Welcome to my blog!

I am creating a new daily journal to celebrate a white boy's adventures in the land of China. First off, a little about me:

I am a 24-year old Caucasian male, who grew up on Canada's East Coast in a city called Saint John. No, not St. John's. Think less fun and easy-going, and more polluted and smelly. Yep, that's Saint John. I had a pretty modest upbringing, what with the 8 kids in my family, including 6 girls. That's right, I've worn Minnie Mouse Pajamas. Not because I wanted to, but because I HAD to! Hand-me-downs were pretty common in my family. Needless to say I didn't go swimming that much because none of their bathing suits fit me right...

Growing up, my one dream was to some day get out of Saint John. Nothing against my family and friends, they are all great folks, but I felt like I was stifled both professionally and creatively in the Industrial wasteland. In my opinion it's a dying city. So, with some help from my brother, who managed to sneak away in 2001, I moved to Vancouver, to start my adult life. Or at least a life with new socks, right out of the package!!

Next Chapter: I've finished my post-secondary schooling, got a job at a non-profit Music Industry Association (you'd be surprised how many struggling artists there are out there... I know!!!) and all was hunky dory. It was at a music industry function that I met my future wife. We have been married 2 1/2 years now and we're finally taking that final step of meeting each other's parents. I think some cultures actually want you to do that first, but oh well.

So we visited Saint John, or Stenchville as I call it. We froze our balls off. Well, if my wife had balls they'd be off. Actually if she had balls maybe I'd be the wife. I'm not really sure how that works. Either way, we both caught colds and spent a lot of time watching dvds. The family side of things went great though. It was so fun to see them all again, with some new, smaller faces thrown into the mix. My nieces and nephew are all getting bigger. They were all a bit scared of me at first I think. I think my family actually likes my wife more than they like me. I know because they tried to give her clothing that fit.

We're now preparing for our trip to China.... We have one week left until the big departure date. I don't want to say I'm nervous, so I'll just say Je suis nerveux