Close to our house is a golf course, the Hongqiao Golf Club, with a 9-hole course and a driving range. When we moved to our current compound I thought I would finally be able to play golf more regularly, but I did not play golf there once over the past 4 years… All my own fault, I was just too focused on work, but that will probably change. The reason is that Scott will now learn to play golf and today he had a short introductory lesson.

Upper level of driving range at Hongqiao Golf

We walked over with both kids this morning and they were excited to see all the golfers hitting golf balls from the 2-level driving range tees. We went to the upper level where the golf academy is located. It’s a school with some excellent PGA professionals and they also teach kids. We signed Scott up for 10 lessons and he immediately received a short introduction by one of the pros.

Elaine looking at her brother hitting a golf ball

Scott got a short iron (these short kids golf clubs look cute!) to hit his first balls with, then got a quick instruction from a pro and within 5 minutes he was hitting his first balls. Elaine was watching him and seemed to like it as well. But because she is only 3 we want to wait at least another year for her to start playing.

If you are in Shanghai and like to play golf, the course is on Hongmei Lu (entrance just south of City Supermarket), more info see here.
If you want to brush up on your golf skills or send your kids here check out the golf academy at www.qiuyigolf.com. It’s not cheap though, because this is the closest golf course to downtown Shanghai. Prices start at RMB 680 (USD 110) per hour for a Chinese professional and RMB 880 (USD 140) for a PGA coach. If you buy 10 lessons and prepay you get about 20% off, other packages are also available.   

Today I turned 40 and it is also exactly 10 years ago that I set up my first business. On October 11, 2002 I registered my first company, while studying Mandarin Chinese at Beijing Foreign Language University. It was a decade that seems to have flown by , even though (or maybe because) so many things have happened. I founded or co-founded 4 different companies and invested in a lot more businesses. It was quite a rollercoaster ride, with huge ups but also some very deep downs. I had some great business partners, but also encountered a couple of frauds over the years (one of them is in jail now in the US for the next 10 years, another one was declared bankrupt after a court case in Germany, and one of them is still doing business in The Netherlands).

I had a lot of sleepness nights over the past 10 years as an entrepreneur, a lot more than I would have had if I had stayed in my job at Daimler. But looking back it was absolutely worth it, and not only financially. I learned so much about different businesses and I got to know some very interesting people. I traveled a lot and have probably seen almost as much of the world in the past 10 years as in the 30 years before that.

And privately lots of things happened as well of course: I got married in 2005 and now have 2 wonderful kids. If you had asked me 10 years ago, the idea of getting married or having kids would have scared me. But now I realize that having kids was the best thing that ever happened to me, something that changed me completely. I am quite happy, I would not call myself a family man but I am doing my best trying to become one.

Over the years I ran marathons, climbed mountains and biked through the Himalaya. And of course I started this blog in September 2004 and now have over 60,000 unique readers coming to this site every year. I moved a lot as well, I lived at 7 different addresses in Beijing and Shanghai during the past decade. And amazingly I am still in China, that’s not something I had expected.

I set myself some work and life goals when I turned 30 and reached most of them. But I am not setting myself goals for the next 10 years anymore, at least not work wise. Of course work will still be an important part of life for me, but I hope I’ll never work as many hours per week as I did since I turned 30. Enjoying life with my family and friends has become more important, and not to forget staying healthy: a few of my friends already passed away over the past years. And if blogs are still around in 10 years I hope I’ll still be writing regular updates about my life, work and travels!

The highlight of our vacation on Sentosa last week was a one day trip to the Universal Studios Singapore theme park. This 2-year old theme park is latest addition to the 4 Universal Studio theme parks (the others are in Orlando, Hollywood and Osaka) and is located in Resorts World Sentosa.

