This morning I participated in the BMO Vancouver Marathon, my first race since arriving in Canada. Because I did not want to train for a full marathon I just did the half marathon (21.1 km), a distance that is doable without specific training if you are in decent shape and run regularly.

It was a warm day in Vancouver, with clear blue skies and temperatures up to 25 Celsius, so I was happy that the race started at 7 AM already. My dad drove me to the start line (he did not join today) where we had a drink together, and then drove to the finish line in downtown Vancouver.

At the start line I was assigned a place in the first start corral and because I was early I was at the front of all the runners. The atmosphere was very relaxed, very different from the races in China where I participated over the past years. Nobody was pushing or trying to get to the front, and people were talking with each other and having fun. The start was supposed to start at 7, but was postponed because there were problems with the course (no idea what happened, they didn’t announce it). People didn’t mind too much it seemed, and certainly nobody complained.

After the obligatory speeches, the Canadian National Anthem and a minute of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon attacks, people thought we would start, but the course was still not ready. A short warming up session was organized and for some reason the elite athletes thought that the race would start right after that. So they started running, followed by many other runners but within 10-15 seconds everybody was stopped and had to go back into the corral. I had never seen that before!

A few minutes later was the official start and off we went. Because I was in the first (=fastest) corral I started off quite quickly, especially because the course was mainly downward sloping for the first 2-3 km. At 5 km I noticed that my time was about 20 minutes, which is too fast for me for a longer race, so I slowed down a bit. That was a good thing, because soon we hit downtown with a couple of uphill climbs. Quite heavy, especially if you know you still have 2/3rd of the race to go…

Because of the constant ups and downs in the course I did not really get into a running rhythm. Normally during a long race you run at one pace, but here you have to slow down on the uphills and accelerate on the downhills. I found it very tiring and the further I got into the race the more difficult I found the run. When we entered Stanley Park I thought we would mainly have a flat course from there, but the opposite was true: we did not run on the flat seawalk, but on the normal road that had some serious hills in it. I slowed down a lot over the last 5-6 km, I went from 4:30 min/km to almost 5 min/km.

But luckily we were almost there and after Stanley Park we only had about 1.5 km to go. Too bad that the last kilometer was uphill sloping as well: you could see the finish line in the distance, but you had to run slightly uphill to get there. But of course I made it and my time of 1:36:58 (gross time, net time is probably 10-20 seconds better) was not too bad considering the difficulty of the course.

My dad had managed to get behind the finish line (he convinced a race official that he should let him in!) and took a picture when I crossed the finish line. I was exhausted and immediately had some water, some coconut juice and a banana. I sat down for a few minutes and quickly recuperated. I noticed that my upper leg muscles were quite painful because of all the hills, another sign that this race was much harder than other half marathons that I ran over the past years.

All in all it was a difficult race, but also a very nice one. Friendly staff and organizers, a relaxed atmosphere before and during the race (with several bands playing along the route for example), and beautiful scenery along the course. I’ll be back next year, either for the half or the full marathon, but I’ll make sure I’ll do some longer and faster training runs with lots of hills in them!

 

One big thing that changed since I moved to Canada, is that I have a lot less time for reading news and writing blog posts. In China I used to stop doing emails and calls around 11 or 12 at night, have a glass of wine and start reading my RSS feeds or write a blog post. But in Canada I need to get up much earlier to get Scott ready for school (no nannies here!), so instead of going to bed at 1 or 2 AM I am normally in bed by midnight already. That means I need to rearrange my time schedule a bit if I want to write a blog post.

I have at least 5 topics that I planned to write about, but it seems I can’t find the time to do so. I just realize I did not post anything in the past 2 weeks… In China there was always time late at night or while driving to work, but now I will probably need to make time for it: either spending less time with the family, going to bed later or getting up earlier, or spending 30-45 minutes during lunch to write a post. Not sure yet what’s the best solution, but I want to keep writing this blog so I will find a way.

As for reading news, I deleted a lot of my news feeds and try to find good curated news sites to keep up with what’s happening in China and the rest of the world. It’s a slow process and it’s sometimes hard to delete a feed that I have been following for years (I now put them in a ‘read on the weekend’ folder, that I scan a few times during the week as well). Also finding good news sources for Vancouver proved harder than I thought, feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions.

I am still not watching any TV, despite having hundreds of cable TV channels, so at least I am not wasting time on that. When I just got our TVs installed I spent some time zapping through all the channels, but I quickly realized it’s a major time sink so I avoid turning it on. I could probably save about $100 per month by canceling my cable subscription, I should look into that. I do watch some video on demand late at night (especially through Netflix), so I don’t miss the cheap Shanghai DVDs yet!

Vancouver this afternoon

I signed up for the Vancouver half marathon that will take place in 4 weeks. I did not specifically train for it yet, because normally my shape should be good enough to run a half marathon. But just to make sure I decided to try a longer run this afternoon. The weather was grey with a bit of rain, perfect for a run!

