One of the great things about living in Vancouver is that we are so close to nature and marine wildlife. Over the past weeks I have seen quite some seals on the small beach close to our house, and last week I even saw an orca (killer whale) while sitting on our terrace in the late afternoon.

A few days ago I heard that an elephant seal had chosen Ambleside beach for its yearly moulting process, meaning that it sheds its fur and skin there during a one-month period. So when we were doing our Sunday afternoon shopping in Ambleside today, we decided to go for a walk on the beach to look at the seal.

The area around the mammal is closed off from the public, because it can be quite dangerous if you come too close. The municipality put up signs saying that an elephant seal can bite and is more dangerous than the usual seals we see in Vancouver’s waters. But you could still come quite close to the seal, even though it was a bit hard to recognize because its color is similar to the color of the sand.

Seeing this animal on the beach was totally worth the small detour, even though Elaine preferred the playground across the road from the seal. In case you would like to see it, the elephant seal is on the beach next to the hockey fields, just west of 13th Street in West Vancouver.

The ski season in Vancouver is officially over, only in Whistler you can still ski. That means the trailrunning season has started, and today Vancouver’s most famous trail opened officially: The Grouse Grind.

I heard a lot about it over the past months, so I really looked forward to doing the hike/run. During a recent business lunch someone mentioned that he was going to do the Grind and he invited me to join him. So this morning at 10 AM I was at the bottom of Grouse Mountain, ready for a good work out. The trail is only about 3 km, but the elevation gain is over 850 meters.

Start of the Grouse Grind with lots of warnings

We took it relatively easy, not running but hiking up at a decent speed without stopping (we just had 2 short stops to drink some water). The trail starts going up right from the start and there is not a single flat piece in it. The trail has been very well maintained, so even though the hike up was strenuous it did not feel dangerous. At some points the incline was more than 45 degrees, when you looked up or down it was almost like looking up or down a wall. 

Halfway the Grouse Grind

Because it’s not summer yet the snowline was below the finish, but most of the snow had been cleared from the trail. It got noticeably colder though, but luckily there was hardly any wind. It was quite busy on the trail, but when passing people they generally stepped aside right away, so it did not really bother me. This is probably a good trail to do early in the morning or after work on weekdays.

Made it to the top!

We did the hike in about an hour, not particularly fast but a decent time for a first try. I think I will start hiking (or maybe even running?) this trail more often over the coming months. It’s a great way to stay in shape, the trail can easily be reached from Vancouver (it’s just a few kilometers detour when I drive home after work), and nature is stunning (as everywhere on the North Shore).

View from the terrace to the last meters of the Grouse Grind

We had some drinks on the outside terrace at the gondola station and watched other people coming off the Grouse Grind. Some could hardly walk anymore! Don’t underestimate the Grouse Grind, it’s not a ‘walk in the park’ that you can do at a fast pace without any training.

View to West Vancouver from Grouse Mountain

Almost all hikers took the gondola back to the valley (cost: $10), but we decided to hike down over the BCMC trail, which is just east of the Grouse Grind. This trail is less well maintained and was snow covered for the first 15 minutes. Much harder to walk on, but luckily not as steep at the top part where you had to hike through the snow. The advantage of the BCMC is that it’s not as busy as the (more well-known) Grouse Grind.

Going back down on the BCMC Trail

Both trails end up at the same parking lot, so that’s easy. I had a great time and am happy to have found this trail so close to where I live. Life in Vancouver is getting better every day!

For more info on the Grouse Grind (incl. some more pictures) see here on VancouverTrails.com

This morning I participated in the BMO Vancouver Marathon, my first race since arriving in Canada. Because I did not want to train for a full marathon I just did the half marathon (21.1 km), a distance that is doable without specific training if you are in decent shape and run regularly.

It was a warm day in Vancouver, with clear blue skies and temperatures up to 25 Celsius, so I was happy that the race started at 7 AM already. My dad drove me to the start line (he did not join today) where we had a drink together, and then drove to the finish line in downtown Vancouver.

At the start line I was assigned a place in the first start corral and because I was early I was at the front of all the runners. The atmosphere was very relaxed, very different from the races in China where I participated over the past years. Nobody was pushing or trying to get to the front, and people were talking with each other and having fun. The start was supposed to start at 7, but was postponed because there were problems with the course (no idea what happened, they didn’t announce it). People didn’t mind too much it seemed, and certainly nobody complained.

After the obligatory speeches, the Canadian National Anthem and a minute of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon attacks, people thought we would start, but the course was still not ready. A short warming up session was organized and for some reason the elite athletes thought that the race would start right after that. So they started running, followed by many other runners but within 10-15 seconds everybody was stopped and had to go back into the corral. I had never seen that before!