From our hotel room balcony we could see part of the park and there was advertising for the it all over Resorts World Sentosa, so already the first night we decided to visit the park during the week. Because it would be too busy during the weekend we decided to go on Monday morning. However, when we arrived at the entrance of the park we saw huge lines at the ticket offices so Grace checked with a staff of the park. He told her that Monday was often a very busy day because most of the tour groups go on this day (they are not allowed in on the weekend). Then we saw that the park also had a VIP entrance without any people, so we checked what the definition of VIP was. Turned out that if you pay about USD 250 per person you get a personal guide who will arrange your whole visit for you (pictures with cast members, good seats at shows) and best of all, you would not have to wait in any of the lines.

With our Universal Studios guide in the theme park

Because I hate waiting in lines, especially with young kids, that was an easy choice. We talked to one of the theme park reps and bought tickets for the next day (the person convinced us that it would be a lot less busy on Tuesday and it would therefore be a more fun experience). That was a good choice, because the next day it was indeed a lot less busy (but still with lines of up to 1 hour for the rides). We had a nice guide showing us around, he had worked at the park since its opening and was very passionate about it. He immediately arranged a stroller for the kids because walking around for 6 hours or more in the tropical heat is hard on adults already and on kids even more so.

Universal Studios Singapore

We started off in the Madagscar part of Universal Studios, where we took the Crate Adventure ride (a boat ride through the ship that takes the Madagascar cast from the New York Zoo to Africa). I felt a bit embarrased that we could just move into the front of the line, but it was quite convenient. I guess this is only possible in Asia, do theme parks in the rest of the world also have this kind of arrangements if you extra? The kids liked the ride a lot and almost wanted to do it again until they saw the merry-go-round next to the Crate Adventure. That one also had the Madagascar animals in it and the kids had a great time riding them in the carroussel.

After that ride we went to the Donkey Live theater, where the donkey from the Shrek movie gave a performance. Again we did not have to wait and had reserved seats waiting for us in the middle of the theater (best seats in the house). Once again I felt a bit strange about it, but it certainly beats waiting in line outside for a long time and then scrambling for seats with hundreds of others. The donkey show was quite fun, with an animated donkey that could talk and joke with the audience. Having the best seat had the downside that I was asked to stand up and I became part of the show. The donkey of course made fun of me, which Scott and Elaine obviously liked a lot.

We did a few more attractions and then did a private photo shoot with the cast of Madagascar, right before their show started. Once again the kids were very happy, especially when they could watch the animals in their show a few minutes later aw well. After the show other visitors could take one picture with the cast (long lines formed for that), but we did not have to wait for but decided to go for lunch. We walked to the New York part of Universal Studios for a huge (20″) pizza and some other snacks, followed by a Sesame Street cast show. Because there was no opportunity to do pictures before the show we could take pictures right after it, again by being put in front of the line of other tourists…

Because we never had to wait we could do almost all rides in a day, normally that’s impossible. One highlight was Dino-Soarin’, that Scott took a couple of times with me (you can just ride it as often as you like because you don’t need to wait in line). It’s basically a merry go round in which you sit in a flying dinosaur that can ‘fly’ up if you press a button. Elaine did not dare to ride it, but Scott was screaming from excitement. He probably could have stayed in it the whole day if we had not told him to get out.

Dino-Soarin’

Our guide told us that the Canopy Flyer would be fun for the whole family. But this flying swing ride turned out to be quite scary, even for me. Elaine took it with Grace, who was afraid that Elaine would fall out, and I had the same scare when the ride started off much faster than I had imagined. I held on to Scott and told him to just close his eyes. That worked and he was a bit shaken but still okay after the ride ended. But Elaine was in a complete shock and was looking at me with big eyes without saying anything. It took 15 minutes before she had forgotten about the ride and started talking again. She did not want to do any new rides anymore afterward, and Scott followed her in that.

