Three days in Kyoto

Last week I was invited to speak at the Infinity Ventures Summit 2011 in Kyoto, Japan. It was an excellent conference and I learned a lot about Internet and investing in Japan. Because it is an invitation-only conference the level of participants is quite high, with lots of CEOs and founders of (mainly Japanese) Internet tech companies. The conference was held at the Westin Miyako in Kyoto, an excellent 5-star hotel close to many of Kyoto’s temple complexes.

Although I spent most of the time at the conference I managed to see a bit of Kyoto as well. It was my first trip to this city and people had told me that it would be an amazing experience. And they were right, I am very impressed with what I saw here. The city is surrounded by low mountains covered with dense forests and on the foot of these hills there are a large number of temple complexes. Also in the city itself you see a lot of shrines and temples, it is as if you are going back in time.

I arrived around 9:30 PM on the first night, so I had no idea where I was exactly. I had to work on a presentation in my hotel room, so that’s what I did at first, but around midnight I decided to go for a stroll. The city was deserted, even the coffee shops and bars had closed down for the night. I had planned to eat something at a cafe or so, but that didn’t seem possible around my hotel. Luckily I found a Lawsons where I bought a beer and some snacks. I walked around a bit longer but because the place was deserted and it was pretty cold I decided to get back to my hotel.

I got up early the next morning and watched the sunrise over the mountains from my hotel room (pure coincidence, I opened the curtains just as the sun was coming up). At 8:30 AM Infinity Ventures had invited some of the speakers and guests for a Zazen session in a temple. Not really knowing what it was I decided to join as well. With some other guests we shared a taxi to the temple, only to end up at a different temple complex! It could have been China… We didn’t realize this right away so walked around a bit and took some pictures. Luckily we had a Japanese lady in our taxi (who later turned out to be the CEO of a Japanese e-fashion company) who was able to get directions to the right temple, so with a 20 min delay we arrived at the Zen session.

Basically we had to meditate on the floor of the temple while trying not to think of anything, for 2 times 15 minutes. A priest first told us a story and explained how it worked (luckily with an English translation) and then we got started. I tried as hard as I could to sit comfortably and relax, but it was difficult. I couldn’t keep my mind from wandering off with all kinds of new ideas or things I had to work on, but I eventually managed to relax. Suddenly the priest rang a small bell and I realized where I was. Kind of a strange experience.

After 15 min we could relax our legs a bit and then the second session started. My legs were stiff and hurting and I could hardly sit anymore. During the second session you could request the priest to hit you twice with a wooden stick on your shoulders. I sort of missed the significance of that and decided not to do it. It was interesting to hear the sound of the others being hit though, it seemed like they were hit quite hard.

At the same time my body started protesting because of me sitting a long time in such a ‘strange’ position. My legs started trembling and I started sweating as if it was very hot in the room. I was relieved when the priest rang the bell and announced that the session was over. I guess I am not used to this kind of traditions, but it’s something I’d like to try again. I will train my legs a bit first though, because the next day I had serious muscle ache from sitting down in a semi lotus position for half an hour!

After the zazen session we visited another nearby temple complex with a nice view over Kyoto. I was talking to a lot of IVS participants so didn’t see a lot of the temples, but I realized how peaceful and quiet it was everywhere. I enjoyed being there in the complex, very different from the hectic daily life in Shanghai.

We then walked back to the hotel for the official start of the conference. We had an excellent lunch and then the presentations started, all with good simultaneous Japanes-English and English-Japanese translations. The China gang (Fritz Demopoulos, Richard Robinson, Gang Lu, Rekoo’s Patrick Liu and myself – we seem to meet at different conferences around the world) had their session that afternoon as well.

After our presentation and discussion I watched a couple of more sessions and then spent an hour in my hotel room to catch up on emails. That’s always the curse when you are away from the office, emails keep piling up. I normally try to spend 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours at night to answer emails when on a business trip, but it’s just not enough. Starting the day at 6 AM with 100-150 new emails is not fun, but it seems there is no way around it…

At dinner (excellent Japanese food, actually I only had great food at the conference) some of the sponsors showed off their upcoming gadgets and games. Among others the Kinect Star Wars game was on display (Richard Robinson loved it!) and we got to try out the Windows 8 table (not a bad product, but more of a laptop replacement than an iPad competitor).