I drove to Park Royal, parked my car next to the Ambleside hockey fields and started my run through the Ambleside Park, over the Capilano River and on to the Lions Gate Bridge. There was a huge traffic jam on the bridge and just when I entered the sidewalk of the bridge I heard the sirens of fire engines and an ambulance. I then realized that the traffic had come to a complete standstill and that there was no traffic coming from the other side anymore.

Accident on the Lions Gate Bridge

I continued my run up the bridge (which seems to be much longer and higher when you run up than when you drive!) and almost at the top I saw that there was a 4 car pile-up. Especially the last car was in pretty bad shape, all airbags were deployed and a child seat had broken lose and was hanging half over the front seat. I hoped there had been no baby in there… There was  nobody in that car anymore (it seemed the person(s) were in the ambulance) and I decided to continue my run.

Stanley Park seawall

At Stanley Park I left the bridge and did a run around the island. First over some trails (very wide, more suitable for a leisurely stroll than for a trail run) and then from Third Beach over the seawall all around the island. Because of the grey weather is was not so busy and I enjoyed the sights over the water. I still feel very lucky to live in this beautiful city!

Third Beach in Stanley Park – just before the sun started shining

On the way back I ran a trail along Beaver Lake and then took the Lions Gate Bridge back to my car. The total distance was 17.5 km and it took me 1 hour 42 minutes (incl. a few stops to enjoy the sights and to take pictures). When I checked my GPS I noted that I had climbed in total 650 meters during the run. The Vancouver Half Marathon has hardly any climbs in it (it actually starts at 100 meter altitude and ends at sea level), so that will probably be easier than today’s run. I am ready for it!

Typical Stanley Park trail – wide and well maintained, not for real trail running

 

I was featured in this month’s edition of KLM’s in-flight magazine Holland Herald. I had seen the article in my Facebook timeline already but had not seen the magazine itself.

My dad flew to Vancouver today to help with the arrival of our household goods container and gave me a copy. Or actually 3 copies, the biz class was half empty on today’s flight so he took 2 more for me. I probably won’t fly KLM this month, so it’s nice to have the original magazine. I have been reading the Holland Herald for years on my KLM flights and I’m honored that they contacted me to for an article – especially considering the fact that I have been quite critical of them in the past (just do a search on this blog).

The interview was done a couple of months ago already and I don’t really remember it anymore. But I do remember the photo shoot: the picture was taken on what was likely the coldest day of the year in Shanghai. I was literally freezing during the shoot on the Bund: it was very windy (you can probably  see that from my hair) and with the windchill factor it was far below zero. I was glad it was over so I could warm up with a hot coffee in my office!

Things never go exactly as planned when you do an international move, and our latest one is a good example of that. The Chinese moving company had told us that they had reserved space on a vessel that would leave Shanghai on March 2 and would arrive about 2 weeks later in Vancouver (our goods were packed and custom cleared 4 days before the shipment date already). But when we checked on March 5 it turned out that for some reason the container had not been loaded. However, the moving company told us that they would try to put the container on a boat to Vancouver on March 9.

So we waited until March 9, but did not receive a confirmation that the container had left China. After a call to our moving company we heard that some administrative documents were missing so the container again had not been loaded. Now I was getting a bit worried. Things sometimes go wrong with containers, and when it’s a container with all your personal possessions and you are already on the other side of the world you prefer to hear something different.

But what can you do? Fly back to sort it out yourself? That might help but it’s not guaranteed, so it’s more a last resort if nothing else works. At least the moving company was now focusing on the case and indeed a few days later we received the message that our container had been loaded on the Ever Uberty, a Singaporean cargo ship en route to Vancouver. I immediately started following the ship on MarineTraffic.com and saw that it made good progress in the direction of North America. Our Canadian company told us that the vessel would arrive in Vancouver on March 29 and they sent me the confirmation that it had arrived on the 29th. So when I checked the ship’s status last Friday I was very surprised that the ship had sailed to Tacoma (close to Seattle in the US) instead of to Vancouver…

Memories of a similar experience with a container in the early 1980s came to mind, when I moved with my parents and sister from The Netherlands to Curacao (an island in the Caribbean), and for some reason our container ended up in New York. We had to live in a hotel for 3 months until everything had been sorted out…

Anyway, because of Good Friday the moving company was not working, so I could not check with them and would have to wait until Monday. This afternoon I checked MarineTraffic again, and guess what? The Ever Uberty had left Tacoma this morning at 2:33 AM and arrived in Vancouver about 10 hours later! Very happy to see that, so I don’t need to bother the moving company – although I will certainly ask them why they gave me the wrong info.

Now we have to handle the custom clearance in Canada, which should take a couple of days and then the moving company will bring the big container to our home. We’re looking forward to finally getting all our goods and to be able to decorate our new house.

