Archive for July, 2007

London in the tropics

This afternoon I had a few hours left to explore Mumbai a bit on foot. I made a walk from the hotel on the west side of the peninsula through the old English town to the waterfront at Colaba on the east side. It was way too hot to walk, because finally the sun came out, but it was a fantastic walk anyway. This is literally London in the tropics, but a bit greener. Some of the building are absolutely stunning, especially Bombay University and the High Court. I walked for about 2 hours, and only...
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Special classes on Indian trains

Yesterday we walked through Churchgate station in Mumbai, and noticed the railways have some interesting classes of trains. Of course there is the first class section, but this compartment was in worse shape than any train in Holland (or even China) would ever be.But they also have a compartments only for women, so they won't be crushed between the men on the often totally overloaded trains.The front part of the train was for luggage, this part had no seats - just a dirty floor without any...
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First impressions of India

Namaste! Late last night I arrived in Mumbai (India) after spending most of last week in the Netherlands. This is my first time in India. It does not happen often anymore that I am in a country for the first time, and I am always excited when I get to see a new culture. India has not disappointed me so far. Yes, it is dirty, it is poor, it is busy everywhere and it's warm and humid (it's monsoon here), but I was prepared for that and overall I like the atmosphere. People smile and (a big...
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Spill Residence

I am in Hilversum now, in the house that Spill arranged for all its personnel worldwide that visits headquarters. Quite convenient, because I am not a big fan of staying in hotels all the time. Especially not the rather mediocre hotels in Hilversum (especially Gooiland and to a lesser extent Lapershoek), or maybe I am just a bit spoilt by Asian hospitality standards. The Spill Residence, as I decided to call it, is a 3-story house (probably from the 1930s?) with 4 bedrooms and a nice small...
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Upgrade

I am sitting in the front row of the upper deck of a KLM B-747 from Shanghai to Amsterdam, while listening to an 80's playlist on my iPod with a new pair of Sennheiser NoiseGard headphones (great for intercontinental flights, because the noise the plane makes is filtered out). As regular readers may know I stopped flying business class after I turned entrepreneur, but every now and then KLM still upgrades me (thanks to the Elite status that I still have). Normally this happens while checking in...
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Tibet documentary trailer @ Tudou.com

In April/May this year Gary, my dad and myself rode mountain bikes from Lhasa in Tibet to Kathmandu in Nepal. Two camera men (Wang Peng and Zeng Jie) shot the whole expedition, and are now making a one-hour documentary about it. They put a 5-minute trailer on Tudou.com, that has been watched by almost 30,000 people already in the past 2 days. Comments range from people saying that we have too much time and money, to others expressing their disbelief that an old foreigner (sorry dad!) can do...
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Mama Mia!

Last week Tuesday my wife and I went to see the musical Mama Mia! in the Shanghai Grand Theater. A few years ago you had to fly to Hong Kong or even Europe to see a decent stage performance, but things are changing. In the past 2 years we have seen among others the Phantom of the Opera and the Lion King in Shanghai, both performed by the similar casts that also do the West End or Broadway shows.It turned out that we were lucky, because the next day's show was cancelled due to an illness of one...
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Hot!

The rainy season is officially over in Shanghai, and it's now becoming seriously warm. Today's temperatures should reach 38 degrees (>100 degrees F), and overnight it will not go below 30 degrees (86 F). Luckily we have air conditioning everywhere, and except for the 10 meter between my parking space and the office entrance I should be cool the whole day. At least that's what would be the case outside China. Because yesterday the building management came to our office to check our air...
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Spill Group Asia & Zlong Games staff

A few days ago we took a picture of all the staff of Spill Group Asia and our game development company Zlong Games. The company has grown tremendously in the past 18 months (I started Spill Group Asia in January 2006). It's fascinating to be in the internet industry in China right now, and experience hands-on what it means to be in an exploding business in the most booming economy on earth. Hard work, but lots of fun in a very dynamic business...
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Pew's China internet report

The Pew Internet & American Life Project just published a report about the fast growth of the internet in China. The study describes who the new users are, and what the consequences are for China in general and its relations with the outside world.The research project also raises the question whether Chinese will be the lingua franca on the internet in the future. Something I do not believe in, I believe there will be a Chinese language internet and a non-Chinese one that are not very much...
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Foreign pilots at Chinese airlines

Yesterday I was on a China Eastern plane from Beijing to Shanghai. When the captain made his usual announcements he made them in English first, instead of in Chinese. When I listened to him I realized he was not a Chinese but a foreigner (judging from the accent from a Middle-Eastern country). That was a first for me, I did not know that Chinese airlines started to hire foreign pilots.Coincidentally, this afternoon I was having lunch with a business friend when he told me that he was on a plane...
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Business update: Spill Group Asia and Tudou both booming

Spill Group Asia, the online gaming and game development company that I set up last year Spill Group, and online video site Tudou.com both keep on growing very fast. That is also one of reasons that blogging is a bit light at the moment; others are that my internet connection at home is not working, so late night blogging is not possible, and the fact that I just spent a few days in Beijing in a hotel with only a dial-up connection - not good if you have a MacBook Pro that does not support this...
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Accommodation during the Beijing Olympics 2008

Over the past weeks I received more and more emails from readers who want advice on finding accommodation during next year's summer Olympic Games in Beijing. It's getting too much to answer all of them (which I regret), therefore I decided to do a blog post about this subject.First of all, as the name of this blog implies, I live in Shanghai and not in Beijing. Therefore I do not have the inside scoop on which hotels you should try, and which are fully booked already. What I understand is that...
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Long walk

Today was not my day. I planned to do a lot of things, but when the internet did not work this morning (once again) my whole schedule fell apart. I wrote a column for a Dutch magazine, but could not do any research online, so I was not too satisfied with the result. I checked my email on my phone, but it's a nuisance to answer emails with a small keyboard. We had to wait at home for a person to repair the internet (so we could not go out), but when he finally arrived he could not find the...
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No driving allowed in Beijing next month

The roads in Beijing are even more congested than in Shanghai. The Shanghai Daily writes that according to Beijing's Road Traffic Management 90% of all roads are at full capacity, which seems a bit high to me. The paper does not question this figure, but likely they only look at the average for major roads during certain time periods.But statistics aside, the roads in Beijing are indeed overloaded and it's getting worse by the day. Literally, because each day 1000 cars are added to the Beijing...
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Overcharging foreigners on Ctrip

Last night I was tired from work, and suddenly felt I was in need of a short vacation. So I browsed the net for a nice location to spend a mini-break with my wife. I first looked at one of the Nusa Dua resorts on Bali, but there are still no direct flights to there from Shanghai, so I decided to choose a location closer to home. Hainan is then the easiest option. I have been numerous times to China's Hawaii already, and spending a few lazy days around the pool or on the beach there is always a...
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Cirque du Soleil in Shanghai

On Friday night we went to the Cirque du Soleil show Quidam, in their tent next to the Science and Technology Museum in Pudong. The official premier was on Thursday night, but because of work we decided to skip that and go on Friday. It was a great show, and something I can recommend you to go and see. The circus will be in town until August 26, tickets can be booked through Piao.com.cn.In case you don't know the Cirque du Soleil, this is a circus troupe originally from Quebec, Canada, that use...
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