Dunkin’ Donuts was supposed to open today in Shanghai, so after lunch I decided to drop by at their store. But when I got there it turned out that the store was still not open, despite the fact that last Sunday their employees told me it would open today.

I went into the store and talked to two of their managers who were on site. They told me that it would take ‘maybe 3 weeks’ before they would open. They did not explain why. The store seemed ready to go to me, the only thing still missing were the donuts and coffee.

Dunkin’ Donuts should have opened in the spring already, but that was postponed until this week. And now the opening was postponed even further. Kind of strange. Maybe they use imported machines that are stuck in customs? Or maybe they did not get their license yet? Nobobody knows, but I am sure they will eventually open.

The good news is that the managers also told me that 3 more stores will open before the end of the year, and next year another 5 will open their doors. I hope for them that they will manage to open those stores on time.

It took about 6 months longer than originally planned, but Dunkin’ Donuts will open its first store in Shanghai this week! The location: on Fuzhou Lu close to Hubei Lu, a five minute walk from People’s Square.

Yesterday I went over to take a look at the store and they almost finished their decoration. The store had a sign saying that it was not open yet, but because I could see fresh donuts on their shelves already and there were a lot of staff walking around in Dunkin’ Donuts outfits, I decided to walk in anyway. It turned out that the new staff were having a training and the donuts were there for that purpose. I asked if I could buy a donut and they said that was fine. There were no prices yet so I asked about them, but they told me I would get my donut for free! Well, that’s a nice service.

I was not allowed to take pictures inside (do I look like a spy or so?), but the store is very similar to a regular Dunkin’ Donuts store. The main difference is that the donut names were all in Chinese, there was not even an English description (yet). So if you don’t know your Chinese characters you’ll have to guess what’s inside.

Dunkin’ Donuts used to have stores in Beijing when I just started living there around the turn of the century, but they closed down soon after that. Likely because China was not ready for this product yet, but things have changed a lot over the past years. Looking at the success of Mr. Donut in Shanghai I am quite sure Dunkin’ can be a big hit as well. The location is not the best one, but I assume they want to start with a lower cost place before moving in full scale (more shops will likely open soon).

If you’re close to People’s Square, give Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and donuts a try. The store will officially open on Friday, October 31.

On Saturday I got up very early to particpate in a 30 km mountain trailrunning race. My driver picked me up at 4:50 AM and we drove over to Hangzhou in less than 2 hours. I had my breakfast in the car and then managed to sleep for another hour or so. The start and finish of the race was next to the Hangzhou stadium, and at 7 AM it was already quite busy there. I picked up my start number (no. 23) and prepared my running clothes. Despite the sudden cool temperatures (only about 15 degrees early in the morning) and a bit of rain, I decided to wear a short sleeve shirt.

Before the race I talked to some other runners, and I met Myckel Bodt for the first time. Myckel is an experienced trail runner (he among others did the 100 km Sunrise to Sunset in Mongolia earlier this year) and he is behind Happy2Run.com, a website for runners in China. He was actually the one who first told me about the Hangzhou race (thanks for the tip Myckel). About 200-300 people particpated in the 30 km race, including several relay teams. After the start I ran and talked with Myckel for the first 1.5 km until we hit the first mountain. We had to climb 700 steps up to the top, which was a nice warm up for the rest of the race. I had decided to take it easy today (for me the race was a training for the 100 km trailwalker in less than 2 weeks) and let Myckel run his own pace up.

After the first hill the trail was still quite easy, with lots of stones for grip and broad enough to pass other runners. But after a couple of kilometers the trail suddenly became narrow and quite steep. At a certain point I even had to use my hand and feet to climb up and (more difficult) to go down. Running was difficult because of the trail, and I also realized I could not get into a steady speed because there was hardly any flat part, it was either up or down. The scenery was fantastic though, running in wooded areas and and running through tea plantation on mountain slopes. Too bad the weather was not very good, so you normally could not see more than a couple of hundred meters.

After about 10 km it started to rain harder and it got colder (probably because of being higher up in the hills). I thought for a second about wearing a coat, but decided not to do it because then I would need to stop for a minute. Looking back I probably should have put the coat on, because I got quite cold and wet over the next 20 km. Another mistake that I made is that I did not eat enough during the race. I knew I had to eat, but my body just did not want the food. It’s hard to explain, but you have to force yourself to eat during such a race. You don’t feel hungry despite burning thousands of calories and if you try to eat it’s hard to swallow. Eventually I managed one pack of energy gel, which is the easiest food to take while running. However, I drank a lot during the race, in total about 4 liters of sports drink and water.