The scary Canopy Flyer

Because of that I did the Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure on my own (the kids could watch me during the ride and even try to shoot me with a water pistol!), which was a pity. I also did Transformers The Ride, which I did not have high expectation of before I went in but which totally blew me away. This was by far the best ride in the whole team park for me! It’s a ride in which you wear 3D glasses and in which you are part of the Transformers movie. It’s a bit like a 3D flight simulator, and it’s probably the best attraction in all theme parks I have been to in my life. Grace and the kids were in the family room of the ride watching a Transformers movie with the guid, and I told Grace she should do the ride as well. But the kids were still so shaken by the Canopy Ride that they did not want their mummy to go away from them, so she missed out on this one.

Waterworld as seen from our room above the audience

We did a few more shows, among others the Monster World musical show in Hollywood (great musical, Broadway quality using recent pop songs) and the Shrek 4-D movie, and then went back to Dino-Soarin’ for Scott and to the merry-go-round for a few rides for Elaine and Scott. We ended the visit with the Waterworld show which was fantastic: the whole atol from the movie was rebuilt and actors in boats, jet skis and on water skis acted out an action scene. One word: Wow! We had a VIP room above the audience from which we had a great view over the whole set. The room was aircoditioned and we got cold drinks, which was very nice after a whole day in the Singapore heat (and as an added advantage we did not get wet!).

Waterworld

The visit to Universal Studios Singapore was totally worth it, and also the VIP tickets were a good choice. I still feel a bit bad for the other tourist when our guide put us to the front of the line without waiting, but it’s something I could get used to! The park itself is at least as good as Disneyland in Hong Kong, although our kids liked many of the Disney characters better than the Universal Studio ones. Recommended if you are in Singapore for a few days with the kids, just don’t take 3 and 4-year olds into the Canopy Flyer.

I just finished reading J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. It’s not an easy book to read for the average Harry Potter fan, which partly explains why the book has less than 3 stars on Amazon right now. But I loved it, although it took me some time to get into the story. I started reading not long after the book came out on Sept. 27. I pre-ordered it months ago and it was downloaded automatically to my Kindle after the embargo was lifted 9 days ago.

Rowling uses the 500+ pages of the book for a detailed story about a small rural English town and the secrets of its inhabitants. The peaceful village turns out to be a whole lot less peaceful than you would think. I won’t reveal too much in case you want to read it yourself, just be prepared that this is not a children’s book but adult Literature (with a capital L!).

The novel is currently #1 on the US Bestseller list, but I wonder how Americans will like it. This is a very British book with a different theme than the average US novel. The book actually has quite a socialist undertone: that we should help less privileged people, including drug addicts, is a major theme of the story.

I guess this will be a book that will divide its reviewers, the professional literary critics will like it (there are quite some good reviews out there already), but the average US reader might put it away after 100 pages. But whatever you think of it, I believe this is a book that will have a place in literary history, even if it’s just because of the fact that it’s Rowling’s first adult fiction book after the famous Harry Potter series.

This week China is on holiday and we decided to flee the crowds and fly to Singapore for a couple of days. I like Singapore a lot, it’s very clean and it’s better organized than any other Asian country. And it’s a country that just get things done, the government there works like a real corporation and delivers impressive results. Normally we always spend our tropical beach holidays in Thailand, Malaysia or Bali, and we never really considered Singapore for a sun & sea vacation. But because of Sentosa’s transformation over the past years, Singapore is now a good competitor for other beaches in Asia, especially for a family with kids.

The first time I visited Sentosa was back in 1997 at the end of a backpacking trip in Indonesia. In my memory the island was already quite nice at that time, but there was not a lot to do and there were not many good hotels. But the place has completely changed since then: A new monorail was built that connects Siloso and Palawan beach with the “mainland” in about 5 minutes, new attractions were set up along the southern beaches and on the north coast a huge complex (Resorts World Sentosa) of hotels, shopping malls, restaurants, a casino and the Universal Studios was constructed. It’s now a clean and well organized tropical island with white (mainly man made) beaches only 45 minutes by taxi from Singapore airport.

