A couple of weeks ago the Sea to Sky Gondola started its operations, a new cable car just outside of Squamish that opens up a new high altitude hiking and snowshoeing area next to the Stawamus Chief. I heard good things about it, but I was a bit worried that it would be very busy on a weekend (some blogs were saying that waiting times for the gondola were 45 minutes on weekends). However, because the weather was very nice (30 degrees Celsius!) and my family-in-law is visiting we decided to go there anyway.

It turned out that it was not busy at all, the parking lot at the gondola entrance had a number of empty spaces and there was no line at all at the gondola. I think the weekend lines may have been due to the fact that the gondola had just opened and many people wanted to try it out. My family bought tickets to take the gondola but I decided to run (actually, mainly hike and climb) up the newly built 1o km Sea to Summit trail to the top at over 900 meters altitude.

The trail starts right behind the parking lot and merges with another trail after a few hundred meters. At that point the path got really busy, but I soon found out that these were all people hiking up to Stawamus Chief and not to the top of the gondola. After about 20 minutes the Sea to Summit trail turned to the right, following the Shannon Falls trail, and it was quiet again.

The Sea to Summit trail is similar to the Grouse Grind in terms of its vertical distance, but where the Grouse goes up 900 meters in less than 3 km, the Sea to Sky takes 10 km for that. A large part of the trail is relatively flat, meaning that you can recover easily, which is never the case on the Grouse Grind. But part of the trail is very steep as well and reminded me of the Grouse, I even had to climb over rocks using both my hands (on Grouse that’s hardly ever needed, only when it rains or when it’s freezing). The Sea to Summit is not a trail you want to do with young kids!

The Sea to Summit has some beautiful sights along the trail, among others the upper Shannon Falls that are located about halfway to the top. I heard the waterfalls from far away already and was happy that the trail passed by them so I could check them out.

Ten minutes past the Shannon Falls is a great viewing area, where you can see Howe Sound and part of Squamish. It’s a good place to rest before tackling the final 3-4 km to the top. I just stopped for a minute for another drink: I was dehydrating fast because of the hot weather and kept on drinking water during the work-out.

At the final part of the trail I took the Wrinkle Rock trail shortcut, which is about 1 km shorter than the normal route but also a lot more difficult. You have to go over some rocky terrain where the fixed ropes (see picture) are needed to get to the top. From there it’s another 20 minutes of relatively steep trails through the woods to the top of the gondola.

After 1 hour and 57 minutes I arrived at the summit where Scott and Elaine were waiting for me. I was completely exhausted, not only because of the long and quite difficult trail, but especially because of the heat. 30 degrees Celsius is actually too hot for a hike/run like this and I drank about 2 liters of chocolate milk, water and smoothies before I started to recuperate a bit.

After about 15 minutes I felt good enough to walk around at the top and so I did a bit of sightseeing with Scott. The summit area looks great and the views are stunning. I think this may become an important tourist destination in the future.

It’s also a good start for some new trails that were recently built. However, because it’s high mountain area you have to watch out where you hike: last weekend a hiker died after falling only 6 km away from the top of the gondola. Easier accessibility to the backcountry does not mean that it’s less dangerous.

Although I was too tired to try any of the new trails (next time!), I did join Scott on the suspension bridge that’s close to the gondola.

After that I joined my family in the gondola to go down to the parking lot again. I would not advise anybody to hike down if you’re tired already. The downhill fee for the gondola is only $10 (the same as on Grouse Mountain), so that should not be a reason to hike down.

The Sea to Summit is a much nicer hike than the Grouse Grind, but also more time consuming (it takes approximately twice as long, my Grinds normally take 50-55 minutes). It only took me 30 minutes to drive home from the gondola station, so I think I will come back here more often. However, I’ll probably wait until it cools off a bit, in the height of the British Columbia summer it’s actually too hot to do a 2 hour outdoor work-outs.