After dinner we were invited for a VIP party in one of the bars of the hotel. Among others I tried out a Kyojito – not something I recommend, sake is not a good replacement in a Mojito. The wines were good though and I had some nice conversations with among others Peng Ong and KKBOX’s Chris Lin.

The next morning I could hardly get up. Not because of the drinks but because my legs were hurting so much from the Zazen session! After breakfast I watched Launch, a start-up pitch competiton for Japanese companies. I didn’t spot anything outstanding, but it was fun to look at the products and ideas (most were apps) being presented on stage. The rest of the day I spent either in sessions or in my hotel room working on emails and calls.

Around 4 pm I decided to quickly go out and see a bit more of Kyoto before it would get dark. I made a 1.5 hour walk from the hotel through some backstreets to the Heian temple and from there to the river. It was very quiet on the streets and even at the Heian complex there seemed to be just a few people.

Also along the river I hardly saw anybody. Not sure if this is because the time of year, the time of day, or if there are just not a lot of tourists in Japan anymore after the earthquake (the 3/11 event still plays a major role in conversations by the way, it was brought up several times during the conference). When it was almost completely dark I walked back to my hotel, spent some time on Facebook and Twitter and then changed for dinner.

Dinner was quite an event, because it was held in a temple close to the hotel. The temple complex was beautifully lit, it was literally amazing. I tried to capture it, but with my iPhone camera that was not easy. We made a walk through the gardens and then had drinks and dinner in two of the temple’s halls. I am not easily impressed but this dinner location really made a deep impression on me. It makes you realize that there is more than just working hard day and night.

I didn’t stay too long because I was tired after the two long days. I made another stroll through the gardens before walking back to the hotel. There I spent another hour on emails and skype, and uploaded some pictures on Flickr. Then I went to bed early instead of going for another drinking session in the bar, I felt I needed some rest.

Friday morning I started with 2 hours on email, then I had a big breakfast in the hotel (Japanese & international buffet, not bad). I took me 5 minutes to pack my hand luggage and then I took a cab to the bus station. There I took the express bus to Osaka Kansai airport and from there I took the plane back to Shanghai. I look back on 3 nice days in Kyoto, a city I should spend some more time in in the future.

Spil Games launches Uphill Rush 4 and shows off some amazing stats

Today Spil Games launches the latest edition of its Uphill Rush racing game series, and this one is better than ever. As our press release says: Uphill Rush is Spil Games’ blockbusting, stunt-racing game for teens, and today it welcomes the fourth edition in the much-loved, high-speed, smash-hit series.

To date, the Uphill Rush series has been played over 600 million (!) times, with the continuing popularity credited to the development team’s focus on ensuring the teen audience is provided with a constant adrenaline rush, whacky new worlds and endless surprises.

The Uphill Rush games have what players crave: funny, unexpected vehicles and tons of customisation options. Players can drive with a geisha outfit in a motorboat or race as a sumo wrestler on a dolphin—the options are endless.

Uphill Rush 4 retains the tried and tested formula that’s made the series a success, while introducing a host of new features such as new racers, new worlds, new outfits and new physics.

Check out the game on one of Spil Games sites, among others Uphill Rush 4 is playable on http://www.agame.com/game/uphill-rush-4.html, starting today at 10 AM CET.

Below an infographic with some of the amazing stats about this racing games series. I still remember when we made the first game in the series, I liked it (and played it a lot) but it’s hard to believe that the series has become such a huge success. Congrats to the team for designing and making these games!

Shanghai (Half) Marathon 2011

This morning I ran the Shanghai Half Marathon 2011, a race I participated in a couple of times over the past years already (incl. the full marathon once). Because I did the New York marathon less than a month ago and I took a break in training after that, I did not really think I would be able to run a good time. My aim was to have a fun race and test how good my condition was after 4 weeks without hardly any practice.

Because the start was at 7:30 I got up at 5 AM so I could have a decent breakfast more than 2 hours before the start. I have learned over the years that a big meal full of carbs (pasta) the night before a full or half marathon makes a huge difference, but that a breakfast is even more important. So I had half a liter of yoghurt with muesli and two knackebrod with jam, plus a huge mug of tea (with sugar for a change). Then my driver picked up Grace and me at 6 AM to drive us to the start at the Bund.