A few minutes later was the official start and off we went. Because I was in the first (=fastest) corral I started off quite quickly, especially because the course was mainly downward sloping for the first 2-3 km. At 5 km I noticed that my time was about 20 minutes, which is too fast for me for a longer race, so I slowed down a bit. That was a good thing, because soon we hit downtown with a couple of uphill climbs. Quite heavy, especially if you know you still have 2/3rd of the race to go…

Because of the constant ups and downs in the course I did not really get into a running rhythm. Normally during a long race you run at one pace, but here you have to slow down on the uphills and accelerate on the downhills. I found it very tiring and the further I got into the race the more difficult I found the run. When we entered Stanley Park I thought we would mainly have a flat course from there, but the opposite was true: we did not run on the flat seawalk, but on the normal road that had some serious hills in it. I slowed down a lot over the last 5-6 km, I went from 4:30 min/km to almost 5 min/km.

But luckily we were almost there and after Stanley Park we only had about 1.5 km to go. Too bad that the last kilometer was uphill sloping as well: you could see the finish line in the distance, but you had to run slightly uphill to get there. But of course I made it and my time of 1:36:58 (gross time, net time is probably 10-20 seconds better) was not too bad considering the difficulty of the course.

My dad had managed to get behind the finish line (he convinced a race official that he should let him in!) and took a picture when I crossed the finish line. I was exhausted and immediately had some water, some coconut juice and a banana. I sat down for a few minutes and quickly recuperated. I noticed that my upper leg muscles were quite painful because of all the hills, another sign that this race was much harder than other half marathons that I ran over the past years.

All in all it was a difficult race, but also a very nice one. Friendly staff and organizers, a relaxed atmosphere before and during the race (with several bands playing along the route for example), and beautiful scenery along the course. I’ll be back next year, either for the half or the full marathon, but I’ll make sure I’ll do some longer and faster training runs with lots of hills in them!

One big thing that changed since I moved to Canada, is that I have a lot less time for reading news and writing blog posts. In China I used to stop doing emails and calls around 11 or 12 at night, have a glass of wine and start reading my RSS feeds or write a blog post. But in Canada I need to get up much earlier to get Scott ready for school (no nannies here!), so instead of going to bed at 1 or 2 AM I am normally in bed by midnight already. That means I need to rearrange my time schedule a bit if I want to write a blog post.

I have at least 5 topics that I planned to write about, but it seems I can’t find the time to do so. I just realize I did not post anything in the past 2 weeks… In China there was always time late at night or while driving to work, but now I will probably need to make time for it: either spending less time with the family, going to bed later or getting up earlier, or spending 30-45 minutes during lunch to write a post. Not sure yet what’s the best solution, but I want to keep writing this blog so I will find a way.

As for reading news, I deleted a lot of my news feeds and try to find good curated news sites to keep up with what’s happening in China and the rest of the world. It’s a slow process and it’s sometimes hard to delete a feed that I have been following for years (I now put them in a ‘read on the weekend’ folder, that I scan a few times during the week as well). Also finding good news sources for Vancouver proved harder than I thought, feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions.

I am still not watching any TV, despite having hundreds of cable TV channels, so at least I am not wasting time on that. When I just got our TVs installed I spent some time zapping through all the channels, but I quickly realized it’s a major time sink so I avoid turning it on. I could probably save about $100 per month by canceling my cable subscription, I should look into that. I do watch some video on demand late at night (especially through Netflix), so I don’t miss the cheap Shanghai DVDs yet!

Vancouver this afternoon

I signed up for the Vancouver half marathon that will take place in 4 weeks. I did not specifically train for it yet, because normally my shape should be good enough to run a half marathon. But just to make sure I decided to try a longer run this afternoon. The weather was grey with a bit of rain, perfect for a run!

I drove to Park Royal, parked my car next to the Ambleside hockey fields and started my run through the Ambleside Park, over the Capilano River and on to the Lions Gate Bridge. There was a huge traffic jam on the bridge and just when I entered the sidewalk of the bridge I heard the sirens of fire engines and an ambulance. I then realized that the traffic had come to a complete standstill and that there was no traffic coming from the other side anymore.

Accident on the Lions Gate Bridge

I continued my run up the bridge (which seems to be much longer and higher when you run up than when you drive!) and almost at the top I saw that there was a 4 car pile-up. Especially the last car was in pretty bad shape, all airbags were deployed and a child seat had broken lose and was hanging half over the front seat. I hoped there had been no baby in there… There was  nobody in that car anymore (it seemed the person(s) were in the ambulance) and I decided to continue my run.