Halfway the race a group of 3 runners passed me and I managed to stay with them. They had a nice speed and it felt good to just run their pace. Going down a slippery slope one of the runners fell and could not manage to pick up the speed anymore, so it was just the three of us. The runner up front had a lot of friends on the route cheering for him, even at unusual places such as the middle of the woods. I found it a bit awkward bit did not think much of it. Another awkward thing was that people took a lot of pictures of us running, when I ran alone not many people took a picture of me.

After running with them for an hour we passed a water station where the guy up front took a bottle but let it slip out of his hands after about 100 meters. Then one of the spectators ran back, got him a new bottle and ran along with us to give it to him. When later on a girl tried to give the runner a small present during the run (he of course could not take it) I suddenly realized this guy must be famous, that was why he had so many friends and why so many people took pictures of us! I still have no idea who he is actually, we did not talk during the race and after I had a quick stop to eat my power gel I did not catch up with them anymore.

Everything went quite easy until about 22 kilometers. Then I suddenly got cold and tired, before that I just ran without really feeling the pain. But while going up the last mountain before West Lake I had a hard time. I was completely on my own in the woods, I did not see or hear anybody ahead or behind me, and I hoped I did not miss the trail somewhere (I did not luckily). After reaching the top and starting to run down my muscles hurt terribly, each step was like hitting my legs and knees with a piece of wood. I tried to focus on the beautiful nature, but it was not easy.

Luckily after about 15 minutes I reached West Lake and ran over the dike to the finish. At least that’s what I thought: it turned out that there was still one long, steep climb plus downhill between West Lake and the finish line… Every muscle in my body was hurting and my mind told me to stop this madness, but of course I went on. Upon reaching the top of the hill and getting my last stamp I could see the stadium already and I felt better. I finished in 4 hours 28 minutes, about the time that I had expected to finish.

Looking back I am not very satisfied. The time was OK, but I felt worse than I had expected. Partly because of the relatively cold weather, partly because of not eating enough, but also partly because I am not in good enough shape. I did not do enough runs in the mountains. It’s a bit worrying with the 100K Trailwalker coming up on November 9. That’s more than 3 times as far and the terrain is similar.

If a 30K mountain run is already quite difficult for my body, how will I react after 60 or 80 km? I don’t know, but that’s also why I participate in the Trailwalker. I want to know where my physical limits are. Over the next 2 weeks I cannot improve my shape anymore, so I have to do it with my current physical condition. I am not sure if I am really ready for a 100 kilometer race, but I will go for it. The Hangzhou race was a good training and at least I was once again reminded to eat and drink enough during the race.

My weekends are never boring, there are always lots of things to do or events to attend. This weekend for example started off early with a cocktail reception for the Dutch Design Exhibition. Spil Games was one of the sponsors/exhibitors so I went to reception, which started at 4 PM already. A bit too early for my liking because we normally work until 6:30 or 7 PM (also on Friday), but I guess they copied the Dutch habit of going home early on Friday :-).

I walked around the Dutch Design exhibition area, had some mineral water (I stopped drinking alcohol completely because of the upcoming 100 km Trailwalker race), talked to a lot of people, listened to some of the speeches and then went home. On the way home I bought a small TV for my gym, so I could finally watch movies while running long distances on the treadmill.

At home I installed the TV and connected it to an old DVD player and it worked fine. To test it I did a 30-minute work-out, which went quite well considering the fact that I had already done a 1-hour run in the morning. Afterward I played with Scott until my wife came home from work, we had dinner together and then I read magazines and newspapers until I could not open my eyes anymore.
Saturday morning we got up early because Scott’s hair dresser came to our house. He comes regularly and when he was younger Scott just slept through most of his hair cut. But now that he is a bit older he started to have a mind of his own and was not happy at all with someone trying to cut his hair. He got very upset, crying, screaming and kicking his feet in anger. Our nanny had a hard time to keep his head still. I felt bad for him, but what can you do? The good thing was that right after Mr. Hairdresser left Scott fell asleep (he was exhausted) and after he woke up an hour later he seemed to have forgotten all about what had happened.

