Archive for October, 2006

Opening of Hugo Shanghai

On Sunday afternoon a new restaurant/brasserie/bar/lounge officially opened its doors in Shanghai: Hugo, located on Weihai Lu opposite Shanghai Television. During the soft opening I already had lunch here twice, and had enjoyed the food and the atmosphere very much. The place is owned by a Dutch Chinese couple, and serves mainly French and Dutch food. Dutch food? Yes, that exists. Among others pannekoeken (pancakes) and vleeskroketten (meat croquettes) can be found on its menu.The restaurant is...
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Treadmill out of control

This morning I went for a 15 kilometer run in the gym. I like to do that early on Sunday morning: after the run a big breakfast tastes great, and you still have a whole day ahead of you. The first machine I stepped on turned out to be set to French and was measuring the distance in miles instead of kilometers, so I took the one next to it.About 30 minutes later someone else wanted to use the 'French' treadmill. He stepped on it, pressed 'quick start' and at that moment the machine immediately...
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Air Supply concert in Shanghai

During 1988-1989 I lived one year in the US, for my junior year in high school. The first 6 months I spent with the Sapp family in Quitman, Georgia, a small town not far from the Florida border, and the last 6 months with another host family in Valdosta, a city also located in south Georgia (on I-95). The second host family (Herman & Teresa Story, and their kids Jil and John Lee) were fans of Air Supply. I did not know the band at that time, but because I often heard the music there, I...
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What's in a name?

A well-known urban legend is that the Chevrolet Nova had very bad sales in Spanish speaking countries, because of its name Nova (no va = doesn't go). Although this is not correct, the example is used in many marketing textbooks to emphasize that marketeers should first do research on the meaning of the products name, before launching it.Something similar happened yesterday in Shanghai, where Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation launched its latest model, the Roewe 750, a car based on the...
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Mistresses

It is quite common for Chinese business men or government officials to have an "er nai" (a mistress), even though this is officially not allowed. The mistresses are often young girls from poor families who have no idea about their rights. According to the paper version of the Shanghai Daily a Beijing lawyer, Mr. Zheng Baichun, decided to set up a website in June to offer legal advice to mistresses. Until now he has helped over 100 mistresses, but currently he seems to need some help himself....
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Hotmail account deleted – again

About a year ago I lost all the mails I had saved in my Hotmail account, because according to the site I had not logged in during at least 90 days. At that time I was sure it was not true, because I had checked my mail right before my wedding (which was about a month ago at that time), but could not do anything about it. I then decided not to use Hotmail anymore, except for signing up to websites that I did not fully trust. I am glad I did so.Today I logged into Hotmail again, and I get the...
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Shanghai to get citywide wifi

The Shanghai Daily reported this morning that Shanghai plans to set up a citywide wireless network. However, the project is still in the planning phase and should only be finished in about 3 years... But even though that's still a long time ahead it's a good initiative, and Shanghai will be the first city in China with wifi access everywhere.Whether the network will be for free has not been determined yet. If it is I am sure it will be a huge boost for online activities in this metropole, both...
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Heating

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Shanghai, where it was still a very nice 26 degrees when we landed. When we arrived home an hour later it was very hot inside, similar to temperatures during summer when you don't put the airco on. We wondered what happened, but figured it out quickly: someone had put our floor heating on while we were away. The thermostat was set at 30.5 degrees Celcius, which explained why the whole apartment felt like a sauna. The stone floor in the bathroom was so hot that...
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KLM lounge

I am sitting at Dubai airport again. A nice airport, but there are better places to spend a Saturday night. I hoped I could go to the KLM lounge here, but it seemed that their worldwide policy for lounges has changed. Just like in Shanghai you are not able to enter the lounge anymore as a Platinum cardholder when you don't fly KLM or a partner airline... So now I blogging from Dunkin' Donuts, next to the lounge.I really wonder what the use of my frequent flyer card is. Until not too long ago I...
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Nokia E61

In Dubai I bought a new phone, Nokia's E61 business phone. I liked the design and the functions, and have been using the device for a week now. The phone features among others quad-band, a full HTML browser, 3G, Wifi, and it has a normal keyboard. Exactly the phone I have been looking for for years. My "old" phone (the Dopod 818 pro), was also not bad, but Nokia beats it on functionality and the stability of its operating system. And finally I have a phone with Blackberry functionality (it's...
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Desert trip in the UAE – and Oman…

Yesterday we decided to make a 4WD trip through the mountains and the desert. A friend of mine, Martin, who works for Shell in Dubai likes to take his SUV for a spin in the sand, and he offered to show us the real Emirates. And he did a great job, we spent almost 6 hours off-road in one of the most desolate environments I have ever been in. We started in the direction of Sharjah, where you could quickly sense that people are a lot more conservative than in Dubai. No women on the street anymore...
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Shanghai Daily blocked

I am in Dubai at the moment, and to my big surprise the Shanghai Daily website is blocked here. Also many other sites and services that work fine in China you cannot use here, Skype for example. But why on earth did they decide to block the Shanghai Daily? Other China newspaper sites like the China Daily and People's Daily work fine.What is very nice in Dubai, is that they tell you that if you feel the site is blocked in error you can contact the Internet Contact Center (they provide both a...
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England in Shanghai

Yesterday afternoon I planned to go for a run, but did not want to run in the gym. So I took my car and went to look for a nice place to run outside the city. I had no clue where to go, and just took the A8 in the direction of Hangzhou. When I passed the Songjiang exit I decided to get off the highway because I had never left the expressway there before. Right after the toll booth I saw signs for a compound named Thames Town, which I had heard is a replica of an English village surrounded by...
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National Holiday

Today is the last day of China's National Holiday. Finally. The whole concept of National Holidays may seem nice, but for a company that works internationally it is very inefficient. The system works like this: three times a year, during Chinese New Year, May 1 and October 1, the whole of China closes down for 7 days in a row. This vacation started on Sunday October 1 and ends this Saturday. In order to compensate employers staff have to work the Saturday before the holiday and the Sunday after...
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Car check-up, China style…

My car was overdue for a check-up, so I decided to schedule that for this week (it's National Holiday in China). We called our Buick dealer on Tuesday to check how long it would take, and he told us we could drop the car on Wednesday and pick it up two hours later. That sounded good to me, so yesterday we arrived there around 2:30 PM. My plan was to do a bit of shopping and have a coffee at Starbucks, so I would be back home in time to do some work before a planned dinner party with...
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No more cheating on TV

Chinese script writers will need to become more creative. SARFT (the ministry in charge of among others TV) will publish a regulation that asks for less extramarital affairs in soap opera's on TV. According to an article in the Shanghai Daily, soaps have lost the interest of the audience, and less and less people are watching them. But I am afraid that not allowing to show affairs in soaps won't increase viewership - the soap opera's are already boring, taking out this part certainly does not...
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F1 Shanghai

Yesterday it was race day again in Shanghai, and also this year I was present at the Shanghai F1 racing circuit. Spill Group's Reinout te Brake and Peter Driessen joined me for what turned out to be one of the best races of the year. Because I was not able to secure a parking ticket (you need to buy at least 4 F1-tickets for that), we decided to take a shuttle bus at the Shanghai Stadium. But there were such long waiting lines there, that we changed plans and took a cab. The cab driver was a...
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