Stanley Park seawall

At Stanley Park I left the bridge and did a run around the island. First over some trails (very wide, more suitable for a leisurely stroll than for a trail run) and then from Third Beach over the seawall all around the island. Because of the grey weather is was not so busy and I enjoyed the sights over the water. I still feel very lucky to live in this beautiful city!

Third Beach in Stanley Park – just before the sun started shining

On the way back I ran a trail along Beaver Lake and then took the Lions Gate Bridge back to my car. The total distance was 17.5 km and it took me 1 hour 42 minutes (incl. a few stops to enjoy the sights and to take pictures). When I checked my GPS I noted that I had climbed in total 650 meters during the run. The Vancouver Half Marathon has hardly any climbs in it (it actually starts at 100 meter altitude and ends at sea level), so that will probably be easier than today’s run. I am ready for it!

Typical Stanley Park trail – wide and well maintained, not for real trail running

I was featured in this month’s edition of KLM’s in-flight magazine Holland Herald. I had seen the article in my Facebook timeline already but had not seen the magazine itself.

My dad flew to Vancouver today to help with the arrival of our household goods container and gave me a copy. Or actually 3 copies, the biz class was half empty on today’s flight so he took 2 more for me. I probably won’t fly KLM this month, so it’s nice to have the original magazine. I have been reading the Holland Herald for years on my KLM flights and I’m honored that they contacted me to for an article – especially considering the fact that I have been quite critical of them in the past (just do a search on this blog).

The interview was done a couple of months ago already and I don’t really remember it anymore. But I do remember the photo shoot: the picture was taken on what was likely the coldest day of the year in Shanghai. I was literally freezing during the shoot on the Bund: it was very windy (you can probably  see that from my hair) and with the windchill factor it was far below zero. I was glad it was over so I could warm up with a hot coffee in my office!

Things never go exactly as planned when you do an international move, and our latest one is a good example of that. The Chinese moving company had told us that they had reserved space on a vessel that would leave Shanghai on March 2 and would arrive about 2 weeks later in Vancouver (our goods were packed and custom cleared 4 days before the shipment date already). But when we checked on March 5 it turned out that for some reason the container had not been loaded. However, the moving company told us that they would try to put the container on a boat to Vancouver on March 9.

So we waited until March 9, but did not receive a confirmation that the container had left China. After a call to our moving company we heard that some administrative documents were missing so the container again had not been loaded. Now I was getting a bit worried. Things sometimes go wrong with containers, and when it’s a container with all your personal possessions and you are already on the other side of the world you prefer to hear something different.

But what can you do? Fly back to sort it out yourself? That might help but it’s not guaranteed, so it’s more a last resort if nothing else works. At least the moving company was now focusing on the case and indeed a few days later we received the message that our container had been loaded on the Ever Uberty, a Singaporean cargo ship en route to Vancouver. I immediately started following the ship on MarineTraffic.com and saw that it made good progress in the direction of North America. Our Canadian company told us that the vessel would arrive in Vancouver on March 29 and they sent me the confirmation that it had arrived on the 29th. So when I checked the ship’s status last Friday I was very surprised that the ship had sailed to Tacoma (close to Seattle in the US) instead of to Vancouver…

Memories of a similar experience with a container in the early 1980s came to mind, when I moved with my parents and sister from The Netherlands to Curacao (an island in the Caribbean), and for some reason our container ended up in New York. We had to live in a hotel for 3 months until everything had been sorted out…

Anyway, because of Good Friday the moving company was not working, so I could not check with them and would have to wait until Monday. This afternoon I checked MarineTraffic again, and guess what? The Ever Uberty had left Tacoma this morning at 2:33 AM and arrived in Vancouver about 10 hours later! Very happy to see that, so I don’t need to bother the moving company – although I will certainly ask them why they gave me the wrong info.

Now we have to handle the custom clearance in Canada, which should take a couple of days and then the moving company will bring the big container to our home. We’re looking forward to finally getting all our goods and to be able to decorate our new house.

Time flies, we are almost one month in Vancouver already, tomorrow it’s exactly 4 weeks since we left China. Life has been busy, but not just with work. Lots of things had to be arranged for our new house and we also did quite some sightseeing already. Just a couple of pictures from the past 4 weeks with some short comments, to give you an idea of what we are up to here.

Trail running in Vancouver is amazing, the forests are beautiful with hundreds of kilometers of well-maintained trails. I run here regularly, this trail is about 15 minutes running from our house.

The only thing I am worried about while running is wild life. There are quite some bears around, but I was told by a fellow runner that the bears are generally fairly harmless. Just don’t make sudden moves, don’t look them in the eye, and try to move away from the bear. I don’t look forward to my first encounter.

There is still quite some snow on the mountains, so we do winter sports regularly. The first thing we tried was snowshoeing, a  nice way to hike in the snow. I also did some downhill skiing already and went cross-country skiing.

