Sticky: Latest pictures shared from mobile phone

  • Scouting talent at New York university Shanghai branch!
  • Good morning austria
  • Goodmorning holland
  • At concert of Guido Dieteren with Suna
  • Picture I found on my phone this morning
  • Preparty with oliebollen! 3 HR till NYE
  • Ice skating in pudong
  • Chinese monopoly and gluhwein…
  • End of year ceremony at Korean school
  • 9 am dec 24, prepping tonight’s gluhwein
  • Playing badminton with friends
  • Came home to this today
  • Korean exam on sat morning
  • Cars in Hongqiao…
  • Korean BBQ with Suna and Chieko
  • Sunday morning swim
  • Shanghai non pesticides strawberries, thanks Alex and Karen!
  • Eating Okonomiyaki for the first time!
  • @상하이 짐찔방
  • More unitedstyles.com dresses on their way!

How to go to Hong Kong via Shenzhen
June 5, 2010,

I spent some time relaxing and buying clothes in Hong Kong yesterday. Previously, when I visit HK whilst being in mainland, I would fly to HK airport but recently I found out it is much cheaper through Shenzhen. I saved half of my travel expenses. If you are not interested in saving money at the cost of time (or like to see beautiful HK airport), this guide is not useful for you.

I bought my plane ticket one day before my trip. The 900 RMB flight to Shenzhen was much cheaper then the 2200 RMB flight to HK. I was flying from Shanghai, but also from Beijing, Chengdu etc. this should be cheaper. You land in Shenzhen, take the bus, change bus at the border and arrive in the heart of HK city.

The route:

Shenzhen airport

When I landed in Shenzhen, I found the bus companies selling tickets at the exit of the arrival hall. Bus rates varies from 100 to 150 RMB. There is also option to take the turbojet boat. I would advice to take the elements bus company. They have options to drive directly to Kowloon, central (100 RMB) or Kings Cross. Total driving time: 1.5 hours.

Crossing the border
Passing the customs is a breeze, you exit the bus, just follow the customs tunnel and enter the bus on the opposite end. Both sides I was surprised it was not so busy. It took me about 15 minutes to pass. Note that mainland residents still need a HK/Macau entry visa to cross the border.

Arrival in HK and the way back to Shenzhen
I decide to get of at Central and take the metro from there. When I wanted to go back, I took the metro to metro stop ‘Kowloon’. Get of at exit c2 and find the elements bus terminal.

Spilgames outing 2010, Moganshan and Nanxun
May 29, 2010,

I’ve spend last night at Mount Mogan 莫干山, the destination of the Spilgames spring outing, is about 250km south-west of Shanghai, close to Hangzhou. Build by missionaries in the early 1900s as a retreat from the Shanghai heat. These days Moganshan is experiencing a true revamp in tourism, particularly contributed by Mark Kitto’s permanent establishment there. Read his story here.

After a early bus ride from Shanghai we arrived around noon. Whilst it was a misty day, the calm river streams and the bamboo forest were a great place to be. Some pictures.

That night, there were presentations from the Chinese and Dutch management team in a huge room. It was so well organized, I felt like I was at a conference.

The next day the weather cleared up and we packed to drive back to Shanghai. The drive back to Shanghai was quite a long run, I was happy we made a stop at Nanxun. The town is quite well preserved and not as crowded with tourist as most water towns around Shanghai.

Dutch day at the Shanghai World expo
May 19, 2010,

A few weeks ago I was asked by the Dutch ministry of Foreign affairs to help with a special project. During the time it was a big secret that during the Dutch National day at the World Expo in Shanghai (18 May), the crown prince of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander would visit with his wife, Maxima Zorreguieta. A very exciting thought to help out with a royal event like this! I can’t really disclose what I did, but as complimentary gratitude, I received tickets for the event. The day started with a reception at the Expo site and ended with a special show of the “Netherlands Dance Theatre II” in the shanghai theatre.

We visited the expo for the first time. At around 3pm, we arrived at the dutch pavilion. The Dutch pavilion has an open architecture – you can walk through. (So one of the few without lines on the expo) and instead of a hall, allows people to walk by. (Hence the name Happy street) It shows typical Dutch artifacts like the process of making cheese, ice skates, Miffy, but also modern things like Armin van Buuren (dutch DJ) and our princes Maxima. They also put stone sheep everywhere which proved to be useful as seats as well.


For the day, the whole area was closed down to the selected people that had an invitation. It felt like the entire dutch community from Shanghai was present. Also some VIP’s including the earlier mentioned Dutch royalties, but Suna and I also ran into Dutch rapper Ali B. Funny to meet him here.

