Archive for December, 2007

Happy 2008 from Shanghai!

While most of the world is still in 2007, the New Year has arrived in Shanghai already. I would like to wish all my readers a very happy and healthy 2008!My plan was to write a looking-back on 2007 looking-forward to 2008 kind of post yesterday (like last year), but since I have a child time seems to evaporate before my eyes. Priorities can change fast with the arrival of a newborn. 2007 was an absolute top year for me. Business wise it was a booming year, with traffic on Tudou.com and...
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Scott arrived home – and life changes…

Life has changed a lot since Scott arrived on this planet, especially since Scott came home yesterday. Our home was always nice and quiet, but is suddenly filled with life. Not only because of the screams of our baby. Our ayi used to only work in the morning, but she now stays a couple of hours longer because of Scott. We have a 24-hour Nanny that is trying to dictate life in our house (bad luck Nanny, not in my household), and even the driver regularly finds reasons to come up to our apartment...
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Hello World: Twitter-baby Scott van der Chijs

Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 16:58 Scott William van der Chijs was born in the Wordlink hospital in Shanghai. At 53 cm and 3.770 kg Scott is a big and healthy baby, and also all health test showed that (Apgar score was 9 after 1 minute, and a perfect 10 after 5 minutes). And I am the happiest man in the world!I twittered the whole process, from the moment we left home until Scott was delivered. Lots of people contacted me during the day because of that, through Twitter or through email and...
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Giving birth in Shanghai

I am in the hospital right now, where my wife is in labor. Our baby will be born at Worldlink in Shanghai. A private hospital with excellent service, nice rooms and (not unimportant for me) internet access. The actual delivery is still a few hours away. I am putting regular updates on my Twitter account:...
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Ice bar at Binjiang One

Until yesterday I thought that Shanghai had just one ice bar (the one on Huaihai Lu), but it seems there is at least one other place where you can drink in sub-zero temperatures. I had a Christmas Day dinner with my parents at Binjiang One, and found the restaurant has an ice bar on its premises.Binjiang One is a fusion restaurant located in an old villa on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River, about 300 meters from the Shangri-La next to the river ferries. Both the food and the location are...
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A BestBuy Carol on Christmas Eve

Sunday night I decided to buy a new camcorder, so I walked to BestBuy to get one. I think I am one of their better clients, because since they opened a couple of months ago I bought almost all my electronics and household appliances there. The service is quite good, and they have an extended warranty program. The biggest problem is that most of their products seem to be always out of stock - even when there is no sign saying the product is not available anymore. Twice it happened to me that the...
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Fire & Ice – Tudou Christmas Party 2007

Last night Tudou.com organized a Christmas Party in its Shanghai office. The first part was a buffet dinner with lucky draw, for staff only. Some very nice prizes were given away, among others 2 iPhones and a 24 inch flat screen. At 8 PM the party itself, themed Fire and Ice started. This time it was a smaller party than usual (just for staff and some invited guests), therefore I did not blog about it in advance. The next party (in March/April) will be open to the public again, and that...
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Shoe size 45? Mei you…

My dad wanted to buy new running shoes, so I took him to Grand Gateway where all the major sports brands have retail stores. Last year he also bought a pair here, and we first went back to the same store. He found the shoes he wanted, and asked for size 45. A normal size in Holland, but apparently a bit on the big side for China, because the store did not have any shoes above size 44. So up to the next store. Here they told us that they have size 45, no problem. So we looked at several models,...
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Universiteit Maastricht alumni Christmas dinner in Shanghai

Friday night alumni of my alma mater Universiteit Maastricht in Shanghai had their first annual Christmas dinner. A couple of years ago I was the only (or at least one of the very few) alumni living in Shanghai, but now there are at least 15 former students working here. Mainly because Shanghai has become quite attractive to work (high quality of life & great entrepreneurial environment), but also because the university has grown quickly over the past years. Maastricht is Holland's youngest...
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Pioco's Christmas Legato Party

This week innovative media company Pioco organized a Christmas party for its business relations in Shanghai. Normally Christmas parties are all quite similar, a speech, a couple of drinks and some finger food in a bar or hotel. But Pioco is an innovative company, so also their Christmas party was innovative. They called it Christmas Legato. The invitation described it as follows: Christmas Legato will deliver unconventional seasonal messages all in a unique and lavish Gothic atmosphere, which...
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Six months of Twittering – some thoughts

Normally I am one of the early adopters of new internet services and technologies, but Twitter was an exception. I first came across the service in mid- to late 2006, but did not really believe in it at that time. The main reason was probably that I did not know many other people who were using Twitter, and I did not see the added value yet. Only on June 8, 2007 at 2:05 PM I sent my first Twitter message into the world to give it a try. And I was convinced pretty quickly: Six months later I...
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Tudou first video site to encode to H.264 format

Tudou.com has started encoding all its video files to the H.264 format. Tudou is the first video site worldwide that is adapting to this standard on a large scale. This is technically a very significant step, that will mean a further improvement in the user experience.H.264 means that the images in video files will be much clearer. Especially in videos with fast moving images such as sports footage, or rich images like scenaries you will see a huge difference. Tudou can now streams clips in a...
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A pizzeria without pizza

After weeks (or maybe months) of renovations Italian restaurant/pizzeria chain Da Marco opened their outlet in Xujiahui this week. I walked by the place many times looking at it while it was under construction, and today I decided to check out their Italian pizza's. Da Marco's is well-known for these, and over the years was chosen by several bloggers as having the best pizza in Shanghai (among others by Dan Washburn of Shanghaiist fame). The restaurant was almost full at 12:30 when we...
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The biggest christmas tree in Shanghai?

Although most Chinese do not celebrate Christmas (most even have no idea what it is about), Shanghai's retail sector fully embraces the event. Christmast decorations and christmas trees are popping up in most restaurants and shops, and all shopping malls have turned to Christmas music already.On Sunday afternoon I walked by Times Square on Huaihai Lu when I came across this HUGE christmas tree. The workers were decorating it from the inside (it is of course a fake tree), and they were almost...
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Rembrandt in China

Although I have lived in Shanghai for many years, I had never been to the Shanghai Museum. It never really interested me, because the collection mainly consists mainly of Chinese calligraphy, coins, pottery, furniture and some classical paintings. I very much like art, but for some reason Chinese art never managed to attract me. Just like I don't like European medieval or religious art. However, because of an exhibition of Dutch Golden Age paintings I decided to visit the museum.The museum...
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