Hollyburn mountain has some good snowshoe and cross-country trails, just 20 minutes from our house. It’s amazing how quickly the environment can change. One moment you are having a coffee in the sun in your garden and half an hour later you are in the woods surrounded by huge masses of snow.

View from my new office at CrossPacific Capital in Vancouver, the office is located in the middle of Gastown, the entertainment district.

Beach in Kitsilano, with view of Vancouver’s North Shore. In summer it will be a bit more busy here!

Heavy snow while driving up to Hollyburn and Cypress Mountain. If it rains in town it normally snows on top of the mountains.

Having a drink while watching the sunset. After years of only seeing Shanghai’s urban jungle I still enjoy every time I see the sunset here. That may be different in  6 months, not sure.

Elaine is proud of her season pass for Cypress Mountain, but…

… she does not like skiing very much yet!

Scott’s first time on skis, he was very excited. We’ll put him in a ski class in December this year.

High up on Cypress Mountain, with a view of the ocean and Bowen Island in the back

Horseshoe Bay as seen from the ski slopes of Cypress Mountain

Scott watching a big ship passing under the Lions Gate Bridge

View over Gastown from Notey.com’s rooftop terrace – and with a view of the XPCP office.

With the kids in Stanley Park after a visit to the Vancouver aquarium

Scott climbing the logs at Dundarave Beach

Elaine on the playground at Dundarave Beach

After I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on this blog about why I had decided to move from Shanghai to Vancouver, a CNN journalist contacted me and asked if I wanted to write an article for CNN.com about the reasons why I wanted to leave.

I did not mind and the article was published today. Especially on Twitter quite some people are talking about it, mostly positive but some people also question why I needed to write this. Last year there were some ‘famous’ farewell China posts (among others this one from Mark Kitto), I guess people compare my piece to those ones and don’t like to see more of them.

I hope the message came across that I still think quite positive about China and believe in its future, but that I just don’t think it’s the right place to live right now with a family when you have the choice to live somewhere else.

On Thursday and Friday I was in San Francisco for some meetings and to give a speech. I flew over early on Thursday morning, and because there were hardly any clouds between Vancouver and San Francisco I had a great view of the whole West coast. The approach to SFO was interesting as well, because the pilot took the touristic route and we had a nice view of the whole city from the sky.

While landing at SFO I noticed that another plane was flying right next to us at the exact same altitude. I guess it probably happens regularly at airports with parallel landing strips, but I don’t think I have ever seen it before so I took a few pictures. We literally landed at the same moment.

The trip itself was quite good, but actually a bit too short. I am trying to travel a lot less (which is working well so far), so I only spent one night in the US and was back in Canada on Friday evening. I think it was also my first time in San Francisco without a jet lag, it feels very different when you arrive somewhere after 2 hours instead of after a 12 hour flight.

The Westin in Palo Alto, decent but too expensive for what they offer (rooms are quite old)

My talk during a dinner organized by Silicon Valley Bank and the Asia Society went well, I focused on why foreign companies so often fail in China. I did not write out the speech or prepare any slides (I just used some key words on a piece of paper), so I can’t post it on my blog, but I may write a post about this in the near future.

One of the points I talked about is the difference in business ethics between Chinese companies and foreign companies. In my opinion this is an important reason why it’s hard to compete in China for non-Chinese businesses. Because the Chinese consul in San Francisco was also in the audience plus several high level Chinese business men, I was not sure whether I should bring it up, but I decided to talk about it anyway. Nobody blinked and there were no questions about it, so I guess I was overcautious.

I among others visited Lending Club headquarters in San Francisco, a great company!

After just a few weeks in Canada I realize that it’s a very different place than Silicon Valley. Vancouver feels much more laid back and you can even see it in the driving style: in Vancouver everybody lets you in if you need to change lanes, but in Palo Alto that’s not the case. Small things that say a lot about the difference in culture! I still like San Francisco a lot though and I am glad it’s so much closer to home now.

One of the perks of living in Vancouver is the incredible view from most of the city. This morning when I woke up I looked from my bedroom windows out to Bowen Island, where the first rays of sunshine where just lighting up the top of the Mount Gardner. To my surprise there was fresh snow on at least the top 200-300 meters of the hill (which is 719 meters high), something that I  had not seen over the past 2 weeks since I moved into my new place.

View from the XPCP office this morning

I am now in my office and also from here you can clearly see that there is fresh snow on the mountain range north of the city. The white trees against the blue sky are a beautiful sight. The Cypress Mountain website shows there has been 5 cm of new snow overnight (and a total snow depth of 442 cm!). The ski lifts are open until 10 PM, so maybe I should hit the slopes tonight?

