Latest Posts

Weekly groceries at a Chinese market place

Posted under China on Sunday, 7 February 2010
We visit a local market weekly, based efficiently underneath a highway. You can buy everything here, from kitchen equipment to fish. We usually buy our vegetables (biological!) and eggs here. This week I decided to take some pictures. You can find these markets everywhere across China. This particular market is developing fast. In half a year, the...

Spilgames New Year party

Posted under China on Saturday, 6 February 2010
The crew of Spilgames is growing fast, this party, we had eight round tables full with people. The dinner was accompanied with speeches from management and our Sales assistant and Sound architect being masters of ceremony. There were lot's of fun games during the dinner, for instance, I had to play a scene from a movie together with the sales...

Shopgirl Shanghai

Posted under asides on Friday, 5 February 2010
Suna and I ran into Shopgirl Shanghai, Siyan (middle) yesterday. She has an interesting blog, too bad we missed her Barbie birthday party, perhaps next...

Shanghai metro getting overcrowded

Posted under asides on Thursday, 4 February 2010
Traveling by metro today and I notice that its really crowded. I was waiting at the station and saw the train coming, but got dissapointed when I noticed that there was no space to stand. First I wanted to wait a train, but the train that had arrived just wouldn't move. I decided to try a few doors until I found an area I could cram myself...

Holding the new South Korean 50.000 KRW bank-note

Posted under asides on Thursday, 4 February 2010
The first 50,000-won notes (Today worth about 30 Euros) were released in 2009. Its yellow color may be confusing with the light brownish 5,000 won note, especially since the face figures don't feature any comma nor dot : Westerners would write 50,000 (fifty thousand) where Koreans read 5,0000 (five "man" or five "ten thousand"). The project for...

Google ad in the metro

Posted under asides on Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Google decided on new 'no cencorship' approach on China a few weeks ago. While this created a lot o buzz around the brand abroad, Google has, or commenced advertising in the Shanghai city metro. In China, google represents 30% of the search engine market. The ad features their short g.cn domain, a conveniently short domain for mobile...

Sushi

Posted under asides on Tuesday, 2 February 2010
I like sushi, especially good sushi from Japan. But I also have a craving for cheap sushi, in korea I lived next to a sushi bar where every sushi was a dollar, and here in china its even less then a dollar per dish. Japanese spit on these cheap things, but I love cheap...

wk 5: Clear days in Shanghai & Chinese new year

Posted under China on Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Clear days in Shanghai looks like it's going to be a nice clear day today. This view makes me long to the city and always get's me out of bed. Shanghai experienced some smoggy days lately, reason for me to put the data from the last 10 years in a graph. Somehow, the last two days seem clearer then ever. Perhaps the factory outside Shanghai, that...

Photo’s from China – Hot in Shanghai, Cold in Beijing and Chinesepod

Posted under asides on Wednesday, 20 January 2010
What is this? I have settled on a simple experiment: I will capture various events with my mobile, but digest these photo’s to a weekly update. The frequency is important to me because I don’t want to broadcast a constant flow of single pictures. In sets however, I think they might be more meaninful to me. Hope you enjoy these snapshots! read...

Photo’s from China – Chinglish, Korean BBQ and Avatar queues

Posted under Quick posts on Tuesday, 12 January 2010
At ben jia korean bbq shanghai with @gamehero If you like Korean food, go to Ben Jia in the Gubei district. It's authentic and you can eat for a fair price too! When your full, you head out and you realize you are in China. Until you see the Karaoke bars across the street and the Korean vibe continues. Besides Chinese...

Shanghai fog levels going down?

Posted under China, thoughts on Wednesday, 6 January 2010
My Swedish friends like to do business in China, but often state to me that they would never want to live in such a dirty city like Shanghai. They remind me that Stockholm is so clean, they can fish for salmon in the rivers going through town! This is not possible in Shanghai obviously, the water is contaminated - although the thousands of fish...

Taking blogging to a new level – mobile!

Posted under Quick posts on Tuesday, 5 January 2010
New year and a new idea for the blog you are reading: I will share at least one blogpost a week with pictures taken with my mobile. Recently I've switched to a new mobile telephone giving me opportunity to walk around and share. Twitter's developers mentioned long time ago, something along the lines that there is not much chance that you will...

Buying a christmas tree in Shanghai (howto)

Posted under China, tips on Thursday, 17 December 2009
To get into the holiday spirit, we've ordered a tree from rosagallica.com. A tip from Marc. Whilst the trees are mentioned to cost about 200 RMB, a lady called Camille followed up on my order and notified me that they exclude the costs made for delivery. I've agreed on a price of 400 RMB, which is about 40 euro's, which is still about half the...

Ice Skating Madness at FlevOnIce in The Netherlands

Posted under Netherlands on Monday, 14 December 2009
I'm back in the Netherlands for a short business trip and it's very cold outside. Sadly, it's not cold enough to ice-skate on the lakes and rivers yet. Ice-skating is a favorite sport in the Netherlands. Not only are we proud of our famous ice skaters, when there's a cold winter all Dutch people will go crazy to go ice-skating. During a really...

Pictures of 2009 Shanghai marathon

Posted under asides on Sunday, 29 November 2009
In early August, Marc van der Chijs threw up a ball whether we wanted to run a half marathon in November. Shortly, a big deligation from Spilgames signed up and started exercising. Today was the day - now the Shanghai marathon is over, I'm looking back to a great event. Besides my father Johan Dorresteijn participating, also Peter Driessen came...