Because the weather was nice I decided to go for a run in the early afternoon. I first ran to the new metro line 9, which is only a 10-minute run from my house, and from there took the metro to Sheshan. I could have driven there myself or taken a taxi, but the metro is much faster. I got off one stop before Sheshan and ran from there to the hill. I started with a one-hour run in the countryside around the hill and was surprised to see how many new compounds are being built there. Luckily the roads were not very busy and it was a pleasant run. It was still quite warm though (about 28 degrees) so I was glad I took enough sports drink and water with me in my backpack. After the first hour I ran up and down the 100 meter high hill a couple of times and then did some more jogging around Sheshan. After 3 hours I took the metro back, a nice work-out for a Saturday afternoon and a good training for the 100K race. Not as good as off-road mountain training in Hong Kong, but a good substitute.

Saturday night I went to the JZ Club, because I had heard that jazz singer Laura Fygi would do a surprise performance with Rolf Becker’s JZ Big Band. As usual, the jazz club was completely full already when I arrived around 10:30 PM, but Rolf had kept a seat for me at the table next to the stage. I met a lot of people there and had a great time. Laura gave a great performance, she knows how to make a great show when she is on stage. She sang some famous songs (Fly me to the Moon for example, but this time in French) and some songs from her latest album Rendez-Vous, and the audience loved them all. Great to see her on the small stage of my favorite jazz club (Laura said it was the smallest stage she had ever been on!).

Sunday I went among others to the Formula One race on the Shanghai Circuit. I was a bit early so also watched the GP2 Asia race and the Porsche Carrera Cup, but of course the F1 was the most impressive. It was my fourth year in a row to see the F1 monsters race and it does not get boring. Too bad that the Chinese audiences are not so interested anymore. The organization changed a lot of grandstands into advertising signs for the Expo 2010 and a lot of the unsold seats were given to high school classes (that all had to leave halfway during the race). The company that had invited me got me a small video device that allowed me to watch the race on a small screen (with comments on a special headphone). You could change the camera feed yourself, for example by choosing the on-board camera of your favorite driver. Quite a cool gadget, and it made it a lot easier to follow the race.

I ended the day at Abbey Road where I met with Gary for a drink. We had not seen eachother for a few weeks because we both had been traveling and it was good to catch up. When I got back home Scott woke up, so I held him for a while and fed him a bottle before putting him to sleep again. I then followed his example and had an early night as well. Once again an eventful weekend in Shanghai!

I am a big believer in the mobile internet in China. I think that eventually the number of mobile internet users might surpass the users who go online on a computer, currently it’s 80 million mobile internet users out of 260 million who go online in total. I especially think that mobile games could be a huge market in China, because entertainment (and not information) is still the main thing that people are looking for online. Therefore we now launched our first mobile game portal in China at shouji.game.com.cn (shouji = mobile phone in Chinese).

A dedicated team worked hard on the site over the past months and I am very pleased with the result. The site is different from many other mobile gaming sites because it completely avoids China Mobile’s quasi-monopoly and its service providers. Instead of using SMS links to download the game to a phone, we use the old-fashioned way of downloading the file to a computer and then transferring it from the computer to the phone.

In the original version of the site we still used the SMS method and charged a few RMB per game, but after trying it myself I got bombarded with spam messages, which is not the best way to keep customers happy. Because we also had to give almost all the money we earned to the SP’s and China Mobile anyway, we decided to forget about this and go for a free model without the intervention of any other parties.

The site itself is quite easy to use, you can either search for a game and then check if it is available for your phone, or select your mobile phone model and then see what games are available for that type. We offer both single player and multiple player games to our users. Soon we will also start offering games with in-game items (especially for multiplayer games). As on all our Chinese sites you can rate the games and you can leave comments about the games.

Of course the website is completely in Chinese and all games are localized Chinese language mobile games, so if you cannot read Chinese you’ll have a hard time downloading and playing the games.

This morning my wife and I went to ParkwayHealth in Shanghai (the former WorldLink) and we got some very exciting news: My wife is pregnant again and the 7-week old fetus seems to be in good health!

It was a bit quicker than we expected because baby Scott is only 9 months old right now, but we are extremely happy. The estimated date of birth is May 31, 2009, so we still have a long way to go. And the fetus still has a long way to grow, today he/she is just 1.19 cm tall but already has a heartbeat of 159 beats per minute.