View from the highest point of Sentosa down to Siloso beach

Sentosa is not big island, probably about 3-4 km from west to east and about 1-2 km north-south. But it’s a place that has everything that I want to have during a beach holiday. There are several quiet beaches (esp. the beaches to the east were virtually deserted when we were there), there are beach bars and restaurants where you can have pancakes for breakfast or a nice dinner on the beach, there are jungle trails for hiking or running and a lot of good hotels with nice pools. What it does not have is the unorganized (and therefore relaxed) atmosphere that you find in Thailand or other South-East Asian countries, so it is certainly a different kind of holiday than our usual ones. And a big difference are the prices, Sentosa is simply an expensive place to stay compared to a holiday on Koh Samui or on Langkawi.

We stayed at the Festive Hotel in Resorts World, a nice family oriented hotel in the middle of the complex. We had a room at the top floor of the hotel overlooking the pools and the harbor, and after putting the kids to bed I spent most nights sitting on the balcony reading a book and sipping a cold beer (or two). The hotel was fully booked because of the Chinese holidays and many Chinese couples with their kid(s) were staying here. The place was not cheap though, I think we paid about USD 500 per night per room, without breakfast or any other meal and even without Internet (USD 27 + tax per day per device – ridiculous! That would be the main reason not to stay there again for me -I normally never stay in hotels that charge for Internet- but I am afraid that all Sentosa hotels overcharge for a simple wifi connection. The solution is of course to buy a local SIM card with data and use your phone as a 3G wifi hotspot for other devices). The pools are nice and not too busy, and there were always stretchers, beach beds or salas available next to the pool.

Water park next to Palawan Beach on Sentosa

We spent almost a week on Sentosa but only left the island twice, once to go shopping on Orchard Road for kids books and toys and once to go to the Night Safari in the north of Singapore. For the rest there was so much to do that I did not even have one lazy morning or afternoon at the pool or beach!

Resorts World Sentosa

Staying at Resorts World Sentosa has the advantage that there many shops and restaurants within walking distance of your hotel room. So every morning we had breakfast in a different restaurant, or Scott and I went to the BreadTalk bakery to buy some food and drinks to eat in the hotel room or on our balcony. Also most of our dinners we had in the area, there are so many good restaurants there that we only tried some of them. Among others there is a Malaysian Food Street with great hawker food, there is a Din Tai Fung restaurant (where we had our Moon Festival dinner), there are several fast food places (Chili’s, KFC), coffee shops (Coffee Beanery, Toast Box) and of course a couple of bars such as the Big Easy.

Sentosa Monorail

Another advantage of Resorts World is that there are 2 monorail stops in the complex, so that you can get to the mainland or to the beaches within minutes. The monorail is free, so no hassle of buying tickets each time you want to use it. The buses and beach tram on the island are free as well, making it very easy to get around. Scott and Elaine loved the monorail and we took it at least twice per day.

Songs of the Sea with amazing projections in the sky

One of the highlights for our kids was the Songs of the Sea show on the beach at the end of the monorail. This show that takes place daily at 7:40 and 8:40 PM is a must see if you bring your family. It’s a simple story in the form of songs and dance with fantastic light effects and projections in the sky. The background is a fisherman’s village built on stilts in the sea, which is also used as the stage for some nice fireworks at the end of the show. If you want to have the best view buy the more expensive tickets for the show (SGD 15 per person instead of the regular SGD 10), I felt it was worth it. After the show you can walk to Coastes (2 min walk), one of my favorite beach bars where you can have a drink watching the sea while listening to live music.

But the real highlight for all of us was Universal Studios, which is also within the Resorts World complex. We spent a full day there and because we had VIP tickets (meaning you don’t have to wait in line for attractions), we managed to do almost all rides in one day. I will write a separate blog post about this attraction park (it would make this post too long), that is at least as good as Hong Kong Disneyland.

