Lots of wildlife around our house these days: 2 weeks ago we saw 2 whales while sailing close to our home, last week a black bear visited our garden, on the weekend I had a close encounter with a deer, and tonight a family of 4 raccoons walked around our pool!

After dinner Elaine walked to the window to look at the sunset and suddenly started screaming: “Daddy, daddy, look, look, look!”. I had no idea what was going on but because she sounded shocked, I immediately ran towards her and saw a raccoon family walking on the deck next to our pool.

Two of them started eating some of the plants and 2 others jumped on the pool cover (I am glad we closed it!). We took a few pictures through the window, because I thought they would run away when they would hear or see us.

But when 3 of them had left the garden I opened the door to the garden and the last raccoon did not run at all, but turned around to look at me! I made some hissing sounds and pretended to throw something at the animal to scare it away, but instead it took a step towards me. That actually scared me a bit. The raccoon then slowly walked into the bushes and kept on observing me from there.

It’s not the first time I see a raccoon and it’s also not the first time that raccoons don’t run away when I encounter them. I once saw a huge one at dusk while running in the woods in Stanley Park, it just looked at me like I did not belong there (probably true!). I was more scared to see him than he was to see me running by.

I had assumed that if you see raccoons at home and try to scare them, they would at least have the natural reaction to flee. But that seems to be a wrong assumption. Maybe they are too used to human beings? Luckily raccoons are generally not dangerous to people, although they can attack pets or damage your garden. Let’s see what wild animals will visit us next week – I heard there are coyotes on the golf course behind our house!

 

Egmont, Sunshine Coast, BC

On Tuesday Scott and Elaine’s summer holiday will be over after more than 2 months of vacation. They are very excited to go back to school after such a long period of time. I think they had a great holiday in which they not only had some fun trips and summer camps but during which they also learned a lot.

Anchoring at Galbraith Beach (Bowen Island)

We didn’t have time for a long holiday this summer, mainly because I was too busy with work related activities, but we made a few short trips to the wineries in Kelowna, the Rocky Mountains (Banff & Lake Louise), Southern California (LA & San Diego, incl. Legoland and Sea World), and in British Columbia (a trip to the Sunshine Coast and several sailing trips).

Visiting a winery in Kelowna

When their holiday started in late June I made a list of things that I wanted to teach the kids during their summer break. For Elaine I put learning to swim and learning how to ride a bicycle on top of the list, for Scott it was sailing and learning a first computer language. Next to that they would practice piano every day, write their journals on a weekly basis and read books for an hour per day.

Rockwater Resorts, Sunshine Coast, BC

Looking back most of these goals were met. Elaine is now a great swimmer, she can do breaststroke, crawl and backstroke and she has no fear at all of water. Before June she mainly swam with one inflatable armband, but now she won’t need that anymore. She hang out in our pool on most days during the holiday, next year I’ll also let her swim in the sea with me.

Learning how to ride a bike with daddy

Biking took her a bit more time, but once she got the hang of it she immediately wanted to ride up and down hills! Just like with swimming she not only has no fear, but she also doesn’t see any danger. So she had a few crashes, but that’s the only way to learn.

Scott at his sailing camp

Scott took a sailing camp early in the holiday and there he learned to sail an Optimist on his own. He now knows the basic concepts of sailing, so when I took him out on my yacht a couple of times he enjoyed it a lot more. I even let him steer my boat sometimes, he loves it!

Captain Scott!

For Scott I had decided to teach him Python as his first computer language. Python is not that hard to learn (we only did the basics of course) and is a good basis for other languages. I realized soon that most of the key concepts are still quite hard for someone who just finished 1st grade (e.g. things like Boolean operators and expressions, variables, loop functions), but after several weeks of working with them he understands what they are and can work with them to write simple code. My plan is to do one lesson a week with him during the school year, and eventually to build a simple computer game with him.

