The Grouse Grind, a steep 2.9 km trail up Grouse Mountain with a 850 meter altitude increase, has become my favorite trail in Vancouver. Not because it is such a beautiful trail – there are some nice views but generally the trail is so steep that you only see the steps or rocks ahead of you. There are much nicer trails out there, but they are not as much fun or as convenient to reach from downtown Vancouver as the Grouse Grind.

I did my first Grind in early May and since then I hiked it 6 times (once without the official Grouse Grind Timer, and the last 5 times with one, so everybody can see my results online). I don’t use the word run for the Grouse Grind, because it’s almost impossible to run it because it’s so steep. I often go after work, it’s just a short detour on my way home, and their is enough parking space at the bottom of the trail.

I bought an annual ticket for Grouse Mountain, so each time I go up I can take the cable car back down to my car. That’s a major selling point for the Grouse Grind compared to other trails, especially because running down is bad for your knees and I prefer just going up.

Another advantage is the Grouse Grind timer that I mentioned earlier. Most of the regulars have a chip card that you can scan at the bottom and at the top, so your results are displayed on a TV screen and they are all available online. It’s great to compare your results to others, or to the average of the different age groups.

Last Friday I did the Grouse Grind two times in a row, which was actually a bit too much. My legs were killing me on the second climb up and I was not sure if I would be able to make it. But of course I did reach the top (although I did stop several times), but  not in a great time. The first climb I managed in 48:28 minutes, but the second one took me 16 minutes longer.

It’s quite busy on the Grouse Grind, especially on weekends, so I try to avoid peak times. When you go relatively fast you have to pass a lot of people on the steep trail, which is not always easy. I wish I could do it early in the morning, but it’s my task to get Scott dressed, fed and to school by 8 AM, so that won’t work. I realize more and more what a luxury it was that we had 2 nannies in China!

I actually like passing a few people on the way up, it’s a good incentive to push myself even more. I guess I am just too competitive. When I did the Grouse Grind 2 times in a row I was annoyed that people managed to pass me on my second climb up, especially when I had to stop several times.

The Grouse Grind is such a great work-out because it only takes less than an hour, but you have to give everything you have during that time. You can’t even stop and go back half way, because there are no side trails and it’s not allowed to hike down (although some people still do this). But there is a comfortable cable car back to the bottom of the mountain!

All these things together make the Grouse Grind quite addictive and I now need to do it at least once a week. And I am not the only one, there are people who climb Grouse Mountain 2-3 times per day almost every day! One guy did the Grouse Grind 97 times this year already, even though the season only started less than a month ago (so that’s over 3 climbs per day on average). I am very happy to have this great trail so close to my house!

PAUL PAIRET’S EGGS from Limelight Studio on Vimeo.

Two of my favorite restaurants in Shanghai are both run by chef Paul Pairet: Ultraviolet and Mr. & Mrs. Bund. I am very impressed by his cooking style and how he presents his food, and I hope one day he’ll set up a restaurant in Vancouver (unlikely, I know).

So when I saw a video on Shanghaiist on how he fries an egg – one of the few kitchen activities that I can pull off as well – I wanted to watch it. And indeed he makes an art of it. Things like not toasting a piece of bread in a toaster, but using fire to burn it. Not using butter but frying lard before adding the eggs. You probably get what I mean. The video inspires me to be a it more creative while frying eggs for the family on Saturday morning. And it also inspires me to have dinner at either Ultraviolet or Mr. & Mrs. Bund during my next trip to Shanghai!

Today Mary Meeker once again presented her latest views on the State of the Internet. I love her slide decks, they are very inspirational and always give me lots of new ideas – not necessarily anymore for companies to found, but at least for companies to fund.

One interesting thing about today’s presentation is that she talks a lot about China and compares the Internet usage there with that in the rest of the world. If you don’t have time to go through the whole presentation, here are some of the notes that I took while reading it during my lunch break today.

