As I already noted in my post about our first day in Guilin, taxi drivers are quite commercial here. Every time we take a taxi the driver starts to talk with us, and every time he or she (many female drivers here) tries to sell us tickets or wants to drive us to another tourist location.

I am not exactly sure how it works, but in the meantime I have figured out that there is something behind all of this. This morning we drove to the Seven Stars Cave, close to downtown Guilin, when the driver asked us to go to a different window to get a piece of paper for him to show that he took us here. Upon doing that the ride was for free! Yesterday we had a similar experience with a taxi driver that also needed a paper (for points, she told us – we did not get a free ride though). It seems that the some organization awards drivers that bring tourists to certain locations, and awards them more than the cost of the ride. Nice for the drivers, but a a pain for tourists who now have to listen to sales pitches every time they take a taxi. But luckily not many tourists take taxi’s here, as most are either here on group tours (both the Chinese and the foreigners!), or are backpackers that normally don’t take taxis.

Monday we had breakfast at Gourmets Coffee Café (118, Bin Jiang Road – on the river, 100 meters north of the Sheraton). When we sat down we noticed a sign saying that if you order a coffee you get a free breakfasts. I first thought that they made an English mistake, and that they meant to say “if you order breakfast you get a free coffee’, but it really was the other way around. Coffee was great by the way. The owner is a retired couple, the woman from Guilin, the man from Taiwan, who retired here. The lady told us her successstory in a typical Chinese way (we now have so many houses, so many coffee shops and a car), but I enjoyed it. She was very proud that only foreigners come to her café. I did not point out to her that that may be due to the Western prices (EUR 2-3 for a coffee – OK, including a (Western) breakfast). Gourmets also has a branch in Yangshuo, where we will be heading on Wednesday.

One thing I do not like about Chinese hotels is the fact that the “Do not disturb” sign is often totally ignored. You put the “Do not disturb” light on or put the card on the door, but the cleaning lady will walk into your room anyway in the morning. It happened to me several times in the past already (but, to be fair, also once in a 5-star hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia), and this morning it happened to us again. Luckily the cleaning lady first rang the doorbell. Trying to explain that we put on the light because we do not want to be sleep a bit longer does not help, she only said “I am sorry” and moved on to ring the bell of our neighbours (I could not see if they also had their sign on).

After a flight of over just two hours from Shanghai our plane landed in Guilin, the former capital of Guangxi province. The airport is (like most airports in China) located about 30 kilometers out of the city, so we took a taxi to our hotel. All taxi’s are metered, which spares you the hassle of negotiating a price. The young driver immediately tried to strike up a conversation, and within a few minutes the conversation turned to a sales pitch for cheaper tickets for boats and shows that he could arrange. Bad luck for the driver, because I never buy anything in China without checking prices at more than one other location first. Especially not when I am not even sure what I want to do during my vacation.

The hotel we stayed in, the Guilin Bravo Hotel, was a typical 4-star Chinese hotel. A bit older already, with staff that did not speak much English, but good enough for me. There are a couple of other good hotels here (including even a Sheraton, right on the river), but none of those has an outside pool. One of the things I like to do during a holiday is spend at least a few hours with a good book at the pool, so that was the key selling point for this hotel.

At night we walked to the river and has some Guilin food in a local restaurant (two meals including beer, soft drinks and tea for less than USD 3). Very tasty, and more spicy than I has expected. Note to self, when back in Shanghai find a good Guangxi food restaurant. The meal was followed by a foot and leg massage in the parlour upstairs of the restaurant. My legs were a bit sore from an extended run in the hills the day before, and this was exactly what I needed. The masseuse gave my legs a ginger treatment: she prepared some muddy-looking ginger paste that she put all over my lower legs, and put hot towels over them. First I did not feel much (but I smelled the ginger!), but soon it got warmer and warmer. After about 20 minutes I asked her to take if off, because I felt my legs were on fire. My soreness was gone though.

After the massage we walked along the river and decided to take a river cruise. At a small shop on a street corner I bough two beers for during the 100-minute boat ride, because I expected they would not sell beer on board (which turned out to be correct). The cruise, called “Water System in Guilin” in English and “Two rivers, four lakes” in Chinese was amazing. At first I was not too impressed, because the 20-person boat also had a tour guide who decided to use a megaphone to explain all the things we were seeing. But once we went off the main river into the canals of the city the outdoor deck was opened where I did not hear her, and had a much better view.