Playing on the shores of Bow Lake

The kids also loved to play piano, they normally practiced without us telling them to do so. Elaine even played at some public pianos in Vancouver during the holiday, attracting a small crowd of onlookers. Because she memorizes all her songs she can play without sheet music, which is helpful when giving a mini concert in the open air.

Elaine learns how to play golf

The kids both wrote long journals about their holidays, describing the trips we took and the things we saw. Elaine wrote that her highlight was her visit to Legoland California in late July, she especially loved the rollercoasters (Scott not so much). Scott’s highlight was an overnight sailing trip that he took with me and my dad. We sailed in the Strait of Georgia where we saw 2 whales close to our boat (very impressive!) and then anchored for the night in a bay at Gambier Island. Nice to spend quality time withy my dad and son, and even nicer that Scott liked it so much as well.

Scott’s amazing reading results for August

Scott’s main activity this summer was reading. It’s unbelievable how much he reads. He has his own Kindle with an unlimited Amazon subscription and that was the best present ever for him. I just checked the statistics on his Kindle for August and it turns out he read 122 books this month, for a total of over 10,000 pages! I used to read a lot as a kid, but this beats everything. He is an extremely fast reader and already reads books for grade 4, so he will likely have an easy time in school this year.

It has been extremely dry in British Columbia this summer, I can’t even remember the last time it rained here. The downside is that there are a lot of water restrictions now (you can’t even water your garden or wash your car anymore) and there have been many forest fires because of the drought. Also animals are affected, because there is not enough food for them high up in the mountains, and so they come down to look for it.

And that’s what happened today at our house. Our neighbour was walking her dog when she suddenly saw a bear in front of our driveway! We do get a bit of wildlife in our area, such as cougars and coyotes, but bears are very rare. Since we moved here we had not seen any, and neighours later told us that the last time a bear was spotted in our street was in 2009. 

The black bear is hardly visible below the bushes

The bear was standing below some bushes when a car drove by, and because of that it walked up our driveway. Luckily the kids were not playing outside! Or more likely, if the kids would have been playing outside the bear might not have entered our garden.

Coincidentally our housekeeper just arrived in her car and she drove up to the bear to scare it away. That didn’t really work and the bear decided to sit next to our house before walking into our neighbour’s garden.

From there the bear managed to climb over a fence onto the golf course. A woman playing golf got a good scare when she suddenly saw a bear jump onto the fairway in front of her. The bear then ran away and we have not seen it since. 

Living in Vancouver’s suburbs is certainly interesting!

Many of my investments are in companies that make products or services that have the potential to change the world. It’s therefore a real pity that I never had the chance to invest in Soylent, a product that may redefine what food is. (Note: If shares should become available on secondary markets please let me know!)

Never heard of Soylent? It’s a powder that you mix with water to get a drink that has all the nutrition and vitamins you need to live healthy. It takes less than 5 minutes to make Soylent and it costs less than $10 per day! Soylent saves you time and money and makes it easy to get all the right nutrition elements that you need for a healthy life. 

I first heard about Soylent 2 years ago and found the idea intriguing. However, you could not buy the product yet at the time (it only started shipping in the US around April 2014), so I could not try it out and therefore sort of forgot about it. Every now and then I read an article (either very postive or very negative: disruptive technologies are always quite controversial and lead to lots of online discussions. Just like Bitcoin!) and I decided to order Soylent if it would become available in Canada. And indeed, a few weeks ago I read that Soylent was now for sale in my new home country, so I ordered a batch of the product.

My first shipment of Soylent arrived earlier this week and the past 3 days I lived mainly on this product. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical when I started this food experiment, mainly because I like to eat good food and I spend quite a lot of money on it. I could not imagine that a cheap powder-based drink would change the way I would eat for more than a day.

Preparing Soylent is very easy. With your first shipment comes a big jug in which you put half a bag of Soylent powder, then you fill half the jug with water and you shake the mix for 30 seconds. You then add the remaining powder, fill up the jug with water and shake again for 30 seconds. Done! It’s best to drink Soylent chilled, so I put it in the fridge and started my new ‘diet’ the next morning during breakfast. In October bottles of Soylent will go on sale as well, meaning that you don’t need to prepare it yourself anymore.