Because of its proximity to Vancouver the Sea to Summit could become a competitor to the Grouse Grind, especially for weekend hikes (a 2 hour after-work hike instead of 1 hour, plus extra travel time, will be too much for most Grouse Grinders). So far there is no official timer yet like on Grouse, so you’ll have to time yourself, but once the hike becomes more popular that may come as well. I’m looking forward to doing this one a couple of times per year!

Grace’ family is visiting at the moment, so last weekend we decided to take the ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island to spend a few days there. I enjoyed the trip a lot, because I had not seen a lot of Victoria during my last trip there and because of the great summer weather.

We decided to take the ferry instead of a seaplane so that we would have our own car while in town. That was a good idea, because there is a lot to see outside of Victoria. Below a couple of pictures from the 3 days and nights we spent there.

On the ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay

View during the ferry ride to Vancouver Island. The Gulf Islands are beautiful, I hope to come back here soon on my own boat. Lots of places to anchor and so quiet! Happy to have this kind of places within one day of sailing from home.

Sidney, BC. A small seaside town between the ferry terminal and Victoria. We walked along the waterfront and looked at some of the shops.

Scott and Elaine enjoying the view from our living room in the Fairmont hotel. There was always something happening in the harbour and it was nice to see the ferries, seaplanes, sailing boats and whale watching tours arrive and depart continuously.

Fairmont The Empress, one of the best hotels I have stayed in in North America and in a great location in the center of town. I will likely stay here again on future trips to Victoria.

Sunset view over Victoria Harbour, taken from our room

Fairmont The Empress at night

Parliament Building at night, taken from the harbour

Craigdarroch Castle, the former residence of mining tycoon Dunsmuir. Highly recommended to visit this huge house that was put back in its original state. 

Royal BC Museum, explaining and showing the history and nature of British Columbia. Even Scott and Elaine liked the museum a lot.

Parliament Building, next to Victoria’s inner harbour.

Inside Parliament Building. The Parliament is open to the public, either on a guided or a self-guided tour.

Sooke, on the Pacific Coast. It was much colder here because of the clouds that came in over the ocean. A relaxed atmosphere in a beautiful setting, I plan to come back here.

Lunch in a restaurant on the water, just outside of Sooke

The Butchart Gardens, about 20 km outside Victoria. Planted in a former mine, this is a nice park to stroll for an hour or 2. The park has among others a rose garden, an Italian garden and a Japanese garden.

Japanese Garden at the Butchart Gardens, Scott and Elaine posing for pictures.

Scott in the lounge of our hotel. We spent quite some time here every day for breakfast, drinks, high tea, appetizers and wine before dinner, and for a last glass of wine after the kids were in bed.

On the ferry right before arriving in Horseshoe Bay.

More pictures of our trip are here on this set on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157645572454626/

Today’s warning by the European Banking Authority for banks not to sell, hold or trade Bitcoin was reported as negative for Bitcoin in mainstream media. I think these media are wrong, the fact that even the EU is now asking for regulation of Bitcoin means that cryptocurrencies are actually getting much closer to a breakthrough than I had assumed just a few months ago.

I believe Bitcoin regulation will be needed in order for it to succeed, so I applaud the fact that more regulation will come soon. Only then the average Joe will start using Bitcoin, so they might as well start regulating it sooner than later.

Mainstream media are very biased in their Bitcoin reporting, it reminds me a bit of how they report about China: mainly negative, stereotypical stories make it into the media. Over the past weeks so many positive, important things have happened to Bitcoin that I feel that it’s coming close to a tipping point. But of course you don’t read these stories in your daily newspaper or on the national news. Therefore here an overview of some of the most important Bitcoin news stories from the past weeks, that show how far Bitcoin has come already.

California makes Bitcoin legal currency
Last week California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that makes “various forms of altnernative currency such as digital currency” legal in purchasing goods and transmitting payments. A major step for Bitcoin!