-China now has 564 million Internet users, almost twice as many as the #2 country, the USA with 244 million users. This gap will only widen, because the yearly growth in the US is just 3% against 10% in China. So far in China only 42% of the population is online (US: 78%) meaning that the Internet still has a lot of room to grow.

– Surprisingly, the country where most people share ‘everything’ or ‘most things’ online is… Saudi Arabia (60%). The rest of the top 5 are all Asian countries (#5 Turkey is actually Eurasian), followed by China at #6. In China 33% of the Internet users share almost everything online, something you can clearly see if you compare Weibo or WeChat usage to the usage of Twitter in the US. In the US the percentage is 15%, far below the world average of 24%.

– Mary Meeker makes a mistake by saying that the top 8 of biggest Global Internet Properties are all US companies. The data they use (based on Comscore) suggest that #9 (Tencent) and #10 (Baidu) both have less than 300 million unique monthly visitors. This is far below their real user numbers, the Comscore figures for China are always way too low. It should have been clear from some of her other charts that her figures are too low, for example WeChat (a Tencent app that was launched 18 months ago) already has 400 million users. WeChat is just one of many of Tencent’s services. Later she mentions Sina Weibo with 530 million users, which did not even make it in the top 10. Not a big deal, but in my opinion Chinese companies should be ranked much higher in the Global Internet Properties list.

– Her observation that the mobile Internet in China is now bigger than the PC Internet is a good one. Globally mobile Internet traffic is only 15% of total Internet traffic, so the rest of the world has a lot of catching up to do. China shows us what kind of mobile Internet services might appear in the Western world, for example a taxi app where you can push to talk to the driver or where you can bid higher to make sure you get the taxi if it’s busy. Unfortunately the taxi apps example is not a good one because they may be restricted soon, but it shows how innovative China is.

– In China time spent on the Internet is higher than time spent on TV: 33% of media time is spent online vs. 29% while watching TV.

– Alibaba (China e-commerce) is now bigger than Ebay and Amazon combined in terms of gross merchandise value.

It’s a good sign that Mary Meeker emphasizes what’s happening in China. When I talk to Internet people in Vancouver I am surprised that many still don’t realize about how big and innovative the Chinese Internet really is.

There is a lot more in the presentation (most not related to China) that I won’t talk about here, but that you should check out if you want to understand where the world is headed. I want to end with one example about Google Glass. Wearable technology is something I believe in but that is getting a lot of criticism. Mary Meeker simply observes that the average smartphone user reaches for his/her mobile phone 150 times per day, this could be hands-free with Google Glass-like technologies. I am looking forward to the future!

After almost 3 months in Canada it was time to rename my blog. I got a couple of emails and comments from people who found my blog through Google or in aggregators, and did not understand why most topics are suddenly about Canada instead of China. Well, to end the confusion I changed the name of this blog from Shanghaied Weblog to Vancouvered Weblog. Not very original, but until I find a better name it should suffice. I also changed the text of the side box, so it’s clear that I don’t live in China anymore. 

Because the honeymoon phase of living in Vancouver is almost over (the first 100 days of our stay here end on June 9), it’s probably also time for a post about the pros and cons of living and working here versus being in China. Hint: I love working and living in Vancouver, but I do miss Shanghai and its exciting but challenging business environment. I may join the board of a Chinese Internet company in a few weeks, so I will be back more often in the second half of the year.

One of the great things about living in Vancouver is that we are so close to nature and marine wildlife. Over the past weeks I have seen quite some seals on the small beach close to our house, and last week I even saw an orca (killer whale) while sitting on our terrace in the late afternoon.

A few days ago I heard that an elephant seal had chosen Ambleside beach for its yearly moulting process, meaning that it sheds its fur and skin there during a one-month period. So when we were doing our Sunday afternoon shopping in Ambleside today, we decided to go for a walk on the beach to look at the seal.