I live fairly healthy, with lots of exercise, not too much stress, and good food (plus several vitamins and mineral supplements, based on the results of my human genome sequencing). So I assumed Soylent would not make me more healthy, it would merely make eating faster and cheaper.

I got up a bit too late and had an early meeting in my office, so I did not have a lot of time for breakfast. Normally I would have a large glass of water (I start every day with a large glass of warm water), make some yoghurt with fruit and eat some bread with jam or cheese. Now I had my glass of water as usual and then I drank a smaller glass of Soylent. I finished breakfast in less than 2 minutes and jumped in my car to drive to downtown Vancouver.

Soylent tastes a bit like pancake batter or possibly a kind of oatmeal, not a bad taste actually. It was not something I needed to get used to, and over the past days I started to like it more and more. It was very easy to drink, it reminded me of having a milk shake, partly because it has the same texture and it came straight out of the fridge so it was very cold.

When I arrive in the office normally the first thing I do is to make myself a strong coffee. But now I did not really feel like drinking coffee, which is very strange for me. I normally drink at least 2 cups of coffee in the morning and on average about 4 cups of coffee per day. A workday does not really start until I finish my first coffee. But today I was a bit thirsty and decided to have a glass of water instead.

2 hours later I made my first coffee, and that was actually the only coffee I had that day. I wasn’t sure whether not drinking coffee was related to Soylent, but after 3 days I recognize the pattern: I only drink 1-2 cups of coffee per day now instead of 3-4, and I don’t miss it at all. I actually prefer an extra sip of Soylent instead of a coffee and the main reason I drink coffee is because I am so used to making one that I don’t really think about it.

After 2 meetings, around 11 AM, I normally get hungry and start looking for a cookie or a banana. But instead I decided to have half a glass of Soylent and my craving for other food was gone right away. And I started to really like the taste of Soylent!

Lunch was simple as well. Just a big glass of Soylent followed by a glass of water. For some reason Soylent makes me more thirsty, despite the fact that a jug of Soylent contains 1.6 liters of water. I drank my lunch while doing emails, so I did not have to stop working, saving me at least 30-45 minutes (if I don’t have a biz lunch I normally I walk out to a restaurant, buy some take-away food and eat it in my office).

I had a bit more Soylent during the afternoon and had no craving for other food at all. And even better, I felt a lot more energetic. Normally I start to get a bit sleepy after lunch, but with Soylent there was no dip at all. The next day was exactly the same, so it seems Soylent is at least part of the reason for it.

When I came home I had a normal dinner. I decided not to go cold turkey and completely stop eating food, but to just replace breakfast and lunch with Soylent (except for business lunches). At home we try to have breakfast and dinner together every day, so I don’t want to change our daily schedule by suddenly just drinking Soylent. Dinner is more than just eating to me, it’s a good time to talk about the day with the family and to listen to Scott and Elaine’s stories. That ritual won’t be changed by Soylent.

I actually realized that because dinner is now the only ‘real food’ meal of the day, I tend to enjoy the food more than I would normally. It also feels like I eat more slowly. After not chewing for most of the day it feels good to eat some solid food.

I have now been drinking most of my meals for 3 days and I am very positive. There were no side effects for me because of Soylent. If you search the Internet lots of people say that their bodies and digestive systems have to get used to Soylent during the first days, but for me that was not the case. I felt at least as healthy as usual and slept very well. I suspect that not drinking as much coffee and not eating any sugary products are important reasons for this.

As a bonus I seem to be losing weight as well. Likely because I eat less calories, especially during lunch. Also there are no snacks in between, I totally lost my cravings for something sweet or some carbs in the late morning or mid-afternoon. When I want to eat something I just take a sip of soylent.