We could not get very close to the Bund because of traffic control, so we had to walk the last couple of blocks. It was still pretty cold at this time, so a lot of people were doing their warm up runs. However, I decided to enter the starting area the moment it opened (at 6:30) in order to get a good place to start from. Over the past years I had learned that if you don’t start at the front you will lose minutes right away and you will spend the first kilometers overtaking other people.

I managed to get a place at the very front, so I had a lot to see. As usual in China a lot of people sneaked in from the side in the last 20 minutes before the start, or they just fought their way from the back to the front. Outside China this may cause a fight, here people seem to just ignore it.

At 7:20 the professional athletes entered the starting grid and a few minutes later about 20 young guys were also let in by the security guards. At first I thought they were local top athletes or so, but they were not wearing typical top athletes running gear. After the start they took off very slowly (I passed most of them in the first kilometer, and 2 others who got away fast were walking after 10 km already) blocking other people. I assume they are probably related to some high level government officials so they don’t have to queue at the start. Typical China.

After the obligatory speeches and the Chinese national anthem the race started at exactly 7:30. I took off fast with the front runners and ran my first km in just over 4 minutes. A bit too fast, so I slowed down a little bit to a pace just below 14 km/h for the next 2 km. I still felt great, but I know the risk of starting too fast so I forced myself to run slower (not easy).

After 5 km the biggest hurdle of the race was in front of us: the Nanpu bridge. I slowed down a bit on the way up (to about 12 km/h) so my heartbeat would not go up to too much and then accelerated on the way down to 15 km/h. I still felt pretty good when we entered Pudong where we would run straight ahead for almost 8 km. Quite some people were singing, clapping and screaming “Jia You” along the road, making running even easier.

At the 10 km point Grace and my driver were cheering for me and they took some pictures. Always nice to see people you know along the course. I told them I still felt great, and that was indeed the case. The next couple of km were quite boring, especially the part over the old Expo 2010 area where most buildings had been demolished already. The Dutch pavilion was still there though. At km 14 we saw the front runners of the half marathon who were at km 19 already, cool to see them race. I gave me inspiration to run even faster.

The last couple of kilometers were a bit harder, especially my muscles were a bit painful. Not running for a few weeks comes at a price I guess. But I kept up my speed (around 13 km/h) and did not feel particularly tired. Some other people around me seemed to be having a harder time, so at the 20 km point I decided to speed up one more time.

There was still a bridge right before the finish and I managed to pass quite a few people there. Then we ran down, took a left and 200 meters ahead of us was the finish line. I looked at the clock and realized I could still finish below 1:36, so I gave all I had and managed to finish the half marathon in 1:35:53. A new personal best for me, despite the rather difficult course and not training too much. A lot faster than expected, but considering that I don’t feel very tired I might have been able to run even faster. I was #183 out of a field of 8000 half marathon runners, which I also was quite happy about.

After the finish I picked up my medal and goodie bag (pair of socks, energy drink, some cookies and a Snickers) and then went to look for Grace. I found her at the finish line and we walked around a bit until the finish of the men’s full marathon about 35 minutes later. Great to see how fast these guys can run and how skinny they are. After the first women also finished we walked back to the car and by 10:30 I was home and had even showered already.

All in all a nice race, although I did not particularly like the course. There are a lot of things that can be improved, but compared to a few years ago the organization was already much better. One important thing they have to change though: the organization was serving local herbal tea at the refreshments posts… I had no idea what it was (I assumed it was cola), so took a cup, but after one sip I threw the rest away. A terrible taste, something bitter made of raisins it seemed, but certainly not something you want to have in the middle of a race. Grace told me that at the 10 km point they ran out of water after 1 hour already, this can absolutely not happen and is actually dangerous. It’s a local race, so you can’t expect too much I suppose, but these are basic things that should not happen again next year.

Google Analytics: A different perspective on Belgium

Joop Dorresteijn, who is co-founder and CTO at unitedstyles, noticed some interesting statistics in our Google Analytics about traffic from Belgium and wrote about it on his personal blog. I repost the full article here with his permission:

Belgium is about to reach an accord to form a government after a 536 day impasse, as we could read on bloomberg today. “A cut in Belgium’s credit rating by Standard & Poor’s last week triggered the final push to end the stalemate between Dutch and French speakers that had threatened to tear the country apart.”

Whilst I follow this news and have seen some of Belgium a few times, it never so clearly showed to me how divided the country is until unitedstyles was featured in an article (click here to read) on de standaard, a Flemish tabloid sized newspaper.