Russian may legalize Bitcoin
After basically banning Bitcoin a couple of months ago, Russia is seeing the light. Bank of Russia deputy chairman Luntovsky said this week that the Bank of Russia is ready to legalize Bitcoin. At a conference he said: “One can’t ignore this instrument, maybe this is the future”. However, “We advocate a careful approach to bitcoin and are monitoring the situation along with the Bank for International Settlements,”

Newegg accepts Bitcoin payments
Newegg, the multi-billion dollar online retailer of computer hardware and software started to accept Bitcoin this week. According to Newegg: “Our customers have been asking for Bitcoin as a payment option for months. We believe there is a pent-up demand just waiting to be served and we are happy to open this payment option to them.” Newegg is using Bitpay to convert its Bitcoin into traditional currency.

Winkelvoss Bitcoin Trust getting closer to launch
Wall Street can still not buy Bitcoin because there are no Bitcoin instruments available to them. Therefore it’s imperative that ETFs (electronically traded funds) come onto the market. The first one will most likely be the Winkelvoss ETF, because they (again) handed in an amended S-1 to the SEC. They also announced that the ETF will trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol COIN. Once this ETF will start trading I expect an immediate big increase in the Bitcoin price.

Successful US Bitcoin auction
The big news in Bitcoin land this week was the succesful auction of 30,000 BTC that the US government seized from Silk Road. Venture Capitalist Tim Draper turned out to be the winner of the auction, but he did not want to say how much he paid for them. The Bitcoin price had gone down after the auction was announced, but right after the auction was over it increased again to pre-auction levels. For me the auction is signficant not only because it was successful, but also because it signals that the US does not see Bitcoin as an illegal asset. If they would have seized drugs they certainly would not have auctioned it off!

South Korean payment processor Galaxia integrates Bitcoin
I have to admit that until a few days ago I never heard of Korean payment processor Galaxia, but after they announced that they will integrate Bitcoin most people in Bitcoin land will remember them. They are in the top 3 of largest payment processors in Korea and because of their Bitcoin integration Koreans can now pay in cryptocurrency on more than 10,000 domestic and international websites.

Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance and Google Finance add Bitcoin
A few weeks ago Bloomberg suddenly added Bitcoin to its terminals for financial professionals. An important prerequisite for traders to start paying attention to the cryptocurrency. And for people like me who don’t want to spend $3000 per month on real time financial news and data, both Yahoo Finance and Google Finance also added Bitcoin price data.

Apple allows Bitcoin wallets
When Apple started to ban Bitcoin wallets last year I was seriously thinking to switch back to Android, despite all the drawbacks for an Apple junkie like me. But it looks like that won’t be necessary anymore, because Apple changed its mind and started to allow Bitcoin wallets again. Great news for me and many other people who are married to the iOS infrastructure. Bitcoin now even appears in the official iPhone stock quotes app, but that’s likely because of the Yahoo Finance integration (Yahoo delivers the data for this app).

Bitcoin Bowl
Bitpay and ESPN signed a 4-year deal to rename the college football bowl in St. Petersburg, FL to the Bitcoin Bowl. Heads off to Bitpay for not naming it Bitpay Bowl, because now a 100 million Americans will hear about the Bitcoin Bowl on ESPN. According to CryptoCoinNews the Bitcoin Bowl agreement has the potential to: “To win over a public still skeptical of digital currencies and to get some good headlines in a year marked by bad press for its falling price and bankruptcy scandals, Bitcoin promoters are turning to America’s favorite pastime – football.”

Coinbase Vault
If you mined some Bitcoin a few years ago or spent a thousand dollars in 2010 or 2011 on Bitcoin, you would now be a (multi)millionaire. The problem is that if you keep your money in Bitcoin (as most would stilll do of course) you may suddenly have sleepless nights because you wonder how safe your Bitcoin really are in your online wallet. Several of my friends who intend to buy serious amounts of Bitcoin did not do so yet because of the same problem, they worry about the people stealing their coins. Of course you can keep them in paper wallets, but they can get lost and most non-techies don’t even understand what a paper wallet is yet.