Time flies, we are almost one month in Vancouver already, tomorrow it’s exactly 4 weeks since we left China. Life has been busy, but not just with work. Lots of things had to be arranged for our new house and we also did quite some sightseeing already. Just a couple of pictures from the past 4 weeks with some short comments, to give you an idea of what we are up to here.

Trail running in Vancouver is amazing, the forests are beautiful with hundreds of kilometers of well-maintained trails. I run here regularly, this trail is about 15 minutes running from our house.

The only thing I am worried about while running is wild life. There are quite some bears around, but I was told by a fellow runner that the bears are generally fairly harmless. Just don’t make sudden moves, don’t look them in the eye, and try to move away from the bear. I don’t look forward to my first encounter.

There is still quite some snow on the mountains, so we do winter sports regularly. The first thing we tried was snowshoeing, a  nice way to hike in the snow. I also did some downhill skiing already and went cross-country skiing.

Hollyburn mountain has some good snowshoe and cross-country trails, just 20 minutes from our house. It’s amazing how quickly the environment can change. One moment you are having a coffee in the sun in your garden and half an hour later you are in the woods surrounded by huge masses of snow.

View from my new office at CrossPacific Capital in Vancouver, the office is located in the middle of Gastown, the entertainment district.

Beach in Kitsilano, with view of Vancouver’s North Shore. In summer it will be a bit more busy here!

Heavy snow while driving up to Hollyburn and Cypress Mountain. If it rains in town it normally snows on top of the mountains.

Having a drink while watching the sunset. After years of only seeing Shanghai’s urban jungle I still enjoy every time I see the sunset here. That may be different in  6 months, not sure.

Elaine is proud of her season pass for Cypress Mountain, but…

… she does not like skiing very much yet!

Scott’s first time on skis, he was very excited. We’ll put him in a ski class in December this year.

High up on Cypress Mountain, with a view of the ocean and Bowen Island in the back

Horseshoe Bay as seen from the ski slopes of Cypress Mountain

Scott watching a big ship passing under the Lions Gate Bridge

View over Gastown from Notey.com’s rooftop terrace – and with a view of the XPCP office.

With the kids in Stanley Park after a visit to the Vancouver aquarium

Scott climbing the logs at Dundarave Beach

Elaine on the playground at Dundarave Beach

After I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago on this blog about why I had decided to move from Shanghai to Vancouver, a CNN journalist contacted me and asked if I wanted to write an article for CNN.com about the reasons why I wanted to leave.

I did not mind and the article was published today. Especially on Twitter quite some people are talking about it, mostly positive but some people also question why I needed to write this. Last year there were some ‘famous’ farewell China posts (among others this one from Mark Kitto), I guess people compare my piece to those ones and don’t like to see more of them.

I hope the message came across that I still think quite positive about China and believe in its future, but that I just don’t think it’s the right place to live right now with a family when you have the choice to live somewhere else.

On Thursday and Friday I was in San Francisco for some meetings and to give a speech. I flew over early on Thursday morning, and because there were hardly any clouds between Vancouver and San Francisco I had a great view of the whole West coast. The approach to SFO was interesting as well, because the pilot took the touristic route and we had a nice view of the whole city from the sky.

While landing at SFO I noticed that another plane was flying right next to us at the exact same altitude. I guess it probably happens regularly at airports with parallel landing strips, but I don’t think I have ever seen it before so I took a few pictures. We literally landed at the same moment.

The trip itself was quite good, but actually a bit too short. I am trying to travel a lot less (which is working well so far), so I only spent one night in the US and was back in Canada on Friday evening. I think it was also my first time in San Francisco without a jet lag, it feels very different when you arrive somewhere after 2 hours instead of after a 12 hour flight.

The Westin in Palo Alto, decent but too expensive for what they offer (rooms are quite old)

My talk during a dinner organized by Silicon Valley Bank and the Asia Society went well, I focused on why foreign companies so often fail in China. I did not write out the speech or prepare any slides (I just used some key words on a piece of paper), so I can’t post it on my blog, but I may write a post about this in the near future.

One of the points I talked about is the difference in business ethics between Chinese companies and foreign companies. In my opinion this is an important reason why it’s hard to compete in China for non-Chinese businesses. Because the Chinese consul in San Francisco was also in the audience plus several high level Chinese business men, I was not sure whether I should bring it up, but I decided to talk about it anyway. Nobody blinked and there were no questions about it, so I guess I was overcautious.

I among others visited Lending Club headquarters in San Francisco, a great company!

After just a few weeks in Canada I realize that it’s a very different place than Silicon Valley. Vancouver feels much more laid back and you can even see it in the driving style: in Vancouver everybody lets you in if you need to change lanes, but in Palo Alto that’s not the case. Small things that say a lot about the difference in culture! I still like San Francisco a lot though and I am glad it’s so much closer to home now.