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...

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...

Shanghai fog levels going down?

Posted under China, thoughts on Wednesday, 6 January 2010 by admin
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...

Ice Skating Madness at FlevOnIce in The Netherlands

Posted under Netherlands on Monday, 14 December 2009 by admin
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...

Pictures of 2009 Shanghai marathon

Posted under asides on Sunday, 29 November 2009 by admin
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...

Shanghai Marathon 2009

Posted under China, sports on Wednesday, 16 September 2009 by admin
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...

ING Life Korea goodbye party

Posted under Korea on Friday, 22 May 2009 by admin
Yesterday night: Friends, a barbeque and the proper amount of soju on the 24th floor of the Ramada hotel, looking over the ING building and the famous landmark of Seoul, the Namsan tower. What a nice goodbye party! Besides the ridiculous hat you guys made me wear all night, I want to thank...

MBC Marathon – the results are in!

Posted under Korea, sports, travel on Monday, 27 April 2009 by admin
Those happy faces are me and my collegues, Frank-Jan, Zdenek, Marten and Arjan from ING - just - before we started running our (half) marathon. Perhaps we were even happier when we finished - it would have been better, or at least more fair to share a before / after picture I suppose. Together...

Dutch Orange ball 2009

Posted under Korea, travel on Thursday, 23 April 2009 by admin
The highlight of the year for the Dutch community in Seoul would be the Dutch “Orange Ball”, held in the grand hyatt. It's was true Dutch evening with "oranjebitter" and a Dutch band that was flown in to Seoul for the occasion. The champagne reception. The theme of the Orange...

Holiday in Jeju

Posted under Pictures, travel on Wednesday, 8 April 2009 by admin
Woman done fishing for today   Traditional Korean seafood soup is enhanced by distinctive shellfish harvested by the famous woman divers of Jeju Island. An age-old tradition, the fisher-woman of Jeju spend long hours in the waters surrounding the island relentlessly diving again and...

North-Korea vs. South-Korea match at Mapo-gu Stadium

Posted under Korea, sports, travel on Thursday, 2 April 2009 by admin
The national football teams of North and South Korea have played a World Cup qualifier in Seoul today - which the South won by one goal to nil. Although the game was quite boring, there was a good atmosphere in the stadium, especially after Kim Chi Woo scored the first goal for South Korea. The...

In Hong Kong for the week #2

Posted under China, tips, travel on Thursday, 26 March 2009 by admin
I like this city so much that I decided to upload some more pictures to give you first hand about what I think is beautiful around here. Hope you like it!   You can go up any skyscraper in Hong Kong, (which I almost did) but you can see the city best from the Victory Peak. Simply take the...

In Hong Kong for the week

Posted under travel on Monday, 16 March 2009 by admin
After having lived outside my home country for almost 3 years, I can tell you that working abroad will always bring exciting experiences, reveal cultural challenges and –even though the rent, dishes and laundry– feel like a holiday. However, a foreigner has to comply to some basic...

Enlightment about that foggy substance in the sky

Posted under Entrepreneurship on Friday, 20 February 2009 by admin
The Korean government sends text messages to all mobile phones every once in a while. This way of informing the nation is new to me and proves to be rather effective. Sometimes it's a simple request, asking to clean your porch from snow, but today I received a warning. "Tomorrow the yellow dust...

Adidas MBC Hangang Marathon 2009

Posted under sports, travel on Friday, 6 February 2009 by admin
I haven't participated in a sport event ever since the Funda run in 2008 - a fun and fulfilling event, but I had no incentive to continue my healthy habits afterwards. I put my running shoes back on later that year, to find out that I would never reach a peak of runners satisfaction again without a...

Times of distress brings families together in South Korea

Posted under Entrepreneurship on Thursday, 5 February 2009 by admin
Hold your horses, the financial crisis actually has some positive effects too! In South Korea, criminality is on the rise - making people long back to happy times at home. This is good news because many weddings are failing here due to struggles related to work. You see, every downside has its...

Gloomy skies over Osaka

Posted under Entrepreneurship, Japan on Saturday, 3 January 2009 by admin
Originally called Ozakajō, this is one of Japan's most famous castles, it played a major role in the unification of Japan during the sixteenth century of the Azuchi-Momoyama period. Osaka Castle is situated on a plot of land roughly one kilometer square. It is built on two raised platforms of...