Coinbase has now solved this problem with a new product called Vault. They will store your coins offline and withdrawals are time delayed, meaning that if someone threatens you and forces you to give them your pass codes they can’t access your money until after 48 hours. Also you can add multiple signatures to your account, so that you need more than one person’s password to access your money. An important product that will lead to a higher Bitcoin adoption.

MIT students all get $100 in Bitcoin
What happens if the smartest technical students would all get $100 worth of Bitcoin? We’ll find out, because all undergraduate MIT students will get $100 this fall when they arrive back on campus. The money for this was privately raised through MIT alumni and the Bitcoin community and will likely not only lead to more Bitcoin awareness but also to a lot of Bitcoin projects by MIT students.

Expedia allows Bitcoin payments
One of the largest online travel agencies, Expedia.com, now accepts Bitcoin as payment. To start with for hotel bookings only and only on its US site, but it’s a good start. Expedia uses Coinbase for its Bitcoin transactions. Expedia announced this week that the bookings in Bitcoin have exceeded their expectations.

Update: Unbelievable, the product below was so popular that it sold out in just 2 minutes! Only in China, finding lenders for 3 million RMB (about US$ 500K) in 2 minutes. I love it!

Last week Grace and I visited the offices of Dianrong.com (formerly SinoLending) in Shanghai, a p2p lending company where I’m a board member. They have some innovative products coming up and one of them will launch today.

In a cooperation with Sina, Dianrong will now offer lenders a 10% guaranteed annualized return on their investments in a new product that they offer. Anybody can join, the minimum amount that you need to lend out is RMB 500 for a period of 6 months. However, the offer is only available until Monday or until 3 million RMB has been lended (whatever comes first). You can check the progress here: https://www.weicaifu.com/v/p2p/detail/30004

I think this will be a very popular product, because the principal and interest are guaranteed and because it’s offered in cooperation with leading portal Sina. The product will introduce more people to the concept of p2p lending in China, where the savings rate is traditionally quite high and banks like anywhere give low interest rates on deposits.

Dianrong is growing extremely fast and I am proud of the strong team that comes up with these new products and implements them quickly. Expect some more innovative products over the next couple of weeks.

During our meetings over the past days in Shanghai it became once again very clear to me that there is no country for entrepreneurship like China. Things just go so much faster than in most other parts of the world. Just one example here, judge for yourself if this would be possible outside China:

Grace and I were meeting with an entrepreneur for breakfast. Grace had known him online for about 3 years and met him once in real life, but so far I had not seen him in person. Grace talked highly about him, because he was smart and had a lot of potential.

He indeed turned out to be a very smart guy in his early 30s who spoke fluent English. Not surprising considering his tech degree from one of the top 5 universities in the US and his work experience there. He mentioned that Canada had given him a permanent residence but that he let it expire because of the opportunities in China. This actually reminded me of Grace not taking a Singapore permanent residence after getting her INSEAD degree (at that time Singapore offered this to all INSEAD MBA graduates).

After ordering food and drinks on the terrace in Xintiandi he started telling us about his start-up. I hear a lot of pitches in my job a venture capitalist, but this was one of the best I had ever heard. The guy was extremely passionate about his idea and I immediately got what he was planning to do and how it could disrupt a major industry. The idea was a relatively simple (tech) execution play and I realized this was a potential multi-billion dollar idea. I can’t talk about the idea here because he is in full stealth mode, but if it comes out and becomes as succesful (as I think it will be) I will likely blog about it.

He started the company about 6 weeks ago and now already has 15 people on his payroll. Not just average developers and operations people, but top people from China’s leading online companies. I was very impressed but I understood how he had managed to convince them to join him in his start-up.

Although it was not an ‘official’ pitch I became intrigued and decided on the spot that I wanted to invest (something that’s highly unusual for me by the way). However, he then told me that 2 weeks ago he had had lunch with a partner of one of the leading Silicon Valley venture capital funds (a fund that I can’t name here either), where he had informally mentioned his plan. Although he wasn’t ready to raise money yet, he also offered to invest immediately and within 5 days all documents had been signed and the deal was closed! I guess we were just 2 weeks too late. Maybe there is a chance to get in at a later stage, but likely at a very inflated valuation.