Based on my very limited observations and based on my personal taste, I do believe there could be a huge market for Soylent. The food seems to be healthy, at least more healthy than the food that most people in the (Western) world eat. It is also relatively cheap compared to buying fresh foods: for about $10 per day you can have the equivalent of 3 meals and some snacks per day, and this price may come down further if the soylent production scales up.

And not only that, the food can also save you at least 2 hours per day, assuming you only eat Soylent. No more grocery shopping for fresh food, no more cooking dinner (and cleaning up afterward) and not spending more than a few minutes on eating the food.

I have only tried Soylent for 3 days now, but I am convinced that I will keep eating it on a semi-regular basis. Not for all my meals, but possibly a few days per week for breakfast and/or lunch. Although many hardcore Soylent users have been eating just Soylent for weeks or even months, I won’t give up good ‘real’ food for Soylent. But I could imagine that when I should be alone at home for a few days that I would eat just Soylent to save time.

Soylent is certainly not for everyone, and most people will be very skeptical at first. But over time I think more people will try it out and will realize that it can be a good partial alternative for their normal diets. It saves time, is healthy and cheap. It may even help to solve the problem of hunger in the world. Soylent is disrupting the food industry, it could very well be the future of food!

This summer I’m too busy with work to go on a long holiday, so we’re just taking a few shorter trips. In early July we spent some days in Kelowna and Banff, and last week we did a trip to Southern California. I had accepted to speak at 2 conferences in Los Angeles so that was a good reason to bring the family along and plan some activities in between the conferences.

The first conference that I spoke at was the Silicon Dragon conference in Pasadena, a conference about tech and investing in China. We decided to stay in The Langham Huntington, where I stayed a couple of monts ago as well when I did 2 talks at Caltech and in Burbank. It’s a beautiful classic hotel with great service and nice views from the rooms (especially those on the backside of the hotel).

We did a bit of sightseeing in Pasadena, which is very nice place with some older buildings and nice shops. We also took the kids to the Caltech campus close to downtown Pasadena. We’re showing the kids all world-class universities when we are in the area: for example a couple of months ago when we were in the Bay area we went to Stanford and to UC Berkeley with them. Not sure if universities will still be around when they are ready to go there in 10-12 years (also education is being disrupted!), but it’s always good when they know what the campuses of these universities look like.

The Silicon Dragon conference was interesting and a good way to catch up with a lot of people (a lot of friends from my China days were there). The venture capital / dealmakers in China panel was fun to participate in and I even did an interview with CCTV (China’s main broadcaster) about investing in China and about online entertainment trends in Asia.

After the panel I picked up my family from the hotel and we drove 2 hours south to the Legoland Hotel in Carlsbad. We stayed there last year as well and it’s a good base when you plan to visit Legoland. However, the hotel is very much overpriced (almost $600 per night for a room without a balcony) and is super crowded in the summer months. The service is mediocre as well, it’s basically a 3-star hotel with 5-star prices. But the kids love it and that’s what count. But after last week’s experience we very likely won’t be back anymore, and certainly not in high season.

Legoland on the other hand was great and the kids had a fantastic time. As usual in theme parks we got VIP passes, but the park had changed the system. Last year when we visited Legoland we just got special tickets so that you did not have to wait in line at any of the attractions, but this year they changed to electronic devices. For an additional $25 per person you would have a 25% shorter waiting time, for $50 a 50% shorter waiting time and for $100 per person your waiting time was 5% of that of normal ticket buyers.

Pretty decent pricing (esp. compared to the price of the Legoland Hotel), because the waiting time at the most popular attractions was between 60-90 minutes. With the devices we had to wait max. 5 minutes at each attraction, and if you input the next ride while walking there you have almost no waiting time. We saved many hours of waiting because of the devices, so it was totally worth it for us.

Scott and Elaine both had their first rollercoaster experience in Legoland. They both liked it, but Scott felt one rollercoaster ride was sufficient for a day while Elaine was really excited and afterwards wanted to try every scary ride that we saw. Interesting to observe how different siblings can be.

