Today we visited Waiheke, New Zealand’s Island of Wines, located just half an hour by ferry from Auckland. I had read a lot about the island over the past weeks, so I was very excited to see it with my own eyes. I expected a nice island, but nothing too special. But I was wrong, this island is a dream come true.

The island is quiet and has a real holiday feeling to it. It is very green (the recent rains certainly helped), and when you drive along one of the few roads on the island you often have fantastic views of the sea.

There are lots of beautiful beaches, many very quiet despite the fact that this is the last week of New Zealand’s summer vacation. And of course there are lots of wineries, which was the main reason we were visiting.

When you arrive you are immediately in a holiday mood. The ferry lands at a secluded bay where sailboats are moored on anchors and where there is a small beach. The bay is surrounded by hills with some very nice villas on it.

A small bus was waiting at the ferry terminal for us to drive us to several of the island’s wineries for wine tastings. We had a guide who explained us everything about the wineries, their vineyards, their locations and the resulting quality of the wines from these wineries.

We spent most of the day at Te Whau, which not only had a stunning location, overlooking the sea on 3 sides, with a private beach, some jungle and even a view of Auckland in the distance, but also excellent wines.

We talked to the owner for quite some time and he showed us the whole property. We had a very good lunch there, the restaurant is well known for its high quality food and cooking.

And of course he let us taste some of his best wines. His Chardonnay blew me away, what an amazing taste. Much better than the Chardonnay that we had last night during a seafood dinner at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland (we ordered at least 4 bottles of Chardonnay last night, so it was certainly not a bad wine!). Also his cabernet sauvignon was very nice, I had not expected a full bodied cabernet sauvignon from this island. And at the end he also gave us a Syrah to taste, once again WOW!

We ended the visit to Te Whau with a walk to their private beach, right below the vineyard. What an amazing location!

The last visit of the day was to Cable Bay Vineyards, where we also had some very nice wines. The winemaker showed us their facilities and then gave us a private tasting. Cable Bay is very different from Te Whau, it’s a much bigger operation and the winery is very nicely designed (modern, we all liked it). Their wines were great as well – I guess we only had good wines today… Should you drop by try out their Syrah and their Syrah Reserve, and if you want to try a special dessert wine ask for the Viognier one. Especially the women in our group loved it!

The wine tastings were so good that we almost missed the ferry back, we made it with just a few minutes to spare. On the ride back I fell asleep (jet lag or too much alcohol?) and had dreams about one day living in a place like this. I loved it. Should you ever be in Auckland make sure you take a day out of your schedule to visit Waiheke. Combine it with some wine tastings and you’ll have a day you won’t easily forget!

I put all pictures that I took so far in a set on Flickr, over the next days I’ll add more pictures of our trip. You can see the set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157628999856845/

It’s Chinese New Year Eve, a time that you normally spend with family eating a huge dinner and then watching the CCTV New Year Show. But not this year. I am sitting in the lounge at Guangzhou Baiyun airport with a small group of friends, among others Gary and Grace, waiting to board a flight to Auckland right after midnight. When we booked this flight I did not realize it would be Chinese New Year Eve – but it probably was no coincidence as we only booked a few weeks ago and all other flights were fully booked.

We flew from Shanghai this afternoon and things did not really go the way we wanted from the start. At check-in there were some problems as Grace was flagged by New Zealand immigration authorities because they thought she only booked a one-way ticket. That was correct, because we fly from Auckland to Singapore for business meetings, not back to Shanghai, but they could not confirm that in the system. So we had to sort that out in Guangzhou, meaning that we could not check our luggage through to New Zealand.

The airport was virtually deserted. After weeks of the biggest human migration on earth everything suddenly became extremely quiet this afternoon. No lines at all at the airport, not for checking in nor for security. At the lounge in Shanghai we were almost the only guests. Kind of strange, because I am so used to the crowds on airports in China.

On the plane things were okay, although even in First Class the food was not particularly good. When I asked for sparkling water they told me they did not have that, but the friendly stewardess told me she could give me red wine instead. So much for flying China Southern – and we still have 12 hours or so ahead of us on another China Southern plane…

In Guangzhou the first thing I noticed was that it was really cold. On the plane the flight attendant had told me that it was 8 degrees Celsius in Guangzhou, but I assumed she made a mistake and that it should be 18 degrees. But no, it was really 8 degrees. No big deal, except that the airport does not have heating and we did not even bring coats.

Staff was waiting for us at the gate to arrange Grace’ ticket problem (that’s the advantage of flying First Class I guess, in Economy they would let you sort this out yourself), and within minutes we had our boarding passes (seat 2A for me, so I can see the fireworks right after the start). We then had to get our luggage and check in again, and then go through the security check and immigration. This took us about one hour, but we had enough time so it was no big deal.

Next up was finding a location for the Chinese New Year dinner. I had assumed there would be some decent restaurants at the airport, but that was not the case. Most places were closed because of New Year’s Eve, so we ended up in a coffee shop having some fried rice and noodles for an exorbitant amount of money. Then we walked to the lounge where Gary and his girlfriend were already sitting watching the CCTV New Year show on TV. Also here it was freezing cold, but luckily the others from Beijing had coats with them so Grace could warm up.

It is a bit strange to watch the New Year show in an almost deserted lounge (well, actually I am not watching but working on an update of unitedstyles financial plan), especially when it’s cold. It feels like we are doing something wrong with our lives, being in this place on a night like this. Gary actually put on his Weibo (Chinese Twitter) that he was watching the CCTV show for the first time in 10 years in an airport lounge, and many people pitied him that he had to work so hard that he has to spend CNY Eve on an airport.

The lounge itself is pretty good, and especially the wines are very nice (a.o. a Bourgogne Chardonnay, a German Trockenbeerauslese, and even 2 different bottles of Sauternes dessert wine). Because we’ll visit a lot of wineries this trip we have already started the first wine tasting. I am looking forward to the next couple of days in New Zealand, it’s going to be an interesting journey. Glad we decided to do this and glad that we managed to fit it into our schedule!

Happy Chinese New Year – 新年快乐！

I am writing this on the plane from Amsterdam to Shanghai after spending a week in The Netherlands. I was here for business reasons, but I decided to go a few days earlier to visit my parents as well. I flew to Amsterdam on Friday afternoon and had an excellent flight from China, working a bit on the plane, having good food and even better wines (KLM always has a good selection in business class), sleeping for an hour of two, reading newspapers and magazines and even watching the movie De Ontvoering (a movie about the kidnapping of Freddy Heineken – I hardly ever watch a full movie on the plane, but this one was really good so I kept on watching it). I arrived in Holland early Friday night (flying westward is always nice because you don’t lose many hours) where my parents picked me up by car and we drove to their house in Ommen.

My parents love good wine as well, so we started the evening with a bottle of Champagne. Or actually not a real Champagne, but a Luxembourg methode champenoise wine that they had tasted at the winery the week before. During the light dinner we continued with Luxembourg white wines and we ended up doing a small wine tasting with 2 gewuerztraminers and a pinot gris. A very nice selection. Because of my jet lag I decided to call it a day at 10:30 PM and get some sleep. I got up around 5:30 AM
to catch up on emails and RSS feeds. At 8 AM I went to buy fresh bread rolls with my dad, always a nice tradition on Saturday mornings. After a big breakfast I worked a bit more, read some newspapers and among others went grocery shopping with my dad.