One evening we spent outside Sentosa, when we took a taxi to the Night Safari in the north of Singapore. The last time I had been there was back in 2003 when Grace did a few months of her INSEAD MBA in Singapore. I had good memories of the zoo so wanted to see it again. It’s still a great park to visit at night, also for kids. The night safari has all kinds of animals that are not kept in cages, but that live in the jungle separated by deep trenches or water from other animals (and probably invisible electrical wires, but you can’t see those at night). There is a tram that rides around the park from which you can see all the animals. Some are so close that you can almost touch them, which was a bit scary for the kids sometimes. There is artificial moonlight so you can see the animals, but they are not disturbed by it.

Entrance to Night Safari Singapore

The tram ride takes about 40 minutes and after that you can walk around the park on your own. We did not do that because otherwise the kids would be in bed too late. The park opens at 7:30 PM (when it is dark), and because it’s quite busy it’s best to come a bit early and stand in line around 7 PM already (you can board the first trams at 7:15). Going on an early ride has the advantage that all animals are just being fed, so you can see all of them in action. The last ride is around 10:30 PM. There are restaurants in the park as well that open at 6 pm, so you could come early, buy tickets, have a quick dinner and then do the tram ride.

Jungle trail on Sentosa Island

If you like to be active, Sentosa is also a good place for running and hiking. There are a couple of hiking trails through the jungle and I did all of them during the past week (I normally went out when the kids took their afternoon nap). The best place to start is at the Merlion, from there you hike up (or take the escalator!) to Imbiah Lookout from where the nature trails start. Don’t expect hard walks, but it’s fun to be away from the crowds: I did not meet anybody else during any of my walks, despite there being thousands of tourists on Sentosa.

Hidden beach on north side of Sentosa (one of the few non-man-made beaches)

Running is also great, especially if you like to run on the beach (tip: run on Tanjong and Palawan beach, these are much more quiet or even deserted). But there is also a running/cycling trail all along the southern coast, from the Shangri-La until the eastern end of Tanjong beach. And of course you can run on the normal roads on the island, they all have good sidewalks but are quite hilly! Take the tropical heat into account when you plan your run, my favorite running time was after 4 PM when it started to cool off a little bit.

Tanjong Beach, the most quiet beach on the island

I look back at a very nice vacation with my family. Different from our regular beach holidays, also because we stayed in a hotel this time. Normally we rent a villa with staff for cooking and cleaning, which gives you a lot more space and privacy, but that’s very difficult on Sentosa (there are a few villas for rent, but none of them is on the beach or has impressive views, and they are all fully booked during Chinese holidays). But the kids liked it, despite not having a private pool – or maybe even liked it better because there were several pools in the complex. I would recommend a stay of a few days on Sentosa to anybody who wants to get away from daily life in Asia for a few days, or for people who make a stop-over in Singapore from Europe to Australia or New Zealand. It’s different from a normal South-East Asian beach holiday, but for some it may be an even better experience.

For more pictures of our trip to Sentosa see this set on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157631682772830/

Last weekend I went to Putuoshan island with some colleagues of Spil Games Asia and Zlong Games. Putuoshan is an island about 3-4 hours (driving) south of Shanghai, and is famous for its many temples and beautiful nature.

We left Shanghai about 8 AM by bus and arrived around 12 in the port from where the ferries to the island leave. But because we were all a bit hungry we started with a nice seafood lunch on the terrace overlooking a lake. The food was great, especially the many different shellfishes that we got. Once lunch was finished we took the boat to the island, just a 15 trip from the mainland (boats go constantly, and we did not have to wait).

Cars are not allowed on the island (except a few local ones), so you have to leave your car or bus behind in the port. On the island itself all transport is by bus, small buses loop around the island and stop at the major temples and monasteries. Because the island is quite small (6 km from north to south I was told) you can also walk. If I would be an entrepreneurial Chinese living on the island I would start a bike rental company, I am sure that would be a good business.