Hollyburn Lodge and First Lake

When I woke up this morning I saw a clear blue sky above the snow-covered mountains. Even though it’s mid-March the snow is still great around Vancouver, so I decided to do some snow sports today.

My initial idea was to go cross-country skiing, but because Grace also wanted to join and she has no previous cross-country experience, we decided to opt for snowshoeing instead. This is something both of us had never done, but which is as easy as going for a hike through the snow. Snowshoeing is very popular in Canada, but less so in Europe. I had actually never seen anybody with snowshoes in the European Alps, but maybe things have changed since I have last been there about 10 years ago.

We drove up the road to the Cypress Mountain ski area, from where you can also go to Hollyburn for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. We rented snowshoes and shoe covers at the base of Hollyburn Mountain and 10 minutes later we hit the trails (total cost for our rentals including access to the trails about $30 per person). Snowshoeing is indeed fairly easy, it’s basically like walking with very big shoes on.

One of the very few flat cross-country skiing trails with a track for classic skiing

Hollyburn has extensive trails both for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, and all trails are clearly marked. If you like cross-country, make sure you rent skating skis instead of the classics, because there are hardly any classic tracks. Also, if you are used to cross-country in Europe you will find trails here to be a lot harder: there is hardly a flat part in any of the trails! Most are very wide, so it’s easy to skate on them.

The trails for snow shoeing are quite narrow and all of them lead through the trees. There was still at least 2-3 meters of snow, but with the snow shoes you can just walk over it without any problem. Also steep inclines or declines are no big deal.

After an initial easy trail we had lunch at the Hollyborn Lodge and from there we took a more challenging trail up the mountain. After a while Grace decided that it was a bit too much for her for a first time on the snow shoes, so she went back to the lodge. I continued the trail and tried to run on my shoes. It worked quite well, and I managed to get into a nice rythme. A bit like trailrunning, but a lot heavier because of the snow and the altitude. I did not run too far and because my speed was much higher than Grace’ I actually arrived back at the lodge before she did.

After that we walked back to the base area, handed in our shoes and drove back. Twenty minutes later we were home already, it’s great that the skiing areas are so close to where we live!

Our new home is in Vancouver’s suburbs and I work in downtown Vancouver. That means we need at least 2 cars to get around, but of the cars that we ordered only our family car could be delivered before we moved to Canada. My new car has a production and delivery time of 4-5 months, so I need to rent a car for the next couple of months.

So today I got a small Volvo (a C30 T5) from Hertz as a temporary car to drive to the office. They gave me 2 keys with it on a key chain, and when I was back at my desk I wanted to put one key in my drawer in case I would lose the other one. I tried to open the key chain, but I could not figure out how to do that. Some of XPCP’s portfolio companies are in our office as well and most of the people working there are technical guys, so I asked one of them. To my surprise he also did not manage to open it, so eventually I decided to Google it.

And guess what? These rental car key chains can’t be opened, you have to destroy them in order to get the keys off! I am obviously not the first one who has this problem, and I probably would not care too much if it would be a rental car for just a few days. But carrying both of these huge keys with me for the next couple of months does not seem like a good prospect.

But it made me wonder, who came up with the stupid idea to put both car keys on one key chain that can’t be opened? Either give the customer one key or give him/her 2 separate keys. If I should lose my key now, I will lose both keys. Where is the logic in this? It not only doesn’t make sense but it’s also customer unfriendly.

I am considering to just cut the key chain, but I will likely get into trouble with the car rental company for this. I never take car insurance with my rental cars, so I will probably have to pay for a new key chain myself and that price will be about 20 times higher than what you would pay for this piece of metal yourself. A small dilemma…

After over 13 years in Beijing and Shanghai I felt it was time for a change of scenery. So over the past year Grace and I started looking for a new place to relocate to with the family. My time in China was fantastic, better than I could have imagined when I moved here as a 27-year old expat for Daimler. But over the past years I realized that China was changing and that I had changed as well.

Our main criteria for a new home were based on a different lifestyle for the family: a place with more nature around us, with a better air quality and where I would not have to work 24/7 anymore. We made a shortlist that included among other San Francisco (USA), Auckland (New Zealand) and the south of France, but after spending a week in Vancouver last August we eventually decided that would be our preferred place to settle down.

We applied for immigration in early November, got our visa approved in early December, bought a house in early January, arranged cars, schools and furniture in early February and a couple of hours ago the whole family took a one-way airplane trip from Shanghai to Vancouver. We are now somewhere above the Pacific flying towards a new life. Things moved very fast, because once I have made up my mind I don’t want to sit around but just move ahead.