One of the things I miss in Shanghai is running outside, so when I am with my parents I try to run there. On Saturday my dad and I went for an easy run in the woods around their house. My dad had a pretty bad injury during the New York marathon and this was one of the first times that he was able to run again (10 weeks after the marathon!), although still with some pain. We ran for about 7 kilometers on trails and I loved it. The weather was very nice (cold but sunny with clear blue skies) and it felt great to be in nature again.

Saturday night we went for dinner at De Bokkepruik in Hardenberg, a Michelin star restaurant in Hardenberg. Hardenberg is about 15 km from my parents place, close to the German border, and it’s the city where I did the last years of my high school education. The food and wines at De Bokkepruik were excellent, no doubt about it. But the service was not at the level that I am used to in Michelin star restaurants. It certainly wasn’t bad, but some things were missing.

Some examples, we had a 4-course meal that we started at 7 PM (with a jet lad I try to have early dinners the first 2 days). I had expected to be done by 9:30 or so, but at 10:00 we were still waiting for the main course. When I asked the waitress whether it would still come she explained that the kitchen also cooks for their brasserie, and that it was very busy there tonight. That’s great for them, but if I had been a Michelin inspector that remark would have lost them their star. If you pay top prices you should be able to expect top service. Having a brasserie with much lower prices may be necessary to survive, but you can’t let your higher paying customers wait for this – and certainly not tell them this!

The wait staff made a few more small mistakes that I generally don’t mind too much, but over the course of the evening they added up to the point that you started wondering what the next thing would be that they would forgot or do wrong. Not a good thing for the restaurant, and I hope it was an exception because the food was certainly very good.

The good thing about the long dinner was that we had a wine arrangement (paired wines with the food for a fixed price), and they kept filling up our glasses with excellent wines, without charging us additionally for this. Anyway, although the overall food experience was excellent I am not sure if I will be back. The service mistakes are actually still okay (and a bit entertaining), but 45 minutes between courses is a bit too much. Maybe we should save some money and try their brasserie next time?

On Sunday I slept a bit longer, the copious amounts of alcohol certainly helped with that, and I enjoyed the day with my parents. I decided to skip lunch and go for an afternoon run instead. My dad decided not to join because of his recovering injury, but he joined me on his mountain bike.

I ran a nice course from Ommen across the Vecht river bridge to the North and then a bike path and trail along the Vecht river until the sleuce at Vilsteren. There I crossed the river again and ran back to my parents place. The first part was not too easy (partly because of the alcohol I guess), but after a while I got into my running rhythm and managed to run the 17.5 km in about 1 hour and 22 minutes. I was happy with the result, this is the pace I want to run when training for a marathon, and I am not even in training yet.

In the late afternoon a fashion entrepreneur came to visit to discuss some fashion business ideas and we had a nice 10-year old bottle of St. Emillion Grand Cru. A very good wine, but while drinking it I realized I prefer a good Californian Cabernet Sauvignon over the high end French wine. The wine was really good but for some reason I seem to be more hooked on the taste of New World wines.

On Monday morning I took the train to Amsterdam. I had to change trains twice and both times I was afraid to miss my connection because of delays. But because all 3 trains were delayed it didn’t make much of a difference, except for the fact that I arrived 20 minutes too late in the Dutch capital. I checked into my hotel and then took the tram to the Stadsschouwburg for a radio interview at BNR (Business News Radio). The interview was mainly about doing business in China, my latest start-up unitedstyles, and the Chinese economy.

The CEO of Google in the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands & Luxembourg) was in the program as well, and it turned out we view work and especially working in an Internet company a bit differently. He does not use Facebook for example, which I find quite strange in his position (I Twittered about this during the program and the presenter saw it, and then used this as a discussion topic with us). Also he claims not to check emails during vacations, which is hard to believe for someone running an online company. Anyway, people are different and I would likely not be the right person to run his business. You can listen to the interview here, the exchange between the Google CEO and me is in the last 5 minutes or so.

I then had a lunch with a founder of Dutch social network Hyves and a friend who is on their management, talking about investment opportunities worldwide, sailing around the world and setting up a winery. Fun topics! After that I had to run to my next meeting and then it was time to work on emails for a while before dinner.

The next morning I got up at 5:30 to read my overnight emails and check the Skype backchannel for unitedstyles (we all communicate over Skype and it’s a good way to read what happened during the hours that I was asleep), before taking the train to The Hague for several meetings. The first was at Paleis Noordeinde, the working palace of Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands, where I had a coffee with the former Dutch consul-general in Shanghai. The palace is a very nice place, especially on a cold but sunny winter morning. The entrance is in the back and you walk through a park to get there. The palace itself is very old, but it is extremely well kept with beautiful old furniture and old paintings everywhere. The only thing missing was wifi – one of the first things I checked when I entered, because I wanted to check in on Foursquare!

After 2 more meetings I had lunch in The Hague with 2 former high school class mates, Nuria Reques Waterink and Margreet la Roi. I met them again after 20-something years through Facebook. We recognized each other right away and had a fun hour talking about our current lifes. Would be nice to do this again in the future!

In the afternoon I had to go back to Amsterdam for a meeting and then had a cup of coffee with a journalist of Quote magazine. I had planned to go for a run after that, but I was so far behind on my mails that I decided to work until dinner instead.

Wednesday morning I had my meetings in Restaurant Dauphine during the morning, the best place in Amsterdam to meet other Internet and social media people. I was a bit too early and found out that they only open at 9 AM, so I had to wait outside in the cold (it was about 0 degrees). Luckily their wifi was on, so at least I could work a bit. After the meetings I had a lunch and did a Skype interview, and later I finally went for a run (8.6 km in 40 min along the canals and the Westergasfabriek, in freezing cold rainy/snowy weather with strong winds).

After a shower to warm up again I then took the tram to the Conservatorium Hotel for a dinner with 3 partners of Simmons & Simmons (a Dutch law firm, coincidentally the firm where my sister started her career) and with the current Dutch consul-general in Shanghai (that makes 2 consul-generals in 2 days!). Interesting discussions about China and where the country is heading, and about Chinese investments in Europe. Simmons & Simmons just opened an office in Beijing, a smart move considering the number of Chinese investors that are looking for opportunities outside the Mainland.

On Thursday I had meetings on the Zuidas (the southern part of Amsterdam, where many banks and law firms are located), and started the day with a breakfast with former university class mate Jasper Bugter. Always good to catch up with him.

After lunch I headed back to the Conservatorium Hotel for a seminar organized by Simmons & Simmons where I gave a talk and where I was on a panel. It was an interesting afternoon, where I met a lot of people (including several readers of this blog!). I think the seminar was a big success, with more people (mainly bankers, entrepreneurs/business people, consultants and investors) showing up than they had invited: the Simmons & Simmons staff had to stand in the back to make room because all seats were occupied. I very much enjoyed speaking here, it was very well organized with excellent food and drinks (the white wine served afterwards was excellent, but I forgot to ask what it was). After the event I had a dinner and then headed back to my hotel early. I was quite tired and fell asleep right away.