After a couple of hours we left the park and drove down to San Diego, where we had booked a suite at the Hyatt next to Sea World. The place was quite nice, with a balcony overlooking the Mission Bay marina and a (bit crowded) pool with slides for the kids.

The next morning we took a water taxi from the marina to Sea World, the quickest and easiest way to get to the park. The boat captain made a little detour to show us some seals and then dropped us off at the back entrance of Sea World. So no waiting lines to enter the park. The only problem was that we had to pick up our VIP passes at the entrance of the park, so we first had to take a walk.

Sea World still had the old system where you could bypass all the lines, but because of all the negative publicity after the release of Blackfish (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg) there were not that many lines anymore. Even at the top attractions waiting times in the middle of peak season were just 15 minutes! But the tickets were still quite useful for the shows: most of them are fully booked if you don’t come at least 15-30 minutes in advance, but with these tickets you get the best seats even if the show is full already and you can show up any time.

After Legoland Scott and Elaine were not too impressed by Sea World’s rides, but they liked the shows a lot. The orca and dolphin shows were both quite impressive, and the one with the sea lions was a big hit with the kids as well. We left around 4 pm and took a water taxi to the hotel from the back entrance.

In the hotel we went for a swim and then we drove along the coast to downtown San Diego. The city is very nice (I had only been there once before) and has a very relaxed feel. I especially like all the marinas, it seems like everybody has a boat in San Diego.

After dinner we put the kids to bed and then I worked a couple of hours in the living room. Although I try to keep up with important emails during the daytime I get so many mails that there is no way I can answer all of them on my phone. Even on my laptop I can’t answer all of them anymore and these days chances are you don’t get a reply anymore if you mail me. For a long time I tried to answer all my mails but I have given up on that. So if you ever try to get in touch and don’t get an answer, just send a follow-up mail (they do get priority!).

The next day we visited friends from Hong Kong in their holiday home in Newport Beach. They are both in the traditional finance industry, so we talked a bit about the latest developments in blockchain land (still one of my favorite topics) and the p2p lending world. I also took Scott to the beach, just a 2 minute stroll down the lane from their house. Many of the beaches in Southern California are wide and sandy, and the one in Newport beach was no exception. Great places to hang out and spend a lazy afternoon!

Late in the afternoon we drove to the Fairmont Hotel in Santa Monica, a very nice hotel overlooking the Pacific. I went for a run on the beach while the kids went swimming in the ocean, and after that we had a quick dinner in downtown Santa Monica. After dinner the kids were tired and went to bed straight away, while I worked for a couple of hours.

The next morning I got up early to drive to downtown Los Angeles for Keynote 2015, a distributed ledger conference, where I was invited to speak on investing in blockchain tech. The conference was held in the main ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, an amazing location! In the 1920s the first Oscar award ceremonies were actually held right in this place, and the hotel had several pictures from events in those days on its walls.

The blockchain conference was very interesting and gave me some new insights on what’s happening with bitcoin, and I enjoyed discussing the investment opportunities in blockchain technologies. The crowd was very different from the ‘old’ bitcoin conferences, where most people were very familiar with bitcoin already. At this conference I met several people from banks and other multinationals who were still new to the bitcoin world. Also a couple of speakers were pretty much anti-bitcoin, which made for some lively discussions. Thanks for organizing this Moe, it was great to be part of one of your events again.

The next morning I made a walk around Santa Monica before packing our suitcases and driving to the airport. I handed in my Silvercar and one of the Silvercar employees drove us to departures (great service!). We had a quick lunch in the lounge and then boarded our flight back to Vancouver. I had a fun and productive couple of days in SoCal, and the family enjoyed it as well!