The catering was superb. from Champagne to special dutch crocquette’s that included Beijing duck filling and Chinese shrimp. I still prefer the classic dutch croquette’s.

After the reception at the expo, there was a show by the Netherlands dance theatre in the Shanghai Theatre. The contemporary dance was interesting to watch.There were expressive scene’s with two intermissions. The royal members were welcomed with a big applause. I wonder how this royal appreciation was received by the Chinese. It was a special day which I won’t forget soon!

Celebration of Dutch Queen’s day in Shanghai 2010
April 30, 2010,

Whilst Shanghai is upside down due to the opening of the Expo with many world leaders flying in, the dutch in Shanghai held a separate party: ‘Queen’s Day’ a Dutch public holiday celebrating the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands and supposed to be a day of national unity and “togetherness”.
To celebrate, Suna and I visited the Millennium hotel. The honorary guest at the reception was Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Balkenende is visiting to open the Dutch pavilion at the world expo tomorrow, we talked briefly and he is a very friendly patient man. Similar to when I met Maxime Verhagen (demissionair minister of foreign affairs), I noticed politicians are much relaxed meeting people abroad. Suna wondered whether something like this would be possible in any other country. In Korea for example, people wouldn’t be able to even ask these kind of things.

Happy Dutch Queensday everybody!

Big bus tours in Shanghai
April 29, 2010,

From today, well known London double decker busses from The Big Bus Company will allow tourists a grand city tour of Shanghai. Whilst I was waving back at that bus riding sunburned crowd, seeing them take pictures of everything the bus drives by, I realized Shanghai is about as ready as it can get for the Expo.

Shanghai Secondhand
March 31, 2010,

Living in Shanghai can be expensive. Besides skyrocketing house prices, quality furniture and home appliances can be a bothersome expense base, especially when you already own those particular items in your home country.

After ranting about these costs, a friend recommended us a second hand shop. He visited the place before and bought a projector for 700 RMB (€ 70/80), allowing him to throw movie nights and play games in grand on his living room wall. I thought: A second hand shop in Shanghai, what a great idea! Overseas expats like to live quality lives here but usually only stay a few years, creating opportunity to buy their stuff for a fair price.

The shop the friend recommended is called Shanghai Secondhand and is idea of a US expat in 2008. She asked her Chinese teacher whether she was interested to start the business as a partner. They applied for a business license, setup a simple website, moved in a small apartment and they were in business! The concept is simple:

If you have items you would like to sell please email us with a detailed description of all items along with pictures. We will then reply back to you with our offer and any questions we have. We may pick up your items from you if you have enough items. You set the price of your item, and we　
take care of selling it on the site catalog and in the shop. You then keep 80% of your price and we keep 20%.

My girlfriend visited them last week and described the place as a apartment packed with second hand stuff. The girl (we didn’t know who she was) was speaking perfect English and there were a lot of things to discover for reasonable prices. We bought a blender and a toaster for 180 RMB and have been eating crunchy toast with fresh tomato juice in the morning ever since.

Donations


Besides for profit trading they also do some philanthropic activities, including the gathering and distribution of second hand clothes for Chinese people in need. An American called Jeff donated a big pile of items to sell for charity.

The second hand shop also collects donations for the “River Of Heart” charity organization and an orphanage called Starfish, founded in Xian in 2005. Since then they took care of 55 babies, had 16 adoptions to Europe and US and have arranged for more than 40 surgeries. In the fall of 2009, secondhand shop Shanghai donated 16100 RMB to Starfish to help at he surgery of a kid named Teresa, whom has recovered well ever since.

More pictures

Spring time in Shanghai
March 26, 2010,

With a forecast of five consecutive days above 10˚C, the spring officially started in Shanghai. After months of boring weather it’s great to sit out in the sun again. The weather in Shanghai is crisp and with 12 degrees it’s finally comfortable on a terrace.

Today we decided to eat lunch at the New heights restaurant on the Bund side to celebrate the birthday of our Japanese collegue Chieko and enjoy the sun for a bit. New heights has a great view on both Pudong and Puxi. I’m not really sure about the kitchen (I ate a simple hamburger), but the service was great.

I really feel the new season started today, time for some spring cleaning!

New Heights 新视角
7/F, Three on the Bund, 3 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu,
Huangpu
near Guangdong Lu, Metro Line 2 Nanjing Dong Lu Station
中山东一路3号楼7楼
近广东路,地铁2号线南京东路站
6321-0909
www.threeonthebund.com

Köttbullar in Shanghai
March 13, 2010,

image

While I was studying in Sweden, I made a Chinese friend in my year. He studied logistics and implicitly wanted to work at Ikea. So he did: now, two years later he is a manager in the Shanghai branch, combining his language and culture experience with his market knowledge at home.