On Friday I once again got up at 5 AM to work and to pack my suitcase, because I had my first meeting at 6:30 AM with Xander. At 7:30 AM we had a breakfast meeting at Boer & Croon (a leading Dutch consulting company) and then we went to Schiphol airport for an hour. Next meeting was at Telegraaf Media Groep (a big Dutch media group, both on- and offline) before meeting my sister for a lunch at Het Bosch, a waterfront restaurant just south of Amsterdam. After the late lunch my sister drove me to the airport where I had a coffee in the lounge and then boarded the plane back to Shanghai. It was an excellent week once again, but I need to catch up on sleep very soon.

Russia is a key global market for fashion and luxury items, and unitedstyles has taken the strategic decision to make Russia & CIS its first non-English market. Not only has the website been localized for Russian-speaking consumers, but the company is offering Russian-language customer service and support through its Moscow-based partner, Interstice Consulting. Moscow-based customers will even have an opportunity to personally visit the local unitedstyles office and examine samples of finished garments, should they so desire.

Although the plan is to serve most global markets with our English website, we think localization is the key to success in several countries. Therefore over the next couple of weeks we will also launch a Japanese and a Dutch version of the website, and possibly more languages will be added later this year. More updates here soon!

Official press release:

Unitedstyles — where you design your own, totally unique fashion online — announces its entry into the Russian & CIS market with a Russian-language website and the appointment of a local representative, Interstice Consulting.

Unitedstyles: design your own fashion

Unitedstyles.com offers a brand new fashion experience. It enables you to design your own, totally unique fashion online and then have it made especially for you.

Fashion for you, by you

Fashion is about more than the way you look; itʼs about who you are and an expression of your personality. However, 99.9% of clothes in your wardrobe are designed by others and never for you, but for everybody.

At unitedstyles.com you can now change this by designing your very own fashion. Select and combine a wide variety of styles, sleeves, necklines and trim. Color your design and/or apply one of the many, completely customizable and scalable prints.

Share your unique design with your friends and followers on Facebook, vKontakte and Twitter, and optionally preview it in lifelike 3D.

Once you are satisfied with the result you can buy your self-designed fashion piece and have unitedstyles produce it for you personally. A few weeks later your one-of-a- kind dress or top will be delivered to your doorstep.

This also makes unitedstyles the perfect remedy for “same dress syndrome” — the sense of panic and anger you feel when someone else shows up to a party wearing the same dress as you.

Pricing starts at a very reasonable US$69.95 for tops and US$99.95 for dresses, making the experience of creating a unique garment at unitedstyles truly accessible. Shipping is a flat US$20 anywhere in Russia & CIS.

Production – personal and green

Printing and dyeing your designʼs fabric is done by unitedstyles in the greenest way possible, by using digital printing technology. This prevents waste and unnecessary pollution because only the amount of fabric that is actually needed to make your garment is being printed.

Experienced unitedstyles tailors finally stitch your unique design with a level of personal care and craftsmanship that is impossible to find in mass-produced fashion. Furthermore, unitedstyles fully guarantees its customers that their design will fit them perfectly.

“Producing fashion piece-by-piece demands a totally new approach. To ensure the self-designed garment will fit perfectly, we personally contact our customers after purchase to discuss sizing and the desired fit”, says co-founder Xander Slager

About unitedstyles

Unitedstyles is founded by four European entrepreneurs based in Shanghai – currently one of the most dynamic cities in the world. With an international team (8 nationalities), offices in the U.S., Netherlands and now Russia, plus the launch of Japanese and Dutch versions of unitedstyles.com expected soon, its reach and vision is indeed global.

Unitedstyles is founded by:

· Xander Slager (Netherlands), founder of Dutch outerwear brand Spoom

· Marc van der Chijs (Netherlands), serial Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Tudou.com (the “YouTube of China”, NASDAQ: TUDO)

· Joop Dorresteijn (Netherlands), entrepreneur with strong passion for technology

· Dirk Lorré (Belgium), consumer psychologist and innovation consultant

Unitedstyles has already received international recognition for its innovative business model, by being chosen as a finalist in the TechCrunch Disrupt startup competition in November, 2011. The company has also been written up in the Business of Fashion blog, perhaps the most influential global blog of its nature.

Unitedstyles in Russia & CIS

Russia is a key global market for fashion and luxury items, and unitedstyles has taken the strategic decision to make Russia & CIS its first non-English market. Not only has the website been localized for Russian-speaking consumers, but the company is offering Russian-language customer service and support through its Moscow-based partner, Interstice Consulting. Moscow-based customers will even have an opportunity to personally visit the local unitedstyles office and examine samples of finished garments, should they so desire.

“Unitedstyles is a revolutionary idea in the fashion sector, and what better place to launch than in Russia! Weʼve been working in the online customization space for some time and are sure unitedstyles will become popular with Russian women, who are world renowned for their sense of style”, says CEO of Interstice Consulting, Peter Prabhu

Media contacts

International: Xander Slager, xander@unitedstyles.com tel +31-6-5257.6341 (NL) or +86-186.0210.8376 (China)

Russia & CIS: Peter Prabhu, peter@unitedstyles.com tel +7 916 404 97 52 (Russia)

Online media kit: http://unitedstyles.com/media.zip

Russia & CIS social media links:

http://facebook.com/unitedstylesru

http://vkontakte.ru/unitedstylesru

http://twitter.com/unitedstylesru

unitedstyles offices:

Global: 1225 Tongpu Road, Building 8, 3F, 200333, Shanghai, China

Russia & CIS: 1st Dobrininskiy per. 15/7, Office 11, Moscow 119049, Russia

I am very happy to announce that Chinese leading social business intelligence provider CIC was officially acquired by WPP’s Kantar Media. The deal took quite some time to negotiate, but I am very happy for founders Sam and Vennie and the rest of the team that the deal has now officially closed.

I have been on the board of CIC since 2007 when I led the angel round for the company. It was a great ride over the past couple of years (like every young, growing company with ups and downs), and I am impressed by what the management team and the rest of the CIC family managed to achieve over these past years. CIC not only built a very strong portfolio of services and clients, but it also managed to build and keep a very strong company culture. It’s a company that people love to work for, and I am sure that has helped for the sale to WPP as well.

On behalf of all the angel investors I would like to thank Sam, Vennie, Daisy, Denis and Paul for their hard work and dedication to get this deal done. As an investor you never know whether an angel investment will eventually pay off, but this team made it work. It’s a pity that I will now have to leave the CIC board, but I look back to the past couple of years with good memories.

The official press release:

Kantar Media to acquire leading Chinese social business intelligence agency CIC

Deal extends WPP unit’s capabilities in social media listening and analysis into world’s second largest ad market

Kantar Media, the media research and insights division of Kantar, has expanded its social media offer in China with the acquisition of CIC, a leader in the Chinese Social media listening and analysis industry. The deal will build on the company’s significant global presence and activities in media market research and insights with 5,000 staff across 60 markets, with CIC working along with the other leading Kantar Media partnerships in China including CSM and CTR. Kantar Media is a unit of Kantar, the consumer insight arm of WPP, the world’s largest communications services group.