The area around the mammal is closed off from the public, because it can be quite dangerous if you come too close. The municipality put up signs saying that an elephant seal can bite and is more dangerous than the usual seals we see in Vancouver’s waters. But you could still come quite close to the seal, even though it was a bit hard to recognize because its color is similar to the color of the sand.

Seeing this animal on the beach was totally worth the small detour, even though Elaine preferred the playground across the road from the seal. In case you would like to see it, the elephant seal is on the beach next to the hockey fields, just west of 13th Street in West Vancouver.

The ski season in Vancouver is officially over, only in Whistler you can still ski. That means the trailrunning season has started, and today Vancouver’s most famous trail opened officially: The Grouse Grind.

I heard a lot about it over the past months, so I really looked forward to doing the hike/run. During a recent business lunch someone mentioned that he was going to do the Grind and he invited me to join him. So this morning at 10 AM I was at the bottom of Grouse Mountain, ready for a good work out. The trail is only about 3 km, but the elevation gain is over 850 meters.

Start of the Grouse Grind with lots of warnings

We took it relatively easy, not running but hiking up at a decent speed without stopping (we just had 2 short stops to drink some water). The trail starts going up right from the start and there is not a single flat piece in it. The trail has been very well maintained, so even though the hike up was strenuous it did not feel dangerous. At some points the incline was more than 45 degrees, when you looked up or down it was almost like looking up or down a wall. 

Halfway the Grouse Grind

Because it’s not summer yet the snowline was below the finish, but most of the snow had been cleared from the trail. It got noticeably colder though, but luckily there was hardly any wind. It was quite busy on the trail, but when passing people they generally stepped aside right away, so it did not really bother me. This is probably a good trail to do early in the morning or after work on weekdays.

Made it to the top!

We did the hike in about an hour, not particularly fast but a decent time for a first try. I think I will start hiking (or maybe even running?) this trail more often over the coming months. It’s a great way to stay in shape, the trail can easily be reached from Vancouver (it’s just a few kilometers detour when I drive home after work), and nature is stunning (as everywhere on the North Shore).

View from the terrace to the last meters of the Grouse Grind

We had some drinks on the outside terrace at the gondola station and watched other people coming off the Grouse Grind. Some could hardly walk anymore! Don’t underestimate the Grouse Grind, it’s not a ‘walk in the park’ that you can do at a fast pace without any training.

View to West Vancouver from Grouse Mountain

Almost all hikers took the gondola back to the valley (cost: $10), but we decided to hike down over the BCMC trail, which is just east of the Grouse Grind. This trail is less well maintained and was snow covered for the first 15 minutes. Much harder to walk on, but luckily not as steep at the top part where you had to hike through the snow. The advantage of the BCMC is that it’s not as busy as the (more well-known) Grouse Grind.

Going back down on the BCMC Trail

Both trails end up at the same parking lot, so that’s easy. I had a great time and am happy to have found this trail so close to where I live. Life in Vancouver is getting better every day!

For more info on the Grouse Grind (incl. some more pictures) see here on VancouverTrails.com

This morning I participated in the BMO Vancouver Marathon, my first race since arriving in Canada. Because I did not want to train for a full marathon I just did the half marathon (21.1 km), a distance that is doable without specific training if you are in decent shape and run regularly.

It was a warm day in Vancouver, with clear blue skies and temperatures up to 25 Celsius, so I was happy that the race started at 7 AM already. My dad drove me to the start line (he did not join today) where we had a drink together, and then drove to the finish line in downtown Vancouver.

At the start line I was assigned a place in the first start corral and because I was early I was at the front of all the runners. The atmosphere was very relaxed, very different from the races in China where I participated over the past years. Nobody was pushing or trying to get to the front, and people were talking with each other and having fun. The start was supposed to start at 7, but was postponed because there were problems with the course (no idea what happened, they didn’t announce it). People didn’t mind too much it seemed, and certainly nobody complained.

