Archive for February, 2010

Shanghai Concert Hall

Posted under China on Sunday, 28 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
Attended a tribute to Beethoven in the shanghai concert hall with Pawel yesterday. I was there for two reasons: to hear the music and to see the concert hall from the inside. The western style building looks amazing from the outside. The music was good, and I was surprised with the mixed...

Who needs a music collection anyway?

Posted under Internet, New Media, thoughts on Monday, 22 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
I obtained an average music collection in the past, working at vinyl, cd store's and later a music studio to fulfill my musical needs. But the days of music collections are counted, music needs to be ad-hoc; fitting to the exact moment. 2004 was a tipping point, as online music recommendation...

For Tiroler ski, Muju Korea is Austria’s top export project

Posted under Entrepreneurship, Korea, Netherlands, travel on Saturday, 20 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
Last week we spent some time at Muju (무주) Ski resort in S-Korea. An Average area, with 25km of beginner and advanced ski slopes - aimed to host the 2010 winter Olympics, including four ski jump's, fun park and half pipe. But that wasn't what struck me most. It was the export of culture in this...

Korean Sausages Work Well as iPhone Stylus [Video]

Posted under Korea, asides on Tuesday, 16 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
Phones with Multitouch displays, like iPhone and Nexus one, require gestures with fingers. Most strongly remaked by Steve Jobs, as the 'iPhone would be the end of the stylus'. He did not realize that Chinese characters are actually writen at much faster phase with a pen-like stylus. Steve, unlike...

[Video] Chinese new year, streets of Shanghai

Posted under China on Sunday, 14 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
Chinese New Year's, something to look forward to, but also something to fear. As Chinese New Year's is the biggest holiday of the year in China, it's hard for a foreigner to get into the same spirit. After all, christmas and New Years are far behind us already. It's kind of fun to spectate the...

Beer in China

Posted under asides on Saturday, 13 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
China has been brewing beer-like drinks for over 9000 years, usually made with rice, honey and grapejuice, but the alcoholic beverage lost popularity during the Han dynasty. It were the Russians that made beer popular again, when they setup a brewery in the country during the 19th century. Today...

Expensive cars rotting away in a Shanghai Police depot

Posted under China on Thursday, 11 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
These cars are obviously being put to good use. Close to Xinzha road Shanghai, there is a police depot filled with (confiscated?) cars. Whilst the particular car in the picture doesn't fit my taste, it should be quite an expensive car, but it has been there for months (obviously) and is covered by...

Illegal Chinese medicine

Posted under China, travel on Wednesday, 10 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
When I was walking to work this morning, I spotted some items being sold on street by a merchant. When I had a look, I noticed they were Chinese medicine. I'm not afraid to take legal Chinese medicine, perhaps to cure a sport injury or fight an upcoming fever, but these items are quite something...

Weekly groceries at a Chinese market place

Posted under China on Sunday, 7 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
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...

Spilgames New Year party

Posted under China on Saturday, 6 February 2010 by admin
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...

Shopgirl Shanghai

Posted under asides on Friday, 5 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
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 by Joop Dorresteijn
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...

Holding the new South Korean 50.000 KRW bank-note

Posted under asides on Thursday, 4 February 2010 by Joop Dorresteijn
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...

Google ad in the metro

Posted under asides on Wednesday, 3 February 2010 by admin
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...

Sushi

Posted under asides on Tuesday, 2 February 2010 by admin
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 by Joop Dorresteijn
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...