The acquisition comes in response to the growing client need for the real-time monitoring of consumer brand conversations in a market with over 70% of the 500 million Internet users on social media and with over 50,000 enterprises owning a microblog account. It gives Kantar Media a strong base in China and Asia Pacific for social media intelligence and insights as China this year became the world’s second largest advertising market.

Founded in 2004 and with offices in Shanghai and Beijing, CIC coined the now standard Chinese industry term Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) and pioneered the concept of social business in China. With a team of over 60 social media consultants, innovative dashboards solutions and patent pending in technologies such as Chinese language text mining, CIC has led the industry in developing and applying social media intelligence and insights across its roster of blue-chip clients includes 5 brands out of the top 10 listed in Brandz Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, and is at the forefront of monetizing the social business industry in China.

Sam Flemming, founder and chairman of CIC, commented: “In joining Kantar Media, we will provide our clients with accessible, intelligent and meaningful analysis of brand discussions wherever they take place. We will also develop new client offers by identifying the synergies between our data set – including an archive of over 3 billion consumer brand mentions – and Kantar Media’s vast data resources. Further, the relationship will allow CIC to bring social business intelligence and insight to Kantar and across the whole WPP network as well as
replicate its success in the broader Asia Pacific market.”

The CIC team will remain based in Shanghai and Beijing, China, and its management team will report to Jean-Michel Portier, global CEO of Kantar Media.

Portier said: “It is clear that the monitoring of consumer, brand and market discussions and the resulting insights are vital tools for executives worldwide. With Kantar Media Cymfony, we are already committed to maximizing our clients’ success in monitoring and analyzing consumer discussions in the US and in Europe. With CIC, we are achieving another milestone to establishing the same recognition for excellence in China that Cymfony already has .CIC is an exciting and successful company. CIC will enrich our global digital expertise in capturing millions of online conversations and “making sense of the buzz” in order to provide interpretation that informs strategic decisions and leads to action.”

If you have been following my blog, Facebook or Twitter for a while you probably know that I love to drink wine, especially good wine. I also love to read books and watch movies about wine. One of my all-time favorites in the wine movie genre is Sideways, a movie about a road trip tasting wines in Southern California. If you happen to find it online or on DVD make sure to watch it with a good glass of Californian wine in your hand!

I am a big fan of New World wines, with a preference for Californian Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. For me good wines from these areas top similar priced French wines, although French wines have for a very long time been considered the best wines in the world. As a kid we only drank French wine at home. But if you look at the wines that I stock in my small cellar in China, you’ll see that they are mainly wines from California, Australia and New Zealand – with Alsace wines and Champagnes being the only regular exceptions to the rule.
 
I have often wondered what exactly happened in the world of wine over the past 30-40 years, especially how New World wines came up and how France started to slowly lose it’s dominance over the global wine market. A few weeks ago Gary gave me a book to read that discusses exactly this topic: Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting That Revolutionized Wine, by George Taber. The book describes how the California wine industry developed from the 1850s until the early 1970s, especially focusing on the period starting in the 1950s.

Mr. Taber describes the lives of 3 wine makers in detail, following them from their (sometimes very humble) beginnings to their triumphs in making excellent wines, trying to make wines as good as the French ones. At the same time the book describes a British wine merchant in Paris, Steven Spurrier, who decides to host a blind wine tasting between Californian wines and French wines in 1976. The judges were almost all well-known French wine connoisseurs. At that point nobody really doubted that France produced the very best wines in the world, but it turned out that for both the white and the red wines the Californian wines won.
 
This tasting, which became known as the Judgment of Paris, changed the perception of the world about wines. Not right away, because only a Time magazine reporter (Mr. Taber, the author of the book) covered the event and it took some time before other media picked it up, and many (mainly French) people criticized the results. But eventually the news spread, even in France where the major media dismissed the results.

This event was the beginning of New World wines, and the last part of the book describes what’s happened with wines in among other New Zealand, Australia, Chili and of course California after 1976. Interesting is that the original Time article is available online, although if you don’t have a subscription you can only read the first part. One more reason why I love the Internet, I am sure for many years it was very hard for anybody interested in reading the original piece from 1976, but now it’s just a click away.
 
Not only would I recommend to read this book, but if you enjoy movies about wine you should also watch the film version of the book, Bottle Shock. Although the story is a bit different from the story in the book, it’s a great movie to watch. It makes you want to set up a vineyard or winery as well, or at the very least it makes you want to open a bottle of good wine while watching the film. Cheers!

Next to Facebook and Twitter there is only one other social network that I check and update almost every day: DailyMile, the social network for runners (and bikers, rowers, etc.), that I have been using since 2009. I log all my runs here, describing how I felt and where I ran, and I follow what kind of runs my friends and family (my dad and sister are also on here) are doing.

I love to read the updates of all my friends here and it often motivates me to put on my running shoes (or better, my Vibram Fiver Fingers) and hit the road or the treadmill. I especially like the stats they provide, and just like last year DailyMile sent all its users an overview of their activities in 2011. Today I got mine, and I decided to post a partial screenshot on my blog.

The patterns are pretty clear, I ran a half marathon race in late April, so I trained seriously in the weeks before that. Then I relaxed a bit until I started my training for the New York marathon in June/July. In September I had an injury so I didn’t run for a few weeks and then I pushed hard again in October with 172 km of training during that month, before the 6 November full marathon. Thanks for the overview Dailymile, it’s nice to see my aggregate training results.

Yesterday Scott had his 4-year birthday party with some of his classmates and friends. Scott was very happy to see all of them during the weekend and of course to get many presents. We did the party at an indoor kids playground, Mamameya on Hongmei Lu, which was a big success. It’s easier for us, no need to find a restaurant to do the catering and to hire a clown and a face painter etc., and the kids love to to play in their playground. If you have toddlers in Shanghai and plan to organize a kids party make sure to check Mamameya out.

Below some pictures with impressions from Scott’s birthday party.

Telling a short story to the kids

The tables were set for drinks and snacks for all the kids

Elaine also participated, she was very happy to join the activities

Scott’s birthday cake: Lightning McQueen (from the Disney movie Cars)

A magician doing tricks

Scott did not want to help with the magician’s tricks, but Elaine did not mind

Instead of helping the magician Scott ran away, he preferred to drive a toy car through the playground!

Just over a year ago I wrote a post about a Chinese company, Broad Group, that was able to build a 15-story hotel in 6 days, using prefabricated modules. An amazing feat, but they topped it in December 2011 by building a 30-story hotel in 15 days, finishing it on New Years Eve. And once again they made a time lapse video and put it online. According to Broad Group their building can withstand a 9.0 earthquake and is more energy efficient than regular buildings. Only in China?

Source: Shanghaiist

In April 2001 I went to North Korea with a group of friends for a one week “vacation”. The trip was organized by Nick Bonner, who was my downstairs neighbor in Beijing at that time, and one of the other participants was Daniel Gordon. Dan always carried a small video camera with him while in the DPRK, and after a few days he told me that he was shooting a documentary (at that time still more or less secretly). That was the first footage for The Game Of Their Lives which came out a year later. It was quite a success and Dan went on to direct several other films related to North Korea.