We sent our luggage to the hotel and immediately started with a visit to one of the many temples. The first one was the Puji temple, which was located next to one of the beaches but strangely had no view of the sea. Most of the team wanted to pray for the different buddhas, so we started by buying incense sticks and candles. Or buying is actually not the right word, officially you get these things for free but you have to pay a fixed donation for them. Very pragmatic.

I watched some of my colleagues (and many other tourists) during their prayers and walked around a bit while they were busy. The temple is very beautiful and reminded me a bit of the temples in Kyoto (Japan). I like the atmosphere in the temple but didn’t pray myself, as an atheist I am happy if others do it but it does not bring me anything. I prefer Buddhism over Christianity and Islam, Buddhism is so much more relaxed and less pushy for non-believers. If I would ever choose a religion I would probably choose Buddhism.

Side note: I have been reading :”The Monk and The Philosospher” on and off for the past 2 months (while reading many other books), a great book for people like me who have difficulty understanding how intelligent people can believe in religion. I respect people who can do it, and assume there is more between heaven and earth than we can see, but believing in something goes against my rational mind. The book opened my eyes a bit, especially for a friendly religion like Buddhism. Not an easy book but recommended, even though I did not finish it yet.

The next temple was directly on the sea and I enjoyed watching the waves hitting the shore while the others were praying. The location was fantastic, on the rocks a couple of meters above the water. A great place to build a house, but in this case I guess that won’t be possible.

While we were there it started to rain a little bit, just a few drops. But the rain made the stairs to the temple wet and one lady slipped on them. She was clearly hurt but everybody laughed when it happened (which is a typical reaction in China, but does not mean that people laugh at her for being hurt). She got up, took one more ste, slipped again and fell down the remaining steps. At that point I also laughed, it was like a slapstick movie. I felt bad for her though, maybe she didn’t pray hard enough.

We then walked to a temple at the southern end of the island, from where I could observe fishingboats sailing from nearby islands to the sea. We walked quite a bit already and mainly at a very slow pace, so my legs and feet were getting a bit tired. I don’t mind running 15 kilometers and it won’t really make me tired, but slowly walking 5 kilometers is something that I really feel in my legs. Not sure why actually, I guess I am just not used to it. But walking is a good way to talk to people and catch up with some of the others on the trip, so I did not mind it too much.

From there we walked to the huge Guanyin statue that towers above the coastline on the south side of the island. It’s an impressive statue, one of the nicer ones I have seen in China. Also here lots of people praying and a group of people were chanting Buddhist texts in front of the statue. A very special atmosphere, especially because it was around sunset. Too bad that it was cloudy, otherwise Guanyin must have looked even nicer (I think it’s facing into the direction where the sun sets).

At night we had another fantastic seafood meal. I ordered a beer with it, but that was not recommended according to the waitress and some of my colleagues. The combination of seafood and beer is dangerous according to them. It’s not the first time I combine beer with seafood and I was thirsty, so I ordered one anyway (and I survived without any problems). After the dinner we went to our hotel, which was not bad. A spacious room with a balcony overlooking the town and the sea in the distance (but most of the view was blocked by trees in the hotel garden). I did some emails and then went into town to buy a drink (the hotel had no mini bar nor a normal bar) and spent the rest of the evening reading The Secret Race (great book, maybe I should put a review here in the coming days).

The next morning we had to get up early because our first temple visit was planned for 8 AM. I had a quick breakfast in my hotel room (I am still not a big fan of Chinese breakfasts, so normally just bring some instant coffee and muffins or croissants on short trips) and went down to the lobby. It turned out that it was raining very hard, so we changed our original plan of walking up to the Huiding monastery on Fodingshan (mountain). Our tour guide had good local connections and arranged that the car of the monastery picked us up (‘grey channel’ of course). That was a smart move because it kept on raining hard for the next hour and we would have gotten completely soaked otherwise.