Our fund CrossPacific Capital has a job opening for a public relations and digital marketing manager, based out of our Vancouver office.  Below are the requirements for the job, if you’re interested or want more information please contact Ms. Rui Habib at rui@xpcp.ca

Company

• CrossPacific is an asset management and advisory firm, strategically headquartered in Vancouver, BC Canada, North America’s Gateway to Asia.
• CrossPacific invests in Canadian and select US technology companies and creates value through cross-border business expansion into China. CrossPacific also invests in companies that would be investment targets for Chinese companies looking to expand their presence in North America.
• CrossPacific is managed by 2 Managing Partners and 1 CFO. The team is strengthened by 2 Venture Partners, Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, and Advisors.
• CrossPacific is expanding rapidly and we are now looking to hire a Public Relations and Digital Marketing manager for our Vancouver office.
• The nature of our business means that potential candidates must be fluent in Mandarin Chinese (spoken and written).

Responsibilities

• Digital Marketing
• Managing Public Relations for portfolio companies
• Original digital content creation
• Translation support (Mandarin to English and vice versa)

 Required Expertise

• 3-5 years of experience working in public relations or related social/digital marketing fields
• Experience with mobile, online interactive and social media tools, techniques and best practices social media advertising, SEO, user analytics, blogs and email campaigns both in China and in North America
• Experience managing a budget
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Proven knowledge of graphic design principles, layout and production of high quality print and online material
• Eager interest in technology
• Prior start-up experience a plus – not a requirement

Education Level

• University level undergraduate degree from recognized university
• Native Mandarin
• Fluent English
• Other languages a plus

Compensation & Perks

• Salary negotiable
• MSP
• Medical and dental insurance
• Awesome Gastown office with waterfront views, accessible by Canada Line, Expo Line, Millenium Line, and many downtown buses

CONTACT: Ms Rui Habib, rui@xpcp.ca

Grace’ family is visiting at the moment, so we decided to take them on a trip to Kelowna and Banff. The holiday was relatively short (we left on Thursday and came back on Tuesday), but it was totally worth it despite the long distances that we had to drive. In Kelowna we stayed at the Delta resort on Okanagan Lake, one of the nicer places in town. The kids were happy that we went back to this hotel because they like its pools, and I like it because of its location (you can walk into town and you can run along the lake right outside the hotel room).

Upon arrival in the hotel we had a drink  in the club lounge on the 9th floor, with a great view over Kelowna and the lake. After that we drove to Quails’ Gate winery for a visit. As with many of Okanagan’s wineries the vineyard is located close the lake with nice views.

I played tag with the kids (they needed to get some exercise after hours in the car) and the family took pictures. We bought some wines in the shop and checked out the restaurant (a good one, but no kids allowed…) and then went back to Kelowna.

At night I worked a bit in the hotel room and enjoyed a bottle of Quails’ Gate rose wine with the balcony doors open. It was really warm in Kelowna (close to 40 degrees Celsius during daytime), but at night the temperatures were just perfect.

The next morning we drove to Lake Country (15 min north of Kelowna) for a tour of the 50th Parallel Estate winery. We were a bit early so we first drove to Coral Beach, just down the road from the vineyard.

I really liked the small beach, the water was blue and super clear and there was a small playground for the kids. I could have stayed there a bit longer actually, but we made an appointment that I was looking forward to, so had to leave.

At 50th Parallel Curtis and Sheri-Lee (the owners) were waiting for us, they had just arrived by boat with some friends. That’s a nice way to travel to work! After short introductions they showed us the ins and outs of the winery while we all enjoyed a glass of chilled Pinot Gris.

50th Parallel has a great location with its vineyards right on Okanagan Lake, meaning that in winter there is normally no snow (it can get pretty cold in the Okanagan in winter). If you would go up another 300 meters the climate would be completely different.

The winery only started in 2011 but they now already have some award winning wines. We among others tasted their Gewürztraminer, the Chardonnay, the Rose wine and of course their Pinot Noir. I especially liked the Gewurztraminer and the Pinot Noir, I found them better than most of the Okanagan wines that I have tried over the past 2 years.

In the caves Curtis let us try their latest, still unbottled, Pinot Noir, directly from the barrel. Really interesting to drink this new wine and to see how its color and taste are already developing.