One of them is Crossing The Line, a documentary about James Dresnok, a US soldier who defected from the South Korean side of the demilitarized zone to North Korea in 1962. It was a sudden decision because he was angry at his superiors, but it was a decision that was irreversible, because he could not leave anymore and has been in North Korea ever since. Dan and Nick went to Pyongyang to meet with him and shot this documentary based on the interviews with him.

I did not know how I could easily watch the documentary in Shanghai (my local DVD store does not carry it), but then I realized there is a copy on YouTube. So last night I sat down with a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and watched the 91 minute documentary. I was blown away by it, not only was it very well made but the story is out-of-this-world. I thought about the documentary for quite some time after watching it and this morning it was still on my mind, so I decided to write a blog post about it.

Mr. Dresnok went to the DPRK without really thinking about the consequences. It may seems like something that nobody can ever understand, but to me the documentary made clear why he did it: he had been abandoned by everybody during his whole life and and just wanted to run away from it all. His parents divorced and then abandoned him, he ran away from foster homes and when he got married his wife had left him for another guy when he came back from a 2-year stay in Germany. Nobody wanted him, and I get the feeling he desperately wanted to have a safe and stable life. And guess what, that’s what he eventually got in North Korea.

He comes across as a well-spoken person, who seems to be happy with his current life. But is he really? That was the question that was on my mind and that I have been trying to answer for myself. Is he a great actor? Or is he completely brainwashed? Or does he truly believe what he says? I think it’s a combination of all three things. Mr. Dresnok never finished high school and was still very young, meaning that it is probably relatively easy to manipulate his thoughts. I think that’s what happened, and after spending twice as long in North Korea as he lived in the US it’s not so strange that he would be brainwashed.

But I also think he is acting. Especially the part where he hears what Mr. Jenkins (a fellow defector who managed to escape North Korea during the time of filming) has to say about North Korea. It felt like he was acting there, I think he realized that he would be in danger because Mr. Jenkins spilled some secrets about their early life in the DPRK. After hearing Mr. Jenkins side of the story I also realized that Mr. Dresnok may seem like a nice person, but that he probably was a very different person in reality. Mr. Jenkins said that Mr. Dresnok beat him up at least 30 times when the Koreans asked him to, which suddenly seems quite likely. Mr. Dresnok is a big guy and could have been a bully to make sure he would get a good life, and he despised Mr. Jenkins who had a higher rank than he had.

At one point during the documentary it becomes clear that Mr. Dresnok had a relationship with Mr. Jenkins wife, but I wonder whether Mr. Jenkins wife (who was a young kidnapped Japanese lady) really wanted this. Mr. Jenkins caught Mr. Dresnok with his hands in Mrs. Jenkins pants at a party… The more I think it the more I feel this may have been part of Mr. Dresnok’s bullying behavior, where he felt he could get away with this. Mr. Dresnok almost seems proud of it when he talks about this.

My conclusion for now is that Mr. Dresnok might be more than just the simple guy that he claims to be. He clearly is someone who did not fit in in society and has trouble with relationships, but also someone who was very good at manipulating others, despite only having a few years of formal education. Is he trying to fool the documentary makers with his story? I think he is partly lying, but I also think that he has been in North Korea so long that he believes his own story. And I think he is able to close his eyes for what really happens in the DPRK. It’s basically a trade he is making with the ruling Party: you give me food and protection, and I will tell a positive story about my life here.

Is he happy? I think he is satisfied with his simple life. Had he stayed in the USA he would have probably had a simple life as well. No hunger, but also no wealth. At least in the DPRK he even managed to become a celebrity (he played in many movies, so everybody knows him), and he was treated well. But he was not truly happy. He tried to escape once at the beginning of his stay (the Russian embassy kicked him out), but also now he pretends to be happy but that’s not the complete truth. This suddenly became clear to me in the last part when he is fishing and his Korean comrade wonders whether Mr. Dresnok really likes fishing. He pretends he loves his life, but I think he does miss his former life, especially after Dan shows him pictures of his hometown. Maybe this also explains why he smokes and drinks a lot.

To me the documentary was intriguing, and it brought back memories from my trip to North Korea. See it for yourself on DVD or on YouTube (part 1/6 is here) if you have any interest in life in the DPRK, I highly recommend it.

The trailer is embedded below and can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kBmAnjlJ3A

Today Grace had her birthday and Elaine sang “Happy Birthday To You” for her! Below I embed the video from Tudou.

Elaine first sings “Itsy Witsy Spider” and then decided to sing “Happy Birthday”. Happy birthday Grace & a very nice performance Elaine.

Direct link to the video:
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/0H5h5JyMGgY/

This year we decided not to spend Christmas and New Year in Europe, but to fly for a week to a tropical beach with the kids. We opted to go to Koh Samui, one of my favorite islands in South-East Asia. I had not been there since May 2005 (I had to check my blog for that!) and I was looking forward to see the beautiful Thai island again. We also invited Grace’ parents and her sister to join us for this trip, so we had a pretty large group.

Because we booked quite late it was not easy to find a suitable accommodation, with suitable meaning a big private villa directly on a quiet beach with full service (maid, cook etc.). Most villas had been rented out months in advance, but we eventually found one through a Russian (!) website. I have to admit that it took a bit of courage to send a big amount of money as a prepayment to a company I didn’t know and for which I could not find any references online, but everything worked out fine. Grace was a bit worried though, but no risk, no fun, right?

There is still no direct flight from Shanghai to Koh Samui (I guess the runway is too short for larger airplanes?), so we had to change planes in Bangkok. That made the whole trip quite long, but the kids could sleep in the lounge. Well theoretically they could, but in the end they refused to sleep and only wanted to run around or play with their iPads and Nintendos. At least they slept a bit on the plane, so they were not too tired when we arrived on Koh Samui. The airport on the island was still as special as a few years ago: it’s an open air airport, in a tropical garden setting, where you immediately feel that your holiday has started.

A van picked us up and drove us in about 20 minutes to our villa on Bang Po beach, on the northern side of the island. The villa was managed by a hotel, where we had to check in and from there we walked to the house. The place was amazing. You never know what you get when you book through a website, but the pictures online were just as good as the villa itself. The villa consisted of 2 structures, one was the main building with a living/dining room with kitchen, and the master bedroom with huge bathroom (partly inside and partly outside). The other structure consisted of 2 stories, a suite with living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and balcony upstairs and a bedroom with bathroom downstairs. The villa had a nice garden with a pool that was directly next to the beach. I am not easily impressed, but this was just amazing to see.

We ordered a quick dinner and then put the kids to sleep. That was not too difficult, Scott was asleep the moment we put him in his bed. I did a couple of emails and had a few glasses of Australian Chardonnay on one of the outside deckchairs. Then I went to bed quite early, which was a good thing because the kids were awake early the next morning. I decided to go for a walk on the beach and Scott wanted to join me. We seemed to be the only ones on the beach, partly because it was so early in the morning and partly because it turned out to be a very quiet beach. Scott like walking in the sand a lot, but it went quite slow. He had so many new things to see and for everything he asked me what it was or why it was like that. “Why daddy?” is probably his most common phrase at the moment, he wants to understand everything around him.