At unitedstyles, and most other webshops, we use software to track where our visitors come from, in our case Google Analytics. You can see your visitors per country, but also per city. When I was just browsing around and took a peek at our Belgium traffic, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing:

I figured when the article came out, visitors would mostly come from the Flemish side, which is Dutch speaking. But besides one single dot for the French speaking part, all our visits came from the Flemish north!

Of course I hope the country will stabilize and ’L’union fait la force’ will return, just thought this was a interesting stat for others to see.

The end of cheap China

Although the book is not out yet, I already look forward to reading Shaun Rein‘s upcoming publication The End of Cheap China. Shaun is a fellow Shanghai entrepreneur as founder and MD of the China Market Research Group. Next to that he is also a well-know columnist for among others CNBC, Forbes, and BusinessWeek. Although I don’t always agree with his opinion, I enjoy reading his columns and I think this book will also be a very interested read.

In “The End of Cheap China” Shaun argues that China’s days as a low cost production center are numbered, something I believe in as well. China is changing quickly into an economy with a huge middle class that wants (and can afford) to buy foreign goods, instead of only producing them for export.

A more detailed description on the Amazon site for this book:

The End of Cheap China is a fun, riveting, must-read book not only for people doing business in China but for anyone interested in understanding the forces that are changing the world.

Many Americans know China for manufacturing cheap products, thanks largely to the country’s vast supply of low-cost workers. But China is changing, and the glut of cheap labor that has made everyday low prices possible is drying up as Chinese seek not to make iPhones, but to buy them. Shaun Rein, Founder of the China Market Research Group, puts China’s continuing transformation from producer to large-scale consumer – a process that is farther along than most economists think – under the microscope, examining eight megatrends that are catalyzing change in China and posing threats to Americans’ consumption-driven way of life.

Rein takes an engaging and informative approach to examining the extraordinary changes taking place across all levels of Chinese society, talking to everyone from Chinese billionaires and senior government officials to poor migrant workers and even prostitutes and drawing on personal stories and experiences from living in China since the 1990s as well as hard economic data. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of China’s transformation, from fast-improving Chinese companies to confident, optimistic Chinese women to the role of China’s government, and at the end breaks down key lessons for readers to take away.

The book will come out on March 27, 2012 but is now already available for pre-order at USD 12.86, an almost 50% discount on the original price. There is no ebook version (yet), I hope the publisher will make that available as well before the publication date.

Don’t try this at home

When I first saw this video I thought it was fake. But the more I think about it, the more I believe this could really happen when you have 2 young kids. Maybe I should give Scott and Elaine a big bag of flour as well and see what the result is?

The original video is here.

A business trip with a bad start and a bad ending

Sunday night around midnight I arrived home after an exhausting business trip that took me to Russia, Cyprus and Amsterdam. The start of the trip was not the best one you can have, first missing my flight and then an adventurous stay in a Moscow hotel room. I was not too happy with Moscow airport and the way they treat their customers there, but after flying back through Moscow on Sunday my dislike of the place turned to hating it.

What happened? Well, actually during the stop over most things went well. In the lounge the employees were rude and not service oriented as usual: they were sitting in the leather chairs eating and drinking the lounge food and drinks, and trying to ignore the few customers. When I turned on the light in the hallway to the toilets they screamed something to me in Russian, and when I came back they had turned the light off again. Not sure why, but I didn’t ask and just ignored them as well.

Boarding the flight was also uneventful. Everybody was trying to get on board as soon as possible, there were no boarding privileges for business class but that’s just Aeroflot I guess (in Shanghai airport while checking in they didn’t even open the biz class counters, so I just went to the front of the economy line). On board the flight attendants could not find my coat anymore upon landing, and just told me that they didn’t know where it was, instead of looking for it. So then I had to look for it myself – and I found it in between their coats in a compartment with flight attendant coats… I have to assume it was an honest mistake.

But the thing that really pissed me off about the airport and Aeroflot is when I came home and realized the lock of my suitcase was broken. When I opened it I realized someone had broken into my luggage and stolen things! Among others I am missing 2 bottles of wine that I bought in Amsterdam and a lot of Sinterklaas candy for the kids. I am not sure if other things were missing as well, but because I never put valuables in my suitcase probably nothing expensive. This sucks and makes me really angry, and of course I shared my feelings on social media.