Guilin started this cruise in 2002, and it seems a winner among Chinese tour groups. I did not see a foreigner on any of the boats, although there are quite a lot of them here on their way to Yangshuo. Maybe the English name “Water System of Guilin” should be changed? I loved the cruise, especially the part over the canals and lakes of Guilin city. Beautiful pagoda’s and classical Chinese structures (surely rebuild, but that does not matter too much), and everything very nicely lighted. It was not cheap: at RMB 150 per person it was equal to the price of 10 dinners in local restaurants, but well worth it.

… we got married today (pictures!). On 9-9 we did the registration, and on the 10th we had a big party. Time flies, but my wife and I look back at a very nice first year of our marriage. An exciting year, that started off with a honeymoon in the Philippines, and later included trips to among others Hong Kong, France, Italy and Holland. Workwise it was an extremely busy year for both of us, but it was also quite succesful. A year ago Spill Group Asia did not even exist yet, now it’s a fast-growing company with some great gaming sites and we even have our own game development team. Toodou received two rounds of funding during the past year, and was voted one of the Red Herring Asia 100 companies. Gary has managed to grow the company to over 40 staff. And now Qi also spends a lot of time there building Finance and HR. Let’s see what the next year will bring us, I plan to make it even more successful – both businesswise and privately.

To start it off, Qi and I decided to have a “second honeymoon” during the next week, to relax a bit and spend a lot of time together. I try not to be online too much, therefore expect some lighter posting over the next couple of days.

Today we went live with several new functions for our Chinese flagship site game.com.cn. We decided to add some interactive features to the gaming site, and more will follow soon. One feature we added is a rating system for games. If a user is logged in, he/she can give a game a rating of between one and five stars. Based on this we calculate which games are the highest rated games on our site, and we can publish a ranking.

Another feature is that you can leave comments about the game (they can be seen right below the game). For example, you can tell other users some tricks that you found out about or whether you like the game (or not). You can even upload screen shots of your high score, so others can try to beat that.

The site also includes a BBS (forum), where users can discuss about all kinds of gaming related topics. Several threads were already started this morning.

But most important is probably the points system that we introduced. At this point you can get points by among others logging in and registering, by providing more information about yourself, by inviting friends to the site, and by rating and commenting on games. For the BBS you get points for posts that you make. In order to encourage people to participate in discussions we give away nice prices to users with the highest scores during one week or one month.

If you can read Chinese, give it a try. We tested the system for a week already, but there may still be some bugs. One known bug is that the site has some problems with Firefox and Safari, but we are working on that. Please let us know if you find any other bugs (I might give you some bonus points :-). Happy gaming!

What do you expect when visiting a gaming company? A silent office with white walls? No, I feel that does not work in this industry. Spill Group Asia’s office is therefore quite lively with among others a recreation room where you can play a game or watch a DVD. And now we also have some great graffiti on some of our walls!

Thirty years ago the Rugby 7’s started in Hong Kong, and became a huge success there almost overnight. In its first edition already teams from 7 countries competeted against each other, and this year’s event had 24 participating countries and 40,000 spectators. The event is so big now that hotels in Hong Kong raise their prices during the Sevens, and it’s very difficult to find a room during the weekend of the event.

Last year, Shanghai also started organizing its own 7’s. And this weekend the second edition of what is officially called the Guiness Shanghai International Rugby 7’s will take place. The event is much smaller than the HK version, with 15 teams competing; most of them from China, including one from the People’s Liberation Army. The tournament will take place this Saturday from 9 AM – 5 PM, and Sunday from 10 AM – 4 PM, at the Shanghai Rugby Football Club on Biyun Road in Jinqiao.

In order to attract more people, the entrance is free for Chinese but not for foreigners (they pay RMB 30). A bit strange in my opinion: although RMB 30 is probably less than a beer at the event, principally I feel it’s not right to use different pricing for foreigners and Chinese. Try to do it the other way around, free for foreigners and an entrance fee for Chinese. The whole of China would fall over you (the Chinabounder effect I would call it now 🙂

But segregated prices aside, I hope the event will be a big success and that it will grow into HK-like proportions in the following years. For this weekend 1500 supporters are expected to drink beer and cheer for the teams, if they manage to attract that amount of people I think they are on the right track. Enjoy the games!