Two months ago this was just an idea, and now it’s already a fully operational and well-funded company that will grow to 20 employees before its launch later this month. Wow, just wow.

When hearing this kind of stories I sometimes wonder whether I made the right decision to leave China. Of course I know I can’t really live in China anymore with my family because of the pollution, the food scandals, the traffic jams and the censored, slow Internet. Also I am very happy with my new life and job in Vancouver and I would not consider leaving. But as an ambitious investor and entrepreneur I realize the quality of life in Canada comes at a price. You can’t have it all, so it’s great to be back every now in the place where things really happen.

View over Xintiandi (Shanghai)

Grace and I landed in China on Sunday afternoon for a couple of days of meetings, dinners or drinks with companies, friends and family. The longer we live in Canada the longer it takes to get used to China again. Things that were normal just 15 months ago now seem so foreign to me. But it’s great to be back and to see what’s going on in business – and in the Chinese Bitcoin world!

The love/hate relationship I used to have with China is still there, but I feel more of an outsider now. My driver’s license here has expired so I can’t drive myself anymore (probably a good thing), I have trouble finding my way in Beijing because the city changes so fast, and I seem to have lost much of my Chinese so I have trouble communicating.

Taishan (Mt. Tai), during train ride from Beijing to Shanghai

The good thing is that because I am only here for 10 days I don’t take things so serious anymore. People jumping the queue don’t bother me as much as before and the endless traffic jams in Beijing are a pity, but then I just leave a bit earlier. When I ordered a cafe mocha during a meeting in a hotel lobby yesterday and the waitress came back 20 minutes later telling me that they don’t have mocha, I just smiled and ordered a black coffee instead. Vancouver made me a lot more patient it seems.

That doesn’t mean that things don’t bother me, the slow and censored Internet is still a big nuisance, but I know it’s just for a few days. I started coughing again a bit a few hours after I landed in Beijing (despite the relatively low smog levels), which is something I am not too happy with. But also there I know I’ll be out of the bad air soon again, so it’s just part of the package.

What I still love is the speed of business here, businesses keep on developing much faster than in Canada. People in China just execute better and faster it seems, and not just Chinese entrepreneurs but also non-Chinese ones. That’s what I still love (and miss) most about China, things just get done here and every week you see progress. Bitcoin gets blocked? Companies find a way around it, and if the way around it gets blocked they will come up with something else.

Boarding the bullet train in Beijing

I am now on the fast train from Beijing to Shanghai, my favorite mode of transport between these 2 cities. After the Xinjiang terrorist attacks the security at the train station has become as much of a nuisance as at the airport. We had to go through train station security twice, once at the entrance to the station and once before going to the train tracks. Twice we were stopped because we had a Swiss army knife in our suitcase. The first time we had to register the tool (just sign a document) but could keep it, not sure what the value of that is. Would a terrorist not use a knife after he signed a document for it? We were told to make sure not to lose the knife!

At the second security we had to give them the knife and they put tape around it before handing it back. We were not allowed to take the tape off until we arrived in Shanghai. What’s the use of that? Do they think people with criminal intentions would now not dare to use the knife?

A carpenter got into an argument with security because they wanted to take away his hammer. How can people who need to take the train for their jobs take their tools with them? I understand the country is afraid of a new attacks but either provide a different solution (you can’t check luggage on the train, so maybe provide a temporary solution where you can check in knives and tools?) or just let people take tools anyway (taping them doesn’t help much anyway).

So China has not changed much, but I certainly have. I am more relaxed and don’t take things too serious anymore. Maybe that will change in a couple of days again? I don’t know, but if so I’ll probably update this post. For now I am happy to be back in my former home country.