It turns out that this is quite normal in Moscow, several of my Facebook and Twitter followers had had the same experience there. A journalist gave me the contact details of the Aeroflot CEO, so I contacted him. I also mentioned what happened to the airline itself on Twitter, but of course no reaction from either the CEO or Aeroflot (Note: Aeroflot checks Twitter, because when I said something nice about them a few days ago they immediately thanked me). The terminal where it happened (Terminal F) is only in use by Aeroflot, and I am sure they are aware of this but just don’t care. The same attitude that all the Aeroflot staff has, from the transit desk people to the lounge staff, and from the ground stewardesses during boarding to the flight attendants. Not sure whether Aeroflot is still a state-owned company, but if it’s not the staff still acts like it. Service oriented? What’s that?

This won’t be the last time I fly to Moscow because I am doing business there, but from now on I will avoid Aeroflot and Moscow as much as possible. A company and an airport like this don’t deserve my money. I prefer to pay more money and fly a different route from now on. And as for my kids, I will bring them extra candy next time I’ll be in Holland.

Occupy Amsterdam…

Last Thursday night I walked by the Occupy Amsterdam camp on the Beursplein in Amsterdam. It was very similar to the Occupy Wall Street camp that I visited 2 weeks earlier (before the people were kicked out), just a bit smaller and a bit less crowded.

I had some sympathy for the ideas of the people at Occupy Wall Street, but I totally don’t understand the occupants in Amsterdam. Holland is so completely different from the US, with an excellent social system for everyone (health care, guaranteed minimum income etc.), that I don’t understand what these people are protesting for. They don’t even know it themselves it seems, they say they just want to change the world. And how or why? To quote the site: When asked to define a simple goal that defines WHY, supporters worldwide, offen struggle to answer because, “Our dreams and expectations are too much to fit in a single ‘sound bite’ …”

It feels more like a summer camp in autumn, and if you check their website that feeling becomes even stronger. Among the most important news on the front page of their site are a wedding in the camp and several posts about a group that makes others laugh going on a tour in The Netherlands. The mission of this group (this is not joke!): In its mission team X uses a non-violent technique that requires its “victims” to be non-violent and completely give in to the moment. This creates a minute of laughter giggling and an increase of blood flow that helps to keep people warm and thus happy.

I don’t think they can make me laugh, but what did make me laugh was when I saw the banner they hung up a the entrance to the camp with the banks that made this Occupy camp possible. I wonder who was too stupid to understand that this is sarcasm, the tourists walking by or the occupants themselves?

Short trip to Cyprus

After a stop-over in Moscow that lasted 24 hours longer than planned I am now on the island of Cyprus. I had planned to be here a day longer, but luckily I could rearrange my meetings here after yesterday’s adventure. The Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Cyprus went smoothly and I was very happy that I even got my suitcase back!

Cyprus reminds me a bit of Turkey, but that’s not something you should tell the people here (Cyprus was partly occupied by Turkey in 1974 and that was never resolved, so the island is now split into two parts). It’s a very dry island, and when you land here the first thing you see is a brown landscape.

The island is located in the Eastern Mediterranean and therefore very warm with not too much rain. But today that’s different, it’s been raining off and on since I arrived.

Next to my meetings I don’t have a lot of time (just enough to check my email and quickly write this post actually), but it’s nice to be here for a few hours. Next time I will try to stay a few days longer (e.g. adding a weekend) to explore the countryside and the culture of the island.

The hotel that I chose is one of the better ones that I have stayed in in Europe, it’s the Londa in Limsassol. It’s a luxurious design boutique hotel directly on the Mediterranean, with its own small beach and a nice swimming pool. No time to try them out this time, but this is a certainly good place to stay for a holiday as well.

The only problem is that they charge for wifi, something that I hate. I thought I had seen on their website that they had free wifi and that’s why I chose this hotel over the Meridien, but I likely made a mistake. I mentioned at the front desk upon check in that I normally don’t stay in hotels with paid wifi (explaining that wifi to me is something like electricity and water, you also don’t pay separately for those things) and they generously gave me free wifi for my stay here. A very nice gesture!

The rooms are very nicely designed, with a great bed and a small balcony. There is also a beach bar and a covered terrace bar, plus a nice restaurant (where I will have a business dinner later). If only they would have free wifi I would certainly come back, now I might try another hotel next time. Or maybe I will just try to make a deal with them to include free wifi in the rate for my next stay.