The last weeks were extremely hectic, preparing for the move and saying goodbye to many of our business and personal friends in China. There was not enough time to see all of them personally, but luckily the Internet makes it easier to stay in touch and I am sure we will see most of them again in the future. We wound down most of our business activities over the past weeks as well, mainly changing directorships and shareholdings in companies. In hindsight we should have taken a few more weeks for everything (Grace told me so but I insisted to leave sooner rather than later).

Last Tuesday I had a farewell party at Spil Games Asia with some really touching speeches. I am normally not very emotional, but during that event I just managed to keep my eyes dry. This morning while saying goodbye to our staff and to Grace’s family at the airport even I had tears in my eyes. Partir c’est mourir un peu…

I will miss China. I will miss the fast-paced business life, the amazing clubs and restaurants in Shanghai, and the luxury of having staff at home to help you with everything. What I won’t miss is the air pollution (which was the #1 reason for us to leave), the traffic jams and the slow, restricted Internet. Every country has its advantages and disadvantages, and although the balance has shifted a bit recently the advantages of living in China have always outweighed the downsides for me. If it was purely for business reasons I would likely stay, but I have a family with 2 young kids now and I also need to think of them.

Luckily I will still be back regularly for projects and investments. In Vancouver I joined a venture capital fund (CrossPacific Capital, see www.xpcp.ca) that invests mainly in Canadian/North American companies and actively helps them to expand to Asia. This fits my experience as entrepreneur and investor in China and I look forward to my new role. More about this in a later post.

As for this blog, I plan to keep on writing it although the focus will likely shift to my new life(style) in Canada. But I will closely keep following what happens in China, so I expect that there will be regular posts on that topic as well. I look forward to my new life in Canada and I hope all of you will keep following me here.

I still remember the mid-1990s in which people in Europe found it rude when you would make a phone call on the street or in a public place. “Why could you not wait until you are home to make that call?” or “Why is that person trying to show that he/she is important?” were things you heard when people discussed it. Even I did not see the necessity of having a mobile phone until around 1998 – people could leave a message on my answer machine at home or on my voice mail in the office, that seemed good enough. Of course things changed when more people started to get mobile phones and everybody realized the convenience of using them. Within the time span of 2 years mobile phones became socially acceptable and suddenly everybody seemed to want one.

I think the same will happen with Google Glass, the glasses-like wearable computer that projects messages and can record or broadcast your life. In my opinion this is a huge game changer for the way we will live our lives, very similar to how mobile phones changed the world as we know it. At first people will probably make “you’re showing off” comments and don’t understand why such a device would be useful (“I have a smartphone, why would I need Google Glass?”), until more people start using it and everybody suddenly can’t imagine a world without these devices anymore.

I have not seen Google Glass in action yet, but the video that Google released yesterday gives a good overview of what the device does: you can receive messages, read important news, make video calls and basically do everything you would now do with your smartphone. The big difference is that Google Glass will be always on (if you wear it of course) and people won’t notice what you are doing, except when you give voice commands to the device. Because of video streaming capabilities this will really be the end of privacy and it will be another huge boost for online video and social media (don’t sell your Facebook shares yet!). I think eventually almost everything that happens will be recorded by someone and will be available instantly to the whole world.

Google Glass will be an additional brain and the people that will adopt to it first could have a huge advantage. I now already constantly Google things on my phone to get additional information on things I see or do, with Google Glass there will be a whole new dimension to this. It may seem like science fiction now, but I can imangine that if you are in a discussion your device can give you addtional information on the topic while you are talking. Or imagine sitting in a restaurant where you can see the names and other information of everybody guest through a combination of face recognition and augmented reality. Literally world changing!

However, the massive amount of data that the average Internet user has available will become even more of a burden than it currently is. Online curation will become much more important. Not manual curation (that would be too slow) but automatic tools to sift through data and to only show what is most relevant to you at that moment based on where you are and what you are doing. Companies that can deliver this kind of real-time algorithms and execute well can become huge. Facebook is doing a decent job there with its timeline, but it can still be improved a lot.

The way we will consume news will change as well. Hamish McKenzie at the PandoDaily published an excellent piece on this just now. Among others he writes that more than before news will come to you instead of that you are looking for news, a bit like a feed of important messages that occasionally pop up. The packaging of news will be more important, a good picture with a short but clear headline is likely all that can be projected (Twitter’s 140 characters!). The news you get will be contextually relevant, but for longer pieces you will still use other devices.

It’s fascinating what will happen. Even though the current design is still super nerdy I can’t wait to get my hands on my first Google Glass device. Too bad we’ll probably still have to wait another year before this product will hit the market for everyone.

