View Full Entry]
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609 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 13 Photo(s) | 5 Video(s)
| 89 Views | [diary=461520]
609 Words | 0 Comment(s) | 13 Photo(s) | 5 Video(s)
| 89 Views | [diary=461520]