National exams, national precautions

Posted under Korea on Monday, 29 December 2008 by admin
Saleem writes about the measures the South Korean government have set for the national exams: "Yesterday was a holiday here b/c 3rd grade high school students took the university entrance exam all across the country. Get this – during the Korean listening and English listening portions of...

First impressions of Osaka, Japan

Posted under Japan, Pictures on Saturday, 27 December 2008 by admin
Japan: Small coke is actually a small coke Grannies play Mario Kart and are actually good at it. Where are the garbage cans? Am I supposed to hold my trash all day? Namba The luminous tubes in the picture are the number one icon of Osaka. The running man in the middle has been a...

At a Korean PC room, playing Starcraft for two days straight

Posted under Entrepreneurship on Wednesday, 10 December 2008 by admin
Koreans love online gaming, example: This is a "PC room", where one can play multiplayer computer games online. PC rooms like this are extremely popular among South-Koreans, ever since Starcraft came out in 1997. You have a room like this every block! Interesting because the computer and broadband...

The Korean Demilitarized Zone

Posted under Korea, travel on Thursday, 4 December 2008 by admin
South Korea's military says it is preparing for the possibility that North Korea may try to provoke a naval skirmish along their disputed sea border. (december 2008, voanews.com) While things look calm for an expat, South and North Korea are officially still at war, because of that military...

Three presentation tips you probably didn’t know before

Posted under thoughts, tips on Thursday, 20 November 2008 by admin
About a million presentations are going on right now, but 50% of them are unbearable! Chances are you know what sucks and what doesn’t – I'd like to share three tips that I found very useful in becoming a professional speaker, perhaps it helps you! 1. Two seconds of eye contact ...

Now available: African land for overpopulated countries

Posted under Entrepreneurship, thoughts on Wednesday, 19 November 2008 by admin
I came across a news article about a project that just dazzled me. What can a country do that has little land but a lot of mouths to feed? Right, you can import! But what do you do as a logistics company when your turnover is decreasing because commodity prices are rising? Exactly: You lease your...

5:45 AM, sunrise in Gyeonju

Posted under Korea, Pictures on Monday, 17 November 2008 by admin
The thermometer slowly declined down to zero degrees over the last week. We headed up to the roof to see the sunset in the clean frosty sky, I realized that this was not the first time we were going up for a view.   5:45 AM, sunrise in Gyeonju. We woke up early to see the sunrise in Gyonju,...

[Pictures] Han river in Seoul

Posted under Korea, Pictures on Thursday, 13 November 2008 by admin
Some pictures I took of the Han river during the last months here in Seoul. The total length of the Han River is 514 km. Although it is not a long river, the lower Han is remarkably broad for such a relatively short river. Within Seoul city limits, the river is more than 1 km wide. We visited...

A peek inside the British American Tobacco factory in Korea

Posted under Company visit, Korea on Tuesday, 11 November 2008 by admin
Korea is the 10th biggest cigarette market on the planet, not so weird because you see smokers everywhere. I visited the British American Tobacco (BAT) factory in Sacheon together with the DBCK last week. The flight to Jinju was already scheduled at 07.30 AM, took a cab at 5AM. We gained more...

Paragliding at a Korean army base

Posted under Korea, travel on Sunday, 9 November 2008 by admin
Want to join paragliding this weekend? - off course! that's a no brainer! In reality, the relaxing chair and the calm speed got me disappointed, I should have thought of bringing a good book to read. Some people manage to stay up there for a long time! As the first foreigners at this Korean army...

What do you get when you combine a cinema, pool and cheap hotel?

Posted under Korea on Friday, 7 November 2008 by admin
We visited a jjimjilbang in Busan last night; The jjimjilbang concept comes close to a bath-house, it is a combination of sauna, hotel and gym. I just spend a night there for $10, and I am excited, what an experience! I slept on the marble floor but had a massage in return! Imagine a 24...

[openidea] Stream free Internet TV on your iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted under Entrepreneurship, Internet, openidea on Tuesday, 7 October 2008 by admin
More and more people are starting to watch TV on their mobile phone. Not so strange, the reason is simple: The amount of bored office clerks waiting for their bus/metro of train is huge! However, millions of iPhone and Touch users are not so fortunate and have to watch iTunes provided content,...
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