Another thing he kept on saying at the island was “I don’t like the sound of the sea”. For some reason he did not find the sound of the waves relaxing… It started the first morning when he asked me “What’s that noise?”. I did not hear anything except for the waves so I asked him what he meant, and it turned out the sea was what was irritating him. He said it many times over the holiday, each time when we were on a beach. Only at the end of the week he stopped saying it, I wonder if he will say it again during a next holiday.

When we got back from the walk the kids wanted to go for a swim, so that’s what we did. Then we had breakfast at the hotel (we could choose, they could bring us breakfast or we could use the buffet breakfast at the hotel, the latter seemed much better). After breakfast I rented a car for the whole week and then we relaxed a bit by the pool.

During most of the vacation (which lasted a week) we followed a similar schedule most of the days. Scott normally woke me up around 7 when he wanted to go for a swim. I then put his swim shorts on and put him in the pool. Then I normally made a coffee or went for a short run on the beach (with someone else staying with Scott of course) and after that I joined Scott in the pool. Around 8:30 we would have breakfast with the whole family, followed by a few hours of sightseeing and a lunch at an upscale beach resort or golf course. Then the kids slept for 2 hours, during which I normally did some work and tried to keep up with my RSS feeds and social media. After the kids woke up they played in the pool or on the beach, before we went for an early dinner. We often went out for dinner at nearby seaside restaurants, or we had staff to prepare dinner in our house. After the kids went to bed (normally not before 9:30 PM) I had a glass of wine and checked Facebook and Twitter, or I tried to read a bit in my book. I only read one book during my whole holiday, normally I manage to read 1 book ever 1-2 days while on a beach vacation.

Koh Samui is still a fantastic island, I had great memories from a few years ago and I still feel the same about the place. There are definitively more tourists (I especially noticed a lot of Russians everywhere), but it’s also more westernized with big supermarkets like Tesco and Makro, and even German and French bakeries. There are even international schools and I was told the hospitals were excellent (medical tourism anyone?). It would be a great place to retire if I would have been a bit older than my 39 years. We actually even looked at some property on the island, there are some amazing plots of land and villas for sale. If you want to buy a house in South-East Asia this is probably one of the best locations in terms of quality of life, availability of property on the beach or with ocean view, and price. Sure, it’s not cheap and there are restrictions on buying real estate for foreigners, but for me the pros outweigh the cons if I would buy anywhere. Who knows…

Were there any negative experiences? Sure, a couple of them. One is the fact that even at upscale resorts communications with staff was difficult. Bringing the wrong food or drinks, or only bringing part of it and the rest 30 minutes later. Not a big thing on a holiday, and something that also happens to tourists in China. I guess learning a few words of Thai will make a big difference. Another one was that traffic was quite dangerous, especially because of the many inexperienced tourists on motorcycles and sometimes trucks that overtake at the wrong moment. I feel traffic in China is a lot less dangerous than on Samui, but maybe that’s also because I am more used to Chinese driving behavior. Lastly, the Internet connection at our villa was pretty bad at times. Often Skype calls were interrupted and playing music through Spotify only worked 1 out of 4 times. I understood that some places have glass fiber on the island, so likely it was just a local experience.

Overall I loved the island and the vacation we had there. It was fantastic to spend more time with the kids and to see how happy they are playing outside the whole day – something they often miss in Shanghai. Koh Samui is very cheap, you can have great food everywhere for prices that are much lower than you get similar food in Shanghai. The last night on Samui I was looking out over the sea in front of our place when I started wondering if this would not be a great place to start an incubator. I am sure lots of young people would not mind living here for 1-2 years (or even longer) to build an (Internet) company, and the cost of living here is a fraction of what it is of that in Silicon Valley or even Shanghai. Likely Thai law will make it difficult (I didn’t really look into this yet), but it’s something I will keep in mind for the future.

More of our Koh Samui holiday pictures here in a set on Flickr

I want to wish all my readers a very happy and healthy 2012! I was on holiday in Thailand with the family during Christmas and New Year and decided to spend not much time behind my laptop, meaning no blogging for the past couple of days. Therefore I didn’t write any posts with the highs and lows of 2011 yet, so here just a couple of thoughts when looking back.

I guess the most important event was Tudou’s IPO in August, but also Spil Games new round in November has quite some impact. In terms of sport the New York Marathon in November was an important event, but I also did other runs this year (a.o. the Yangzhou half marathon in April and the Shanghai one in December). And of course relaunching unitedstyles (we changed the spelling from UnitedStyles to unitedstyles) and being a finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt with the start-up were highlights this year. 2011 was an eventful year that I won’t easily forget, that’s for sure.

On the negative side I traveled way too much (I started flying KLM a lot less after some issues with them, but still managed to reach Platinum level this year, and I became a 1K member at United in about 6 months after joining them), but I learned over the years that the only way to network and make deals is by being physically in the same location. And most of the trips were related to speaking engagements and you can’t do those without being at a conference in person. I always try to combine a business trip over more than 6 time zones with at least one or two days of private time, normally on the weekend. Especially the trips to California were fantastic, I love that state more and more and hope that one day I will be able to move there for a longer time.

Being away from home so often and working very long hours when in Shanghai was not easy for my family. I realize that I need to spend more time with my young kids, they grow up so quickly. That was one reason why during the past week on Koh Samui I mainly spent time with Scott and Elaine. My laptop was on for max. 2-3 hours per day, and in that time I mainly went through my RSS feeds and read my emails (and hardly answered them – if you’re waiting for a reply you’ll likely get one over the next 2-3 days).

Not sure what 2012 will bring, but that’s what I like. I can’t imagine having a life in which I know what I will be doing 12 months from now. Likely I’ll still be in Shanghai, but chances are that I will eventually be leaving China. I have been here for 12 years already and am still having a great time, but I also realize there may be better places to live and work with kids. Especially pollution is an issue for me, as you can see if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Shanghai is not as bad as Beijing, but things are not improving here.

I still like to update my blog regularly next to other social media, and I enjoy the discussions that sometimes start. It’s a pity that I have to moderate the comments. I get some very strange comments sometimes (not spam, but real people trying to convince me of their world views that sometimes even consist of denying the Holocaust…) and also insulting comments cursing me are more common than before. Do people realize that it’s not so difficult for me to find out where they are posting from? Anyway, I plan to continue this blog like before with a few blog posts per week and with more regular updates on other social networks. Feel free to comment and if you see me in real life please say ‘hi’!

Happy New Year!

During most of the big races in the world photographers take pictures of the runners and put them online so you can order them. For the Shanghai Half Marathon I ordered a CD with my pictures on it (price: RMB 298 for about 25 photos, which is less money than a single picture at the New York Marathon costs) and I received it a couple of days ago. They also put some general pictures of the race on there, quite nice to get them actually. Below a few pictures of me during the race.