Over the past 2 weeks the Harlem Shake meme spread all over the Internet. The hype seems to be a bit over by now, at least I don’t see that many new mentions in my feeds anymore. When companies like Pepsi start to release their own Harlem Shake video ads you know the hype is probably over the top. On the other hand, the song just hit the #1 position on iTunes today and even my kids are now jumping up and down to the Baauer music - my fault, I showed them a couple of the videos over the weekend and they liked it so much that they now keep on shouting Harlem Shake instead of Gangnam Style.

Interesting is that I did not see many Harlem Shake mentions in social media feeds from Chinese friends, so out of curiosity I did a quick search on Tudou and Youku. It turns out that for the search term 哈林摇 there are only less than 300 videos on both sites together. Harlem Shake gives a few more hits, but also these seem to be only foreign-made videos. And just 3 of them have over 100,000 views, which is very low for Chinese video sites. As a comparison, while I am writing this YouTube gives 8.5 million search results for Harlem Shake and the current top video compilation has been watched 13 million times so far.

Either the Chinese are a bit behind on this one or they just don’t like it. My take is that because the dance videos spread during the height of Chinese New Year many Chinese may have missed it, but that the hype may still come. Not that I am waiting for it, I have actually seen too many versions of the dance over the past days already. In case you missed the whole phenomenon, below a compilation of the best Harlem Shake videos on YouTube.

A compilation of Harlem Shake videos on YouTube

Today is the 5th day of Chinese New Year and finally life becomes more normal again. The first few days of CNY there was virtually no traffic on the roads and you could drive everywhere in the city in a matter of 10-20 minutes instead of the usual 30-60 minutes. That is, if you have your own car, because there were not many taxis around yet. But today quite some taxis seem to be back from the countryside and most are empty.

On Monday I had planned to have drinks with a friend in a bar, but the place was still closed so we ended up at his house with a bottle of wine. Last night I drove by the bar and noticed it was open now, so we’ll try again tomorrow.

City Supermarket is still on a holiday schedule, which I found out this morning when I wanted to buy yoghurt at 9 AM with Scott. The store did not open until 10… We were not the only ones who were surprised to see that this supermarket opened later, during the time span of a few minutes at least 3 other people wanted to enter the store.

Smog levels are still pretty high, especially because of the fireworks. On Chinese New Year’s Eve the smog level for the first time exceeded the upper limit of the index (which is quite scary if you think about it). And last night the level was even higher, because of the massive fireworks for the Fortune God. I actually had the feeling that there were more fireworks last night than on CNY eve, and they for sure lasted longer (from 6 pm until 1 am, and then again from 7 am onwards – so I did not get a lot of sleep).

Business wise not much is happening yet, I only have 3 meetings this week and before people call me they send me a SMS to check whether it’s okay to call. In a way I look forward to next week when all offices are open again and when you can get things done. I just hope the traffic could be a bit longer like it currently is though.

It’s New Year’s Day in China, the first day of the Year of the Snake. Grace’ family from Beijing came over to celebrate the holiday here, so it’s a food and drink extravaganza at home. Last night my father-in-law prepared the New Year’s Eve dinner, he spent the whole day in the kitchen making all the dishes. It was excellent, especially in combination with the bottles of Champagne that I had opened to accompany the food.

The kids got presents and hongbao (red envelopes with money) from everybody, and Scott was already musing about what kind of things he could buy now. After the meal the family watched the annual CCTV New Year Gala, and I read some magazines. I am not a big fan of the show, if you have seen one you have seen them all. Scott and Elaine loved it though (I guess that says a lot about the level of the show!) and could not stop watching the stand-up comedians and the songs and dances.

At a certain point I fell asleep on the couch but the kids were still awake. I was a bit jet lagged, because we just came back from a week in Canada, and a big meal plus some nice wines don’t help to stay awake. The fireworks woke me up at midnight though and we all watched it from the 3rd floor of our house. I felt there were less fireworks than in years before, but maybe that was because I didn’t go outside this year. But the smog certainly wasn’t less, at 1 AM the index was above 500 (which is the upper level, above 300 the air quality is considered hazardous). Probably good that I stayed inside.

Today we drove out to Sheshan to climb the mountain there and to get some fresh air. The roads were quite empty and the drive went fast, helped by the fact that all tollroads are free during Chinese New Year, so you don’t waste a lot of time in traffic jams at the toll gates. But Sheshan itself was very busy and I was glad to find a parking space close to the entrance gate of the mountain. Also the access to the mountain was free now (it used to be quite expensive), but that also meant that thousands of others decided to hike up the hill as well.

Despite being 30 kilometers from Shanghai the air at Sheshan was actually still pretty bad. The kids asked why the air smelled like smoke and when we were at the top there was not much of a view because of the air pollution. Not sure if the walk was very healthy, but at least we got out of the city for a few hours, which is always a good thing.