I was hoping to meet him today, but frankly we came for one reason only: Swedish food. Especially Köttbullar (Swedish meatballs), Kanelbullar (cinnamon Buns) and godis (candy). Funny how cheap IKEA food can be such an attraction.

image

image

image

How many men does it take to change a lightbulb?
March 13, 2010,

image

3.

How to Twitter to a local number with your mobile in China
March 10, 2010,
  1. Setup a zuosa account (Chinese twitter clone)
  2. Verify your mobile number
  3. Sync zuosa with Twitter. Done!

When I started to use Twitter in 2007, there was an option to tweet with text messages (SMS) It makes sense because a SMS is also short and it’s more interesting to see tweets on the go. To keep up with Twitter’s growth the service was limited to UK only, making most people, including me, forget about the service quickly. Until I found Zuosa; It provides the functionality, and allows me to send MMS (pictures etc.) as well! All with a local number! Here’s how it looks like:

Sending a MMS

I compose a MMS or SMS message on my phone. For SMS the number is 13776113557, for MMS it’s cai@zuosa.com. When I send it, it immediately appears on my Zuosa page.

Yes this is a cool first step! But it get’s better, I will setup Zuosa so that it will forward my messages to Twitter or another range of social media tools.

Cool features

Also, while we’re on their front page anyway, you’ve probably noticed the similarity of Zuosa to Twitter, but as Tait puts it, it has grown apart from the original in many ways as it features a lot of extra features:

  • Suggestion of hashtags
  • Sharing of Photo, video, MP3 in the site (see previous screenshot)
  • Pause and play button for the real time stream
  • Linking account with MSN messenger, phone etc.
  • Localization, unlike Twitter – all local features are not evolving around SF, it actually works in every city.

Sending a SMS to Twitter


First provide Zuosa with your Twitter username and password.

Send a text to a local number…

Win! The tweet arrives in Zuoga and Twitter.

Final thoughts

I wanted to tweet to a local number for so long, I have tried a few things but never succeeded. Now it is possible, I wonder if it is still necessary. I have a dataplan so I can use the web interface of Twitter (in)directly! However, I wonder if this method is cheaper. To the least, it is much easier so I am going to try it for a while.

Also, it does take some time before tweets arrive. All tweets are probably scanned but since I am tweeting in English Zuosa is likely verifying the content before it goes out.

Koreans work the most, the Dutch the least?
March 9, 2010,

I’d recommend to try out Google Public data, it’s great! It’s the result of Google’s partnerships with the World Bank and other statistics gatherers to present an array of data in visual form within Google Labs. You know I am a number freak right, this will entertain me for a while! I was checking out  the OECD fact data and found that Koreans actually still make the most hours and the Dutch the least; If that’s true in my household (I have a korean gf and I am Dutch) is debatable, I’d say it’s equal. :-) Second, there are Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Shanghai Concert Hall
February 28, 2010,

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 audience; a loud burp from a few seats behind me during the performance. But the mixed audience is what makes is nice to come to these places, it’s not too formal which is relaxing.

Building moved to different location

A few years ago, the building was moved. To think that the 5,800 tons structure moved 70 meters is astounding. It (and many other buildings) had to make way for Yanan road, the city’s busiest highway. [Read how the building was moved, including a picture here]

Who needs a music collection anyway?
February 22, 2010,

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 services like last.fm and Pandora started to build profiles of users musical tastes, and recommending other music to them. Today, I can buy music online while I am walking the street using Amazon MP3, and services like Spotify and Rhapsody can stream almost all available music to me for about 10 euro’s a month. Who needs a record collection these days?

I’m using last.fm on my ipod touch to keep track to the songs I listen too. While I was checking out my personal top 20 charts, I noticed my musical patterns haven’t really changed over the last years. I’m going to tryout music recommendation services and ask friends for new music recommendations. Got any recommendations I should listen too?

For Tiroler ski, Muju Korea is Austria’s top export project
February 20, 2010,

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 multi-million dollar ski resorts in the far east that blew my mind. Note before I continue: Obviously, this is a positive review. It’s probably the Korean eye for service for a great price that will demise this place to a packed tourist place within a few years, complete with screaming children, angry visitors and high prices… oh, well.