Five fun things to do in Seoul

Posted under Korea, tips on Sunday, 22 November 2009
I was talking to my friends about my life in Seoul. Our New Delhi cab driver suddenly became excited; he was flying to there the day after! In return, I spend the rest of the drive about the things to do in this marvelous city. He was so grateful for the info that he didn't want any money for our 15 dollar taxi ride. Since another friend is going...

In San Francisco bay area

Posted under Entrepreneurship, United States on Friday, 13 November 2009
I'm together with Silvia Man in San Francisco bay area for the week (My hotel is right in city center), I will be updating this post from time to time and share my experiences. Driving our rented Nissan from San Francisco to San Jose, we're crashing dinner parties, conferences and visiting companies. oh, jolly good fun! Let us know if you are in...

Halloween 2009

Posted under China on Sunday, 1 November 2009
Americans celebrate Halloween. I don't understand what it is about, or what one is supposed to do. Being an outsider, I was surprised to learn that the spooky American tradition is known and celebrated throughout the International community in Shanghai as well. It's bit different as: Ringing the doors of our Chinese neighbors for...

Long Shanghai summers, Ultracapacitors and picnics

Posted under China on Wednesday, 28 October 2009
A few things that come to mind regarding pollution, climate and China: I've received an email telling that Chinese smog is threatening economy and health in Hong Kong, which is a terrible thing. After living in clean, clean Sweden, I do notice the effects that smog can have. At the time of writing, it's really smoggy in Shanghai, it's depressing...

Boat trip, Leifeng Pagoda and Yakitori in Hangzhou, China

Posted under China, travel on Monday, 26 October 2009
This weekend we made a small trip of 180km out of Shanghai to see the West lake in Hangzhou China, with 6.5 million people not a small town, but due to the beautiful scenery of the lake and the hillside, it's a favorite destination for many Shanghainese. For me, it was a trip down memory lane, because I had been there for a few weeks during my...

Special visitor from Netherlands

Posted under asides on Monday, 26 October 2009
I've got a special vistior from the Netherlands over this week. Giel Talsma is a former neighbor of mine and we've known each other for over ten years. I ran into him when I was in Holland during the summer and I invited him to China, he was excited immediately. After picking him up at the Pudong airport on a early Saturday, we have had a busy...

Gathered influential writers to bring you Asian tech news

Posted under China, Entrepreneurship, Japan, Korea, Media / In The News on Wednesday, 14 October 2009
I'd like to tell you about a new blog we have launched yesterday. First, let me tell you why we went through all the effort: Personally, I have kept a close eye on developments in countries like South-Korea, Taiwan and Japan over the last years, but have start to observe that India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and Thailand are entering the world...

Here comes China

Posted under China, United States on Monday, 12 October 2009
Interesting discussion on the latest NPR planet money episode. "Here comes China"; In line with the 60th anniversary of the people's republic. The hosts, Alex Bloomberg and Adam Davidson ask their guests if China still needs the US more then the US needs China. After all, China needs US dollars to stay strong, and consumers to buy exports....

Tribute to the potato

Posted under China, travel on Saturday, 10 October 2009
When people enquire about typical Dutch cuisine, the first thing that pops to my mind is the "potato eaters" painting by Vincent Van Gogh. To me, this 'cozy setting' visualizes how Dutch peasants have been eating potato's every day for at least 400 years, in a typical Dutch way. Besides the painting, I was raised eating potato's almost every day -...

20 cent gym part 2: bench press

Posted under China, sports on Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Remember the 20 cent gym I blogged about? It was about the Chinese ‘muscle beach’:, a bunch of people assembling in a Shanghai park to work out every day. Frankly, the Chinese men pulling heavy weights while looking angry can be quite impressive (but why do they take their shirts off?), I decided to show the scene to a foreign visitor...

PRC’s 60th anniversary, funniest remarks of the day

Posted under China on Thursday, 1 October 2009
Today, almost all Chinese have a day off to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Just like most Shanghainese, we stayed indoor to watch the parade on tv. NY Times called the parade "a precision display of military bravado and a confident prediction by President Hu Jintao that “infinitely bright...

Gamers in Qiandaohu – Spilgames outing at 1000 islands

Posted under China on Thursday, 1 October 2009
Last week, the entire Spilgames Asia team assembled on a Thursday morning 7 AM in front of our office. The Chinese, Polish, American, Korean and Dutch colleagues got up early for good reason; Spilgames organized a company outing to Qiandaohu - favorite holiday destination for many Shanghainese - by bus, so we had to leave early to avoid Shanghai...

Some parents really step up role in children’s dating game

Posted under China on Thursday, 17 September 2009
While walking around Shanghai last weekend, we came across the most particular scene at the People's Park. Hundreds of elders had gathered and were having a market like situation where a few were adverting something and others were inquiring. We found out that they had eagerly gathered to exchange information about their children/grandchildren...

Shanghai Marathon 2009

Posted under China, sports on Wednesday, 16 September 2009
With the whole Seoul Hangang Marathon experience still fresh in mind, I decided to subscribe for half a marathon in Shanghai. This particular run is quite a bigger event, taking place in the heart of the city. Isn't Shanghai a terrible dirty city to run the marathon? While some might expect that this 'smoggy city', once called the 'opposite of...

The 20 cent workout in Shanghai

Posted under China, Entrepreneurship, sports on Tuesday, 15 September 2009
A 40 year old Chinese man drives his motor bike with carrier filled with barbells, dumbbells and a radio to the park outside my Shanghai compound every evening. Upon arrival, he marks an area of roughly 40 square meters and unloads the heavy weights. Shortly after, the place is packed with shirtless muscular Chinese men working out. I have seen...
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