Start of the race at the Bund with the Pudong skyline in the background

On the EXPO 2010 grounds close to the China pavilion

Easy running! As you can see I run on my Vibram FiveFingers, not on normal running shoes

Giving it all in the last meters before the finish line. Gross time 1:36:05, net time 1:35:53

Going to the limit while crossing the finish line

But two minutes later I feel great again for the post finish photo!

I don’t regularly read the China Daily, except when Elaine is featured on the front page or when Air China has no other English papers available. Today’s headline confirms why I stay clear from this paper as much as possible. How in the world can you call an insane mass murderer who starves his own people a friend? It’s a shame.

I am not naive and know this is the Party’s English mouthpiece, and that China considers the DPRK an ally. But the China Daily should know that its average reader is not a Party member and likely sees the dead guy more as Dr. Evil than a friend. I wonder if this will cost them any readers. At least the US online version of the China Daily had a more balanced headline.

Also the Shanghai Daily had a more diplomatic headline today with “North Korea: Nation in grief for Dear Leader”.

There are some diseases that are not very common in Western Europe or the USA anymore, but that still have regular outbreaks in Asia. One example is hand, foot and mouth disease, a contagious viral disease that normally only affects children below 5 years of age.

Last week Sunday Elaine suddenly got a high fever and when my wife on Monday morning saw some red spots in her mouth she took Elaine to see a doctor right away. On the way home she called me to say that Elaine had hand, foot and mouth disease… Up to that point I had never even heard about the illness. I initially thought it was similar to hoof-and-mouth disease, but that turned out to be something completely different (hoof-and-mouth is an animal disease only).

Because the virus illness is contagious we immediately went to Scott’s school and took him home. My wife then told me that at Scott’s school a whole class had been quarantined a week earlier because of this disease, but it had apparently spread. We had to keep Scott and Elaine separate at home, in order to avoid a potential contamination of Scott. That was not easy, the kids always play together and now Elaine had her own playroom upstairs and Scott had to play alone downstairs.

Elaine got pretty sick from the hand, food and mouth, and soon started to develop blister-like sores in her mouth, on her hands and on her feet. Especially the ones in her mouth were very painful, and she refused to eat or drink anything because it hurt so much. It’s impossible to force a 2 year old to eat or drink when it hurts, but because toddlers dehydrate quickly we had to find a solution. Eventually she drank some milk, but it was a major effort for us.

On Wednesday night I was in a business dinner when Grace called me, because Scott also started to develop sores on his hands… So the next morning both kids went back to the hospital and it turned out that Scott had also been infected. He was not in pain yet and when I talked to him at night he almost seemed proud to also have it. The doctor also looked at Elaine again and told us that she was one of the most severe cases she had ever seen. Scary to hear that, she is such a small girl and as a parent you want to protect her from pain and suffering as much as possible. But there is not much you can do except for waiting. The doctor also told us that she had to report the cases to the government and that it was likely that people would come to our house to check whether the kids had been quarantined.

Later on Thursday Elaine’s situation suddenly started to improve. By Friday she started eating almost normally again which made me quite happy. And Scott was still playing happily without complaining. He did not have fever and just had some sores, and we hoped that would be it. But on Friday afternoon Scott suddenly started crying while eating, the sores in his mouth were very painful and he was not able to eat anything anymore. Luckily he could still drink and we also found that soft things like yoghurt and pudding were not as painful.

So for the past 2 days Scott has been eating chocolate pudding (he loves it!) and nothing else. I took him to the French bakery this morning (breaking his quarantine, I realize it now that I write it here) where he bough a croissant. But when he tried to eat it he was screaming from pain again. Poor boy.

He seems to be getting better soon now though, and I hope in 1 or 2 days both kids will be fine. A bit scary, especially because you don’t know how serious the disease is and how much worse it will get. But it seems both will be okay and hopefully we can still go on holiday with the kids at the end of this week.

One of my business partners at unitedstyles, Xander Slager, was booking a ticket for a return trip Amsterdam-Shanghai when he got a very low price for the ticket. To be precise, he could book a return flight for only CNY 1621 (less than EUR 200). I have taken this roundtrip at least 70 or 80 times over the past years and I never paid less than EUR 500, so this seemed to good to be true. Xander flies even more than I do on this route so when he saw the price he took a picture of the screen before going to the payment screen.

To his surprise he was able to pay and finalize the order in the next screen. He was happy to see that of course but because he still felt something must be wrong he took another picture.

And then… he got the message that the ticket had just been sold. Instead of a ticket for CNY 1721 (incl. tax) he could buy one for CNY 14,415! That seems like a more usual price for a ticket that you buy a few days in advance, but that’s not the point of this blog post.

Companies make mistakes, that’s fine. But don’t lie to the customer if that happens. Because that is exactly what happened here. As an experienced ticket booker Xander had both the klm.com Chinese and Dutch version open to take advantage of possible price differences. And that’s where something went wrong, because KLM suddenly showed the EUR price as CNY in the screen (the last price of CNY 14,415 is exactly EUR 1721). And they let Xander pay for this price (good for him), except that they probably had some internal red flag that shows up if a ticket price seems too low. And then? Well then they just tell the customer that the ticket was just booked by someone else. Total bullsh*t of course.

KLM is one of the best airlines in social media, they have come a long way over the years and they have surprised me (literally) with their social media events. But this sort of thing should not happen. If you find an internal error just tell the customer that something went wrong. They may not like it, but it’s better than telling your customer a lie. Don’t say that someone else booked the ticket for this price, because that is just not true.

KLM, if I am wrong feel free to show me that at that exact moment someone else booked a ticket for this extremely low price. I will take this post down right away and do a follow-up post with apologies with copies on Twitter & Facebook. If not I hope you can give Xander at least an upgrade on one of these flights. As a long time Platinum Elite member I think he deserves better than this from you.

With the Holidays approaching we all know how hard it can be sometimes to find the right gift – be it for your girlfriend, sister, wife, mother, friend, lover, grandma, daughter, auntie, neighbour, etc

Well, look no further!! Give the gift of designing at unitedstyles. Let her create her one-of-a-kind dream dress or top herself! We promise she will love it.

To make things even better, buy a unitedstyles gift certificate now and for a limited time only you will receive another one for free:

Buy a $50 gift certificate, get a $10 one free
Buy a $100 gift certificate, get a $25 one free
Buy a $150 gift certificate, get a $50 one free

Details

Offer valid til 24 December 2011. Gift certificates valid for 1 year from date of purchase. Buy a certificate by adding it to your shopping cart and checking out as normal. We will automatically add the free one to your delivery. You will receive a digital version per email the next working day and a beautiful physical printed copy will be posted to you as well (please contact us for delivery times to your country).

Last week I was invited to speak at the Infinity Ventures Summit 2011 in Kyoto, Japan. It was an excellent conference and I learned a lot about Internet and investing in Japan. Because it is an invitation-only conference the level of participants is quite high, with lots of CEOs and founders of (mainly Japanese) Internet tech companies. The conference was held at the Westin Miyako in Kyoto, an excellent 5-star hotel close to many of Kyoto’s temple complexes.

