Beijing trip

Yesterday I went to Beijing to attend the China Mobile Game Forum 2006. This was a forum in the Kerry Center Hotel, where content providers, service providers and VC’s discussed the current status and the future of mobile gaming in China. A very useful meeting, where we (Demi Wang, marketing director for Spill Group Asia, also joined) met many potentially interesting companies to work with in China. I also blogged about this on marketingfacts.nl, the article (in Dutch) can be found here.

After the event was over I went over to Carlo Crosetto’s house. We had a drink at his place, and then went for dinner at Ya Wang (Duck King) at Jianguomenwai. My wife managed to take two hours off her incredibly busy schedule (she is working 18-hour shifts right now) to also join the dinner. The food was excellent, with among other kaofu, sharkfin soup, and of course a whole roasted duck. Thanks Carlo!

I had decided to stay overnight in Beijing (Qi lives in the Radisson Hotel, so I did not need a hotel room), and take an early flight back. But the early flight turned out to be a major problem: the first available flight to Shanghai was at 11:50 AM. Because I had a meeting planned in Shanghai at 12 this was a bit difficult. But I could not change it, all planes were fully booked. I wonder what’s going on, in the past I just went to the airport and bought a ticket for the first available flight. But that does not seem possible anymore.

Getting to the airport was also not easy. Because of an accident on the airport express way this road suddenly closed, and we were stuck there. But then the cars collectively decided to back up to the last exit (only a few hundred meters for us) and take a different road. Quite an interesting sight, hundreds of cars driving backwards on an expressway. And that without any further accidents! I told the driver an alternative route (I used to live – and drive – in Beijing for 3 years), and we just made it in time to the airport to catch my flight.