In China we regularly went to concert and events, but in Vancouver we spend most of our nights at home (mainly working or reading work-related materials, some things never seem to change…). That’s actually not because we don’t want to go out, but mainly because we don’t have live-in staff, so we can’t leave the kids at home at night. But because my parents were in town we decided to watch the opening concert of Lionel Richie‘s North American Tour last night at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver.

Grace managed to get us front row seats, which is a special experience because you are so close to the artists and you can really feel the music (because of the speakers that are literally right in front of you). Next time I’ll bring ear plugs though. Lionel may not be one of the loudest acts, but my ears still lack some hearing the morning after the show!

The tickets were not cheap, but I guess that’s supply & demand at work. In Shanghai we were normally invited to concerts, so tickets and even backstage events were for free, and I did not always realize how expensive this can be.

I grew up with Lionel Richie’s music in the 80s and remember among others that my first slow dance in high school was on a Lionel Richie song. I had his albums on cassette tapes and later owned a couple of his CDs, but I had never been to any of his concerts, so this seemed like a good chance.

The opening act was Cee-Lo Green, who gave a decent (but not great) 40 minute performance with lots of covers of old R&B and soul songs, but also with his hit Crazy. The scarcely dressed girls that surround him made the show fun to watch, but did not add much to the music. Cee-Lo understood very well that most people were not there to see him and referred to Lionel Richie a couple of times. I like him a lot better now than before, but I can’t believe he is only 38 (he looks 20 years older, partly because he is so obese).

After the opening act the stage was rebuilt, which took about 30 minutes. That gave me some time to post pictures to social media, answer some emails and to have a beer. And then Lionel Richie came up! Although he will turn 65 next month, he looks and acts much younger. He seems to be in great shape and gave a fantastic show for all ages.

Of course all of his greatest hits were on the playlist (from Hello to Dancing on the Ceiling and from Penny Lover to Say You, Say Me), but also a lot of Commodores hits. The light show was pretty good as well, which colorful background images and animations. Lionel is a good actor and did quite some talking in between songs (introducing songs, making some jokes), which made the evening even more interesting.

The interaction with his band was great, he gave them a lot of room to perform and they did a great job. Especially the saxophonist gave a super performance, he was really amazing but Lionel did not introduce him.

I had expected the last song to be All Night Long, but Lionel Richie and his band came back on stage after that song to perform We Are The World. I did not know that he co-wrote that song with Michael Jackson, but it was the perfect ending for a great night in the Rogers Arena.

Top of Grouse Mountain, completely snow free already!

Last weekend the Grouse Grind opened for the 2014 season, but because I was in Holland I could not do the climb on opening day (like last year). I love Grouse Mountain and ran/hiked it many times last year. It’s a great work-out because it only takes an hour (or less) and the nature on Grouse is beautiful. There are not many views during the climb, but because you are normally so focused on where to put your feet for the next steps that’s not a big deal. The views from the top are fantastic of course.

Today I drove over to Grouse Mountain after work and did my first Grind of the season. I expected it to be hard, because I had not done any mountain hiking or climbing activities in months and because of too much travel over the past days. But the opposite was the case: the Grouse Grind was relatively easy and I did the trail without stopping once. I finished in 52 minutes and 39 seconds, a decent time for the first climb of the season.

Happy that I made it to the top

Probably the fact that I ran a full marathon just over 2 weeks ago makes a big difference. I especially noticed that I was able to control my breathing most of the time (just like while running a marathon), meaning that I still had some reserves. That was not always the case last year during my Grouse Grinds, so this is a good incentive to keep on running long distances next to climbing Grouse Mountain.

For people in Vancouver: there is no free parking at the bottom of Grouse Mountain anymore. The former free parking spaces close to the start of the trail now cost $2 for 3 hours (which should sufficient for a Grouse Grind plus the gondola back down), or you can park at the gondola for a bit more than that. I opted to buy a yearly parking pass for $42, considering the number of times that I’ll be at Grouse that’s probably money well spent.