I’d better dust off the ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’ book tonight – although there is not much dust on there yet!

Last night I was invited to the M1NT Shanghai soft opening party with my wife (full disclosure: I am a shareholder of the club). I was still quite tired from my Japan trip because I only arrived in China in the afternoon, but we decided to go anyway. And I am glad we did, because we very much enjoyed it. The club is not completely ready yet, for example the restaurant was still an open space (should be ready for the Grand Opening in mid-November) and the roof terrace with jacuzzi will not open until Spring 2009 (this was planned like this, so there are no delays). But it looked great already. A typical club atmosphere, but one that can and will also be used for more serious functions.
It was a full house last night, despite a Shanghaiist article saying something different (even at 12:30 AM there were still lines of people outside the building who wanted to go in!). The Shanghaiist writer made some more negative comments in her post that were all quite shallow (a painting she felt was sexist, the place is too big so she lost her friends, the appetizers were not appropriate, too pretentious etc.), but I guess you can never please everyone. Luckily most of the people I met were very impressed by the whole party (and no, most had no idea that I am a shareholder).
What surprises me, however, is that nobody realizes that M1NT is so much more than just a night club. Also last night this was not clear for most of the people that I talked to and that visited M1NT for the first time. For me the main functions are more business-like, such as meeting guests in an exclusive setting for drinks or dinner. This was also not emphasized last night, but for most of the clubbing guests the business functions are probably not a main reason to become a member anyway.

I look forward to the first events at M1NT and of course the Grand Opening Party in just over a month. Last night was a big success and I look forward to spend a lot more time at M1NT over the next months. Hope to see you there!

Last week I spent 3 days in Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, and for some meetings with online gaming companies and agencies. A short trip, but absolutely worth it. Especially the Tokyo Game Show and the things I heard during the meetings gave me a lot of inspiration for opportunities that still exist in Japan, but also ideas that can be used in other countries in Asia. Japan is so close to China, but it’s a whole different world.

It already starts when you arrive at Narita where you have to take a train in order not to arrive bankrupt in Tokyo itself. Taxi’s are outrageously expensive and the airport is about 80 km from downtown Tokyo. Hotels are similarly priced, we stayed in a hotel close to Shinagawa harbour and paid something like USD 160 per night for a 8m2 room (I think it was arranged by the Dutch government, next time I’ll take a hotel closer to downtown). Prices are not as bad as during the 80’s I was told, but I was still shocked at having to pay USD 40 for a couple of beers in an average bar. Even taking the metro is an expensive affair, taking a taxi in Shanghai would be a lot cheaper for the same distance.

What I like about Tokyo is that it’s a bit like a village. There are of course some skyscrapers (but not as tall as the ones in Shanghai), but generally there are a lot of 2-3 story houses all over the city. If you walk into a side street from one of the main streets you are immediately in a quiet environment totally unlike a metropolitan city. Also traffic is pretty good, there are not many cars around, even not during rush hour. Most people take the train, probably because it is cheaper and faster: traffic lights are horrible and it can take ages to get from A to B inside the city.

The Tokyo Game Show itself was fun, and also very different from ChinaJoy (Shanghai’s Game Show, that is actually bigger than its Japanese counterpart). While in Shanghai you see lots MMO’s and other online games, they are almost completely absent at the TGS. What you see is mainly console game titles (consoles are machines like the Playstation, Wii or Xbox360) or titles for handhelds (like the Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS). Next to that a lot of mobile game titles, with most of them programmed in FlashLite. But hardly any pure online games like you see them in the rest of the world.
We saw and met with some interesting mobile virtual worlds (think social network meets games on a mobile), very interesting to see what they have achieved so far in Japan. The rest of the world is still far behind in that respect. Not illogical, considering the fact that mobile internet speeds in Japan are higher than the fastest broadband in China. People seem to use their phones for everything, from playing games to watching TV to paying for their metro fee. Some even still use them to make phone calls!

It was a very inspirational trip for me and I am glad I took the time to go the Tokyo Game Show. Last year I decided not to go, but because we will launch our first site in Japan soon I am glad I went this time. Japan is a different country from most other Asian countries, but I believe that we can be successful there as well. Time will tell whether it will work out, but I am quite optimistic.