After almost 2 hours we left the winery and went for lunch at a nearby restaurant before driving to the Mission Hill winery in West Kelowna.

In terms of architecture Mission Hill is by far the nicest winery in the Okanagan, but I am not a big fan of all of their wines (their Pinot Noirs are great though). I was a member of their wine club for a while so that I would receive their best wines every 3 months, but I decided to cancel it earlier this year.

Scott and Elaine running around at Mission Hill

After 2 winery visits in a day the kids were obviously getting a bit tired, so we went back to the hotel where I went for a swim with them. On the way back we suddenly saw huge smoke clouds coming out of the mountains to the south east of Kelowna.

The first smoke from a big forest fire Turned out that a forest fire had started on the outskirts of Kelowna and that is was growing very fast in size. Many houses were evacuated and one of the 2 highways out of Kelowna was closed because of the approaching fire. I followed the news on Twitter, which is still the best way to get up to date ‘breaking’ news. The next day the fire brigade managed to contain the fire, but at the same time many other fires in British Columbia had started and parts of the province were covered in smog.

Saturday morning we drove from Kelowna to Banff, a long but beautiful ride through British Columbia’s interior and across the Rocky Mountains. I was aware that it was quite a distance to drive, but what I didn’t know was that most of the road would be just 2 lanes. Even Highway 1, the main highway that basically goes from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic is mostly a 2-lane road until the Alberta border. That, combined with several road construction sites, didn’t make for a smooth ride. However, the amazing scenery compensated for that and by late afternoon we arrived in Canmore.

The next morning we had planned to visit Banff national park, but the weather wasn’t great (just 20 Celsius and overcast).

Therefore we decided to drive to Calgary instead, where the weather was supposed to be nicer. I had only been to Calgary once on a business trip and had not seen much of the city, so this was a good chance to check it out.

I was surprised to see how quiet the city was. Downtown hardly anybody walked around and the shops were virtually empty. Very different from Vancouver, even though we even find that a quiet city (after China it’s hard to consider a Western city vibrant…). I assume it’s mainly because of the recession: Alberta relies on the oil and gas industry and has some major problems because of the low oil price.

As usual I also checked out the housing prices, for the price of a small bungalow in Vancouver you can here get a huge mansion! Not that I would want to live here, especially the long, cold winters would drive me nuts.

In the afternoon we went back to Canmore where the weather had cleared up and drove the Kananaskis Trail. Highlights were the lakes along the route and a white water river with kayakers. Pretty cool to see them in action in the fast flowing river, I had never seen this before.

Monday we spent the whole day sightseeing in Banff National Park, a huge park on the border of Alberta and British Columbia.

We started off in Banff where we drove up to the hot springs and later checked out the Bow river and the golf course of the Fairmont hotel.

After that we drove the Bow Valley Parkway to the famous Lake Louise. I had seen many pictures of the lake and the Fairmont hotel next to it, and I had high expectations. However, I was a bit disappointed to see the lake in reality. It was beautiful, but I had seen so many other beautiful lakes, mountains and glaciers over the past days that I did not find it very special.

The hotel looked a bit out of place to me, without it the lake would have been much nicer. Also it was way too crowded. This is the place that everybody wants to see, so it’s probably the busiest place in the whole area.

We left Lake Louise after half an hour to drive the Icefields Parkway. This is a road through the mountains, following the Continental Divide, that connects Lake Louise with Jasper. Along the route there are many glaciers and (ice cold) lakes, it makes for a fantastic ride with lots of sightseeing places. It reminded me a bit of areas in Western Xinjiang, along the Karakoram Highway.

Throwing stones with Scott at Bow Lake

Among others we stopped at Bow Lake, which is probably even more beautiful than Lake Louise, with incredible colors and 2 magnificent glaciers above it. And the best thing? Hardly any other tourists!

Family picture at Bow Lake

The ride back went relatively easy (I was prepared for a much longer drive), and within 11 hours (incl. several stops) we were back home in Vancouver.