The monastery was beautiful and the rain gave it a special feeling. But the downside was that you could not see much, so we did not stay too long. The car of the monks also rode us down the mountain, and while we descended the rain finally stopped. The car stopped at the Fayu Temple, another nice temple complex in the woods. But by now I had seen enough temples and I decided to walk to the beach, which turned out to be just 2 minutes from the temple.

To my big surprise the beach was totally deserted. At the temple it was quite busy, but here there was nobody. And the beach was very nice, I walked from one end to the other which took me about 12 minutes (partly jogging with my backpack), so probably 1-1.5 km one way. Being alone on a beach is always a magical experience. Seeing the waves, looking at the mountains behind the beach and just staring into the ocean. I loved it and this was probably the highlight of my trip, especially because there was nobody else.

I then went back to the Fayu temple but could not find the group, so waited outside until they came out. Because it had started raining a bit again we agreed that we had seen enough and we all went back to the port to take the ferry back to the mainland. There the bus was waiting for us already. Instead of another seafood meal we stopped at a KFC and ate the chicken wings, burgers and nuggets in the bus.

The bus driver seemed to be in a bad mood and drove like a maniac on the highway. He drove the bus at absolute top speed, the sides and bottom of the bus were vibrating because of the speed. At a certain point a car was standing still in the left lane of the highway (where we were driving), and he could just swerve around it. It turned out that he was angry at one of our managers, because she had told him to park somewhere where he did not want to park and this guy could not take that. He then tried to take revenge by refusing to let some people out in the suburbs of Shanghai (which would save them at least an hour of additional travel time), and when we called his boss he refused to talk to him (“I am driving and so I can’t take a call”). Typical behavior of someone who finally has a little bit of power over others and immediatley wants to abuse it. Eventually he gave in (luckily for him and his job), but it was not a nice end of the trip. Anyway, you have this kind of people all over the world I guess.

The trip itself was a big success in my opinion, despite the lousy weather on the 2nd day and despite the strange driver. I had never been to Putuoshan and am glad that I have now seen it. Because the island is not very close to Shanghai it’s not extremely busy (as long as you avoid Buddhist holidays), but you could just do it in one day if you would not want to stay overnight. In a car it will be about 3.5 hours to get to the port, so if you leave Shanghai at 7 AM you can be on the island by 11 AM. Most temples close between 5 and 6, so you can spend 6-7 hours sightseeing before driving back. Staying at the island is no problem either, there are a lot of decent hotel options available, but book in advance. There is no real entertainment (it’s a Buddhist island), so bring a book for the evening.

As usual I took a lot of pictures and put a couple of them online, you can see them here. 

Some of my early stage investments I do through Seraph Group, a super angel fund where I am a limited partner. Seraph is now organizing a business plan competition with an investment for the winner of between USD 100K-250K. If you are interested, please see the announcement below for more details.

Seraph Group is hosting a business plan competition on October 17th at the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Each founder will have five minutes to present his/her company in front of Seraph Investors and the investors will collective choose the winner to receive between $100,000 to $250,000 investment.

Please reach out to Ty Moddelmog (ty@seraphgroup.net) for an application. It is due September 30th at 8 PM PDT. Successful applicants will be notified on October 8th. The competition is restricted to seed-stage tech startups that have not raised a round of equity financing.

Today Sprout magazine, a Dutch magazine for entrepreneurs, came out with its new edition for which they interviewed me – and they put me on the cover! I’m very honored that they did this of course.

The full article (in Dutch) including some more pictures is here. It’s mainly about my career so far, my current activities & plans for the future, and how doing business in China for foreigners is changing.

I still remember the photo shoot with photographer Mick Ryan quite well. My last shoot with him (for the China Business Daily, see one of the pictures from that article here) was in my office, but this time he opted for Nanjing Road. No big deal, except when the shoot is in the middle of Shanghai summer when it’s way too hot to be outside. I normally like photo shoots, but I was happy that this one was over and that I could go back to my airconditioned office.