After the obligatory speeches, the Canadian National Anthem and a minute of silence for the victims of the Boston Marathon attacks, people thought we would start, but the course was still not ready. A short warming up session was organized and for some reason the elite athletes thought that the race would start right after that. So they started running, followed by many other runners but within 10-15 seconds everybody was stopped and had to go back into the corral. I had never seen that before!

A few minutes later was the official start and off we went. Because I was in the first (=fastest) corral I started off quite quickly, especially because the course was mainly downward sloping for the first 2-3 km. At 5 km I noticed that my time was about 20 minutes, which is too fast for me for a longer race, so I slowed down a bit. That was a good thing, because soon we hit downtown with a couple of uphill climbs. Quite heavy, especially if you know you still have 2/3rd of the race to go…

Because of the constant ups and downs in the course I did not really get into a running rhythm. Normally during a long race you run at one pace, but here you have to slow down on the uphills and accelerate on the downhills. I found it very tiring and the further I got into the race the more difficult I found the run. When we entered Stanley Park I thought we would mainly have a flat course from there, but the opposite was true: we did not run on the flat seawalk, but on the normal road that had some serious hills in it. I slowed down a lot over the last 5-6 km, I went from 4:30 min/km to almost 5 min/km.

But luckily we were almost there and after Stanley Park we only had about 1.5 km to go. Too bad that the last kilometer was uphill sloping as well: you could see the finish line in the distance, but you had to run slightly uphill to get there. But of course I made it and my time of 1:36:58 (gross time, net time is probably 10-20 seconds better) was not too bad considering the difficulty of the course.

My dad had managed to get behind the finish line (he convinced a race official that he should let him in!) and took a picture when I crossed the finish line. I was exhausted and immediately had some water, some coconut juice and a banana. I sat down for a few minutes and quickly recuperated. I noticed that my upper leg muscles were quite painful because of all the hills, another sign that this race was much harder than other half marathons that I ran over the past years.

All in all it was a difficult race, but also a very nice one. Friendly staff and organizers, a relaxed atmosphere before and during the race (with several bands playing along the route for example), and beautiful scenery along the course. I’ll be back next year, either for the half or the full marathon, but I’ll make sure I’ll do some longer and faster training runs with lots of hills in them!

 

One big thing that changed since I moved to Canada, is that I have a lot less time for reading news and writing blog posts. In China I used to stop doing emails and calls around 11 or 12 at night, have a glass of wine and start reading my RSS feeds or write a blog post. But in Canada I need to get up much earlier to get Scott ready for school (no nannies here!), so instead of going to bed at 1 or 2 AM I am normally in bed by midnight already. That means I need to rearrange my time schedule a bit if I want to write a blog post.

I have at least 5 topics that I planned to write about, but it seems I can’t find the time to do so. I just realize I did not post anything in the past 2 weeks… In China there was always time late at night or while driving to work, but now I will probably need to make time for it: either spending less time with the family, going to bed later or getting up earlier, or spending 30-45 minutes during lunch to write a post. Not sure yet what’s the best solution, but I want to keep writing this blog so I will find a way.

As for reading news, I deleted a lot of my news feeds and try to find good curated news sites to keep up with what’s happening in China and the rest of the world. It’s a slow process and it’s sometimes hard to delete a feed that I have been following for years (I now put them in a ‘read on the weekend’ folder, that I scan a few times during the week as well). Also finding good news sources for Vancouver proved harder than I thought, feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions.

I am still not watching any TV, despite having hundreds of cable TV channels, so at least I am not wasting time on that. When I just got our TVs installed I spent some time zapping through all the channels, but I quickly realized it’s a major time sink so I avoid turning it on. I could probably save about $100 per month by canceling my cable subscription, I should look into that. I do watch some video on demand late at night (especially through Netflix), so I don’t miss the cheap Shanghai DVDs yet!