There are tons of wildfires in British Columbia and we saw quite some areas with thick smog. But luckily no fires close to the highways, so we did not have to make any detours. Vancouver is also quite smoggy because of fires on Vancouver island and north of Whistler, but not as bad as the smog that we were used to in China!

Back home in Vancouver: smoggy skies because of wildfires

Over the past 9 months I have been following the Volvo Ocean Race on an almost daily basis. I love sailing and this is the biggest ocean sailing race in the world. The race organizers designed a great mobile app and have a good website, so you can follow the participating boats continously. All boats have their own on-boat reporters who file daily articles and videos for the site. There is a live race tracker where you can see in real time where the boats are, with among others their speed and the distance to the race leader, making you feel like you’re part of the race.

Scott and Elaine also love the race and each have their team that they support: The Chinese Dongfeng team for Elaine (just like Grace) and the Dutch Team Brunel for Scott (just like me). On many days the first thing Scott would do after getting dressed in the morning was to check the Volvo Ocean Race app on his iPad for the standings. If there were any overnight changes he would immediately let me know.

I had planned to visit one of the stops of the Volvo Ocean Race with the kids, but none of them fit my and their schedule. But then I realized that there would be a stop-over (not a real stop, just a one day pause during the last leg) in The Hague right when I would be in The Netherlands. Unfortunately I could not take Scott and Elaine because they still had their last week of school, but I decided to go with my sister and my dad instead.

On Friday morning I drove from Amsterdam to The Hague in Vincent Everts’ Tesla. Vincent, who is a well known Dutch trendwatcher, wanted to interview me about the latest developments in Bitcoin and blockchain land. He offered to take me to The Hague in his car so he could ask the questions while driving. That was of course fine with me, because in that way I could avoid taking a train. Vincent did 2 video interviews, this one and this one (sorry, both are in Dutch).

Trains are not too bad in Holland, but for some reason I often seem to have trouble with them. For example, over the past week in Holland my public transport card stopped working, causing me to miss a connection. The next train that I could take was a slow train and eventually had a big delay, meaning that I was 10 minutes late for my meeting instead of 40 minutes early (if I had waited 30 minutes for the next fast train I would have still been on time).

Vincent had never been to the Volvo Ocean Race and didn’t know much about it, but I guess he liked how enthusiast I was about it, so he decided to join as well. After picking up my dad and Sonja we drove to Schevingen harbour where the boats had arrived a few hours earlier. It was great to see the racing yachts in real life. They are 65 feet, so considerably longer than my 48 foot yacht, but if you see them there they actually look relatively small. Racing all over the world’s oceans in these boats looks easy on a video on your laptop, but in reality it may be quite scary.

The boats have a very spartan interior, there is almost nothing inside the hull in order to make them faster. In one of the exhibition tents you could walk/crawl through a model of one of the boats. I didn’t want to wait in line for that, but if you watched the people doing that you realize there is hardly any living space inside. And they live on these boats for 9 months in all kinds of weather, from hot tropical (no air conditioning!) to almost Antarctic cold in the Southern Pacific Ocean, while going super fast through huge waves. Quite amazing actually, I never realized this until I saw the boats in front of me.

I bought a couple of t-shirts and caps for the kids and looked at some of the team’s tents (mainly selling team products). Coincidentally Bouwe Bekking, the captain of my favorite Team Brunel, was there giving a speech right when I was in their tent. I have come to respect him a lot over the past 9 months, he is a very professional sailor who keeps his cool in difficult situations. He has become a minor celebrity because of the huge media exposure of the race (the race even made the Dutch evening news a couple of times) and it must have been strange for him that people suddenly ask for his signature.

After a good lunch (all kinds of fresh fish, Scheveningen is a Dutch fishing fleet harbour) we decided to drive home before the regular Dutch traffic jams would start. Although I did not get to go onto any of the boats and although I did not see any of them in action, I am glad I went over to The Hague for this. I now respect the sailors even more and I have a new item for my bucket list: one day I want to sail on one of these ocean racing machines!