Last week Grace and I had an appointment in Macau so we flew over for a short visit. We arrived on Wednesday evening and were picked up by a limo that drove us to our hotel. We had decided to stay at the Cotai Strip, the new area with all the casinos, and we got a reservation at The Galaxy.

The last time I was in Macau (for the Macau Marathon 2006) the whole Cotai strip did not exist yet, so we had no idea whether the hotel was a good choice, but a business connection had booked it for us and it turned out to be an excellent one. We got a big suite on the 29th floor with a great view over the Cotai area from all the rooms, and even from the bath tub in the main bathroom.

The hotel itself is part of a larger complex, with a huge pool/beach area on the rooftop above the casino, that they share with the Okura Hotel and the Banyan Tree resort. The pools are amazing and they make this an excellent location for a vacation with kids. The resort has the biggest rooftop wave pool in the world, and of course this pool comes with its own white sandy artificial beach. If you need some more space there are even some pool villas built on the rooftop (all with private pool), they are part of the Banyan Tree resort.

I am not a gambling man, so I wasn’t that interested in the casino, but of course we went there at night to take a look. I had seen quite some casinos in my life, but never one as big as this: I would guess the main area is at least a few hundred meters long and completely filled with gambling tables and slot machines. And most tables had people playing! It seemed almost every player was from mainland China and in the 30 minutes that we spent there I did not see one other non-Asian person. Of course the real high rollers don’t come here but spend their money in one of the many VIP rooms in the complex, the place where the real money is made (or, more likely, lost).

We had dinner at Yamazato in the Okura Hotel, a very good Japanese restaurant. Our plan was to just have a light meal of sushi and sashimi, but in the end we still wanted to have something more to eat so we went for the Wagyu beef. Generally I am not a huge fan of Wagyu (a bit too fat for my liking), but this one was so well prepared that it melted on my tongue. In case I should ever come back here I will order it again!

After dinner we went over to the Venetian, which is just down the road. Another huge complex, but a bit lower end than the Galaxy. The place has not one but three indoor Venetian canals, complete with gondolas and with 24 hour day light (just like in Las Vegas). The shopping mall is much bigger than the one at the Galaxy and the casino blew me away. I thought the Galaxy was big, but this one is even bigger. Later I found out it’s actually the biggest casino in the world with a playing area of 546,000 square feet (to put this in perspective, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas has 170,000 square feet). But the Galaxy plans to double its size in the next 2 years, so in 2015 they may be the biggest in the world.

Thursday we had an appointment in downtown Macau and were picked up from our hotel early in the morning. We were done by lunch time and walked around a bit in the old town looking at some of the sights, before having a late lunch at a nice Portuguese restaurant. We still had a few hours before our flight back, so we took a car to the Venetian to look at 2 of their exhibitions: Titanic and Human Bodies. I had read a lot about both of them and it was great that we could see them here.

Titanic was very well made, with among others original artifacts from the ship several cabins that were rebuilt. Interesting to see how life on board was in those days, with complete segragation between the different travel classes: not only the rooms but also the restaurants, bars and relaxation areas. The part that describes the sinking of the Titanic was quite scary, because it was completely dark and they had some pretty good audio effects. There was even an iceberg that you could touch to get a feeling for the cold.

Human Bodies was a different experience. The exhibition has been in the news for years and is quite controversial, but that did not stop me from taking a look of course. Seeing real human bodies in different poses is quite scary, especially because you can see them up close (there are no glass cages or so, theoretically you could touch the corpses). When I saw a pregnant woman with a baby inside her I had seen enough though and left the exhibition. An interesting experience, but seeing it once is more than enough for me.

After that we walked back to our hotel, had a coffee and were picked up by a limo to drive us to the airport. There we found out that our flight would be delayed… But the Air Macau lounge turned out to be pretty good and had good wifi, so we spent the next 3 hours there online while tasting some Portugese wines. The flight back was uneventful and we were home by 10:30 PM.

More pictures of our trip to Macau here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157632607518016/

After reading Tyler Hamilton’s The Secret Race last summer I realized that Lance Armstrong was a bully and a liar, but I had never expected him to confess all his doping sins. I was surprised how calm and emotionless he was during the interview with Oprah Winfrey, at least during the short part that I watched.

The next months and years will not be easy for him. First he lost all his Tour de France titles, then he lost his Olympic medal and now he lost his credibility. And he will face the financial consequences: he probably made sure the lawsuits won’t bankrupt him, but it will certainly hurt him a lot.

I don’t feel bad for Lance though. He made life hell for many of his fellow riders who confessed before him, now it’s time for him to face the consequences. He thought he could get away with everything he did, but in the end he realized that he was trapped and that even his political connections could not save him anymore. I think that’s the main reason he confessed. Hopefully this will make cycling a better sport.