Although I spent most of the time at the conference I managed to see a bit of Kyoto as well. It was my first trip to this city and people had told me that it would be an amazing experience. And they were right, I am very impressed with what I saw here. The city is surrounded by low mountains covered with dense forests and on the foot of these hills there are a large number of temple complexes. Also in the city itself you see a lot of shrines and temples, it is as if you are going back in time.

I arrived around 9:30 PM on the first night, so I had no idea where I was exactly. I had to work on a presentation in my hotel room, so that’s what I did at first, but around midnight I decided to go for a stroll. The city was deserted, even the coffee shops and bars had closed down for the night. I had planned to eat something at a cafe or so, but that didn’t seem possible around my hotel. Luckily I found a Lawsons where I bought a beer and some snacks. I walked around a bit longer but because the place was deserted and it was pretty cold I decided to get back to my hotel.

I got up early the next morning and watched the sunrise over the mountains from my hotel room (pure coincidence, I opened the curtains just as the sun was coming up). At 8:30 AM Infinity Ventures had invited some of the speakers and guests for a Zazen session in a temple. Not really knowing what it was I decided to join as well. With some other guests we shared a taxi to the temple, only to end up at a different temple complex! It could have been China… We didn’t realize this right away so walked around a bit and took some pictures. Luckily we had a Japanese lady in our taxi (who later turned out to be the CEO of a Japanese e-fashion company) who was able to get directions to the right temple, so with a 20 min delay we arrived at the Zen session.

Basically we had to meditate on the floor of the temple while trying not to think of anything, for 2 times 15 minutes. A priest first told us a story and explained how it worked (luckily with an English translation) and then we got started. I tried as hard as I could to sit comfortably and relax, but it was difficult. I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering off with all kinds of new ideas or things I had to work on, but I eventually managed to relax. Suddenly the priest rang a small bell and I realized where I was. Kind of a strange experience.

After 15 min we could relax our legs a bit and then the second session started. My legs were stiff and hurting and I could hardly sit anymore. During the second session you could request the priest to hit you twice with a wooden stick on your shoulders. I sort of missed the significance of that and decided not to do it. It was interesting to hear the sound of the others being hit though, it seemed like they were hit quite hard.

At the same time my body started protesting because of me sitting a long time in such a ‘strange’ position. My legs started trembling and I started sweating as if it was very hot in the room. I was relieved when the priest rang the bell and announced that the session was over. I guess I am not used to this kind of traditions, but it’s something I’d like to try again. I will train my legs a bit first though, because the next day I had serious muscle ache from sitting down in a semi lotus position for half an hour!

After the zazen session we visited another nearby temple complex with a nice view over Kyoto. I was talking to a lot of IVS participants so didn’t see a lot of the temples, but I realized how peaceful and quiet it was everywhere. I enjoyed being there in the complex, very different from the hectic daily life in Shanghai.

We then walked back to the hotel for the official start of the conference. We had an excellent lunch and then the presentations started, all with good simultaneous Japanes-English and English-Japanese translations. The China gang (Fritz Demopoulos, Richard Robinson, Gang Lu, Rekoo’s Patrick Liu and myself – we seem to meet at different conferences around the world) had their session that afternoon as well.

After our presentation and discussion I watched a couple of more sessions and then spent an hour in my hotel room to catch up on emails. That’s always the curse when you are away from the office, emails keep piling up. I normally try to spend 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night to answer emails when on a business trip, but it’s just not enough. Starting the day at 6 AM with 100-150 new emails is not fun, but it seems there is no way around it…

At dinner (excellent Japanese food, actually I only had great food at the conference) some of the sponsors showed off their upcoming gadgets and games. Among others the Kinect Star Wars game was on display (Richard Robinson loved it!) and we got to try out the Windows 8 table (not a bad product, but more of a laptop replacement than an iPad competitor).

After dinner we were invited for a VIP party in one of the bars of the hotel. Among others I tried out a Kyojito – not something I recommend, sake is not a good replacement in a Mojito. The wines were good though and I had some nice conversations with among others Peng Ong and KKBOX’s Chris Lin.

The next morning I could hardly get up. Not because of the drinks but because my legs were hurting so much from the Zazen session! After breakfast I watched Launch, a start-up pitch competiton for Japanese companies. I didn’t spot anything outstanding, but it was fun to look at the products and ideas (most were apps) being presented on stage. The rest of the day I spent either in sessions or in my hotel room working on emails and calls.

Around 4 pm I decided to quickly go out and see a bit more of Kyoto before it would get dark. I made a 1.5 hour walk from the hotel through some backstreets to the Heian temple and from there to the river. It was very quiet on the streets and even at the Heian complex there seemed to be just a few people.

Also along the river I hardly saw anybody. Not sure if this is because the time of year, the time of day, or if there are just not a lot of tourists in Japan anymore after the earthquake (the 3/11 event still plays a major role in conversations by the way, it was brought up several times during the conference). When it was almost completely dark I walked back to my hotel, spent some time on Facebook and Twitter and then changed for dinner.

Dinner was quite an event, because it was held in a temple close to the hotel. The temple complex was beautifully lit, it was literally amazing. I tried to capture it, but with my iPhone camera that was not easy. We made a walk through the gardens and then had drinks and dinner in two of the temple’s halls. I am not easily impressed but this dinner location really made a deep impression on me. It makes you realize that there is more than just working hard day and night.

I didn’t stay too long because I was tired after the two long days. I made another stroll through the gardens before walking back to the hotel. There I spent another hour on emails and skype, and uploaded some pictures on Flickr. Then I went to bed early instead of going for another drinking session in the bar, I felt I needed some rest.

Friday morning I started with 2 hours on email, then I had a big breakfast in the hotel (Japanese & international buffet, not bad). I took me 5 minutes to pack my hand luggage and then I took a cab to the bus station. There I took the express bus to Osaka Kansai airport and from there I took the plane back to Shanghai. I look back on 3 nice days in Kyoto, a city I should spend some more time in in the future.

Today Spil Games launches the latest edition of its Uphill Rush racing game series, and this one is better than ever. As our press release says: Uphill Rush is Spil Games’ blockbusting, stunt-racing game for teens, and today it welcomes the fourth edition in the much-loved, high-speed, smash-hit series.

To date, the Uphill Rush series has been played over 600 million (!) times, with the continuing popularity credited to the development team’s focus on ensuring the teen audience is provided with a constant adrenaline rush, whacky new worlds and endless surprises.

The Uphill Rush games have what players crave: funny, unexpected vehicles and tons of customisation options. Players can drive with a geisha outfit in a motorboat or race as a sumo wrestler on a dolphin—the options are endless.

Uphill Rush 4 retains the tried and tested formula that’s made the series a success, while introducing a host of new features such as new racers, new worlds, new outfits and new physics.

Check out the game on one of Spil Games sites, among others Uphill Rush 4 is playable on http://www.agame.com/game/uphill-rush-4.html, starting today at 10 AM CET.

Below an infographic with some of the amazing stats about this racing games series. I still remember when we made the first game in the series, I liked it (and played it a lot) but it’s hard to believe that the series has become such a huge success. Congrats to the team for designing and making these games!