Although the resort was sold to a US consortium for 130 million dollar in 2001, it struck to me how well the Austrian’s packaged and consigned the ski experience to Korea; including tiroler management and staff. Austrian’s have been doing this for over 15 years in Asia, with some minor projects in Korea, Japan, India and China.

Austrian styled:

  • Tirol (!) Hotel, condo’s, castle etc.
  • spa’s
  • Apres ski facilities

Austrian exported:

  • beer
  • Austria Snow Sports Academy
  • Swiss/Austrian (Doppelmayr) made Funitel and Hybrid lift’s.
  • Ski rental gear
  • Ski/Snowboard gear (from sweaters to helmets)
  • Preparation bully’s (I counted five, but their should be more)
  • Artificial snow machine’s
  • Ski lights, slope accessories etc.

Finally, I few things that I noticed while out there:

  1. A lot of Korean, but also Chinese and Indian visitors, many of them can board/ski very well
  2. The resort guests are very friendly to each other, I’ve seen people bow to each other after a collision on the hill.
  3. Unlike in the Alps, professional gear is not equal to skills on the slope.
  4. I’m used to hit the slopes early, continue until four in the afternoon and then go Après-ski, but for a land with shopping malls close at 5am, the slopes are available for 18 hours a day, starting at 6:30.
  5. Excellent service at the resort, free warm tea handed out by Korean girls wearing German clothes, tissue dispensers around the slope
  6. Our hotel room was quite space-full, not to oexpensive, and we had a calming view on the slopes from our bed

Dutch culture trade in Korea, or Korean trade in the Netherlands?
Jealous of the austria’s project opportunities (My German aczent © sucks), I started looking what the Netherlands (my homecountry) could export (and monetize) on. Koreans and Dutch embassy diplomats mentioned that Dutch are famous for their tulips, (cliche I know)…

But putting up tulip show’s is big business, and the Netherlands is one of the rare area’s where the bulbs come from. Proof of concept can be found in Shanghai, where a 100 hectare (3 times bigger then the annual one in The Netherlands) tulip show is being held for the 6th time this year.

What other concepts could do well in Korea? Football related events (All Korean men know the Dutch football team, but for that goes that most Shanghaiinese do as well) and beer – a beerfest? (there are German Beerhof’s spread around the country), Dutch artifactual buildings, like the one (although close) in Japan (pictures), what else could do well?

I think that for project developers, there are more Korean trades to be ‘sold’ to Europe these days, including common things like Jimjilbang and Samgyeopsal; both increasingly popular in the US. Also, the concepts of restaurant ringers – allowing one to order or get bill with a button on the table, video on demand and key-less doors are things that should be standardized in European countries by now.

Korean Sausages Work Well as iPhone Stylus [Video]
February 16, 2010,

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 me, doesn’t cycle to work every day, wearing gloves in the cold winter, unable to give comments without having to take the gloves off (and stop). So, stylus is not dead, phones like the iPhone could really use a stylus. But they are expensive, and I wouldn’t buy one.

Koreans found (thanks @moka for the link) a way to avoid all the stylus hassle, with a home style solution. They use fast food meat sausages. Now I know what you think, “Why so difficult, just use a pen!” Because these screens don’t work with pressure points, they sense the electrostatic load of the finger to the screen. A normal sylus, or pen would’t work, but these sausages are perfect.. well, at least in functionality. And availablity, for sale everywhere in the country for just 20 euro cents. According to a korean news article, sales boosted 40% in January, due to the cold weather. Although, when I noticed a sausage this evening, and wanted to try it out (video), nobody seemed to be aware of the trend. Perhaps it’s all just a smart marketing trick? Can someone verify if this works with other items as well?

Note:

  • People WILL stare at you when you do this. (but you will have warm hands!)
  • Buy the thicker one, as there is an iron tip that will scratch your screen with the thin one
  • No idea how to perform multitouch gestures, two sausages?

[Video] Chinese new year, streets of Shanghai
February 14, 2010,


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 celebration.

According to tales and legends, the beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nien (Chinese: 年; pinyin: nián), attacking livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect, they put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nien ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nien was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nien was afraid of the colour red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nien. From then on, Nien never came to the village again. The Nien was eventually captured by hong jun lao zu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nien became hong jun lao zu’s mount. (wiki)

The fireworks start at a quarter before twelve midnight, and continue until the fifteenth day of the lunar new year. This morning (I’m writing this new years day), the ‘explosions’ started again at 7.

Air quality

So funny to look at @BeijingAir reports as the night went on. By midnight it was Hazardous, doubtless from the incessant explosions.

Page 5 of 11« First...3456710...Last »