View from my hotel room (Crowne Plaza Limassol, Cyprus)

Earlier this week I was in Cyprus for business meetings, and this time I also managed to do some sightseeing (unlike my last trip there). I rented a car so I could see a bit more of the island than just my hotel room and the beach, and that was a good decision.

On the plane to Larnaca I had a talk with the flight attendant (there was hardly anybody in biz class, so she was quite talkative) and when she heard that I like wines she let me taste some local Cyprus wines. They were not bad, but it’s always a bit hard to tell how good a wine really is at 35,000 feet. Because I still had to drive an hour from the airport to my hotel (in the dark with a slight jet lag) I could not drink too much, but the tasting piqued my interest for Cyprian wines.

Limassol Wine Festival

Because of this introduction to local wines on the plane I decided to visit the Limassol Wine Festival. After checking in to the hotel I saw on a map that the wine festival was just 2 km away, so I left my car at the hotel and walked over. I had read that the annual wine festival was supposed to showcase some of Cyprus better wines, but it turned out to be more of a food and drink event where (mainly young) people try to get drunk. Many people had plastic wine bottles with them that they could fill up with cheap wines, and they were sipping it directly from the bottle. Not really the kind of wines I am looking for when visiting a wine festival. I had some local food, tried a few wines (not too impressed) and then walked along the beach front boulevard back to my hotel to catch up on some sleep.

Beach at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Limassol

After my meetings the next day I went for a run before dinner on the beach and along the boulevard. It was very busy on the beach, despite the fact that it was dark already at 7:30 PM. Families were chatting and some people were still swimming in the dark. At several places people were fishing from the beach and others were watching them. A very lively atmosphere that I liked to be part of. However, it’s not ideal for jogging, as I had to watch out not to run into anybody. Also the temperature (about 28 degrees in the early evening) was still a bit high for a run, but despite that I enjoyed it very much. On the way back to the hotel I ran over the bike lane next to the boulevard. There I really sped up in order to try to overtake some slow bike riders. I managed, but I was pretty much spent after I finished.

Back at the hotel I went for a swim in the sea, then took a shower and went for dinner. I was quite thirsty so started with a beer, but then I asked for the wine list and saw that the hotel had several local wines on sale per glass. So during dinner I tried several different wines, all much better than I had tasted during the wine festival. The ones I liked best were produced by Tsiakkas, and the next day I bought a few bottles at a wine shop to take home. Retail they were all over EUR 10 per bottle, not cheap for a local Cyprus wine.

Old mosque with minaret in Limassol

The next morning I worked until 11 AM and then went for a walk through the center of Limassol. The old town is quite nice, with small alleys full of shops and restaurants. There was even an old mosque with a minaret. When I wanted to walk to the old port I realized that a project developer bought all land around it and was building luxury villas there. The design looked very nice (the artist impressions on the billboards show big yachts in front of modern villas), but this kind of buildings don’t fit to an old harbour. Well, I’ll judge when they are finished next year or so, but it’s hard to believe that this adds to the nice atmospher of old Limassol.

Self portrait in a totally deserted Lofou

After a quick lunch (a tasty Greek salad with feta cheese, olives etc.) I took the car and drove to Lofou, which is a traditional village in the hills above Limassol. I was there around 2 PM and the place was totally deserted, I walked around the whole village and did not see any other person! Even the local taverna was closed. It felt a bit spooky, especially when I realized that there were no animals either. Not sure where everybody was, so I continued my ride up into the hills.

Lofou from a hill opposite the village

Cyprus is extremely dry, not much grows on the mountains. But when I was in Lofou I could see dark clouds in the hills far above the village, and it looked like it was raining there. A business friend had written down some suggestions so I had no idea where I would end up (which was part of the fun). I just put the name of the next place into my GPS and followed the route. My next stop was the village of Platres and the computer led me straight into the dark clouds. Soon it was raining hard. Strange, the rest of the island was dry, sunny and very hot and here I was in the middle of a rain storm.

When I arrived in Platres it turned out to be in a forest area that looked like a place where it rains a lot. Very different from the rest of the island, and actually more beautiful than the barren hills that you see on most of Cyprus. I did not stay long in Platres, but decided to drive higher into the mountains, up to Mount Olympus. A nice drive and hardly any other cars.

Forests outside Platres

From there I took part of the wine route back to the coast, but I did not stop at any wineries (I still had to drive and that does not fit with tasting lots of wine). Most wineries seemed to be quite small anyway, and I was not sure which vineyards were worth a visit and which not. I’ll probably do a bit of research before my next trip there and then visit the best 2 or 3 wineries.

Beach between Limassol and Paphos

I partly took the small road from Limassol to Paphos along the coast (also spelled as Pafos). This road has some amazing views over the sea and its beaches, highly recommended.

Paphos (Pafos) main boulevard

Paphos has some beautiful ruins, but it seems there are only cheap package tourists here, mainly interested in getting extremely sun burned and in drinking copious amounts of beer. I was a bit disappointed by the place. It certainly looks nice, but the English and Russian tourists ruined (no pun intended) it for me.

Sunrise over the Mediterranean, taken from my hotel room balcony

After Paphos I drove back to Limassol for a run on the beach and dinner overlooking the sea. I was thirsty so just had a few Keo beers (local Cyprus beer) during a simple seafood dinner. Then I went to bed early because I had to get up very early (before sunrise!) to catch my plane. Sunrise was beautiful, so getting up so early was totally worth it. It was a short trip, but it was productive and I had a good time sightseeing as well.

All my Cyprus pictures can be found in this set on Flickr. 

As many blog readers know I am an avid runner and over the past years I participated a few times in the Shanghai marathon. Not the healthiest run to join (air pollution!), but because it’s close to my home it’s an easy one to sign up for. The marathon has a lot of Japanese runners, because the main sponsor is a Japanese chemical brand called Toray. They name the marathon (Toray Cup), they provide the shirts (all have Toray in big letters printed on them), and you see their name everywhere around the course.

For 16 years Toray has been the title sponsor and this year they would again sponsor the race. On Monday organizers held a press conference with Toray management and some Shanghai government officials present. The event just started when suddenly other government told the organizers to stop the press conference.

What happened? Because of the new tensions about the Diaoyu islands (or the Senkakus in Japanese) the government felt that it could not allow Japanese sponsorship for the Shanghai marathon. So in the middle of a press conference they decided to tell Toray that they could not continue their sponsorship! Even for me, after all these years in China, this is quite unbelievable. What will now happen to this year’s Shanghai Marathon I don’t know, the website is currently down.

If you wanted to run Shanghai but are not sure whether it will take place this year, you could of course also switch to the Beijing marathon. At least, in theory that would be possible, because that marathon is also facing political problems. Originally the race was planned for October 14, but a few days ago the organization heard that they would not get the necessary permits. The reason is that the National Congress of the Communist Party will likely take place during that time (the official dates have not been announced yet).

What will happen to the Beijing marathon this year is anyone’s guess. The website stopped its (Japanese!) countdown clock and gives no further information about the race. A marathon is a race that you need to prepare for months in advance, you can’t just suddenly run it 2 or 3 weeks later without a big problem with your training schedule. Many top athletes will have a serious problem now, let alone the issues they will face with their flight tickets and China visa.

And the Beijing marathon already had some trouble earlier this summer, when they found out that an entrepreneurial Chinese made a fake Beijing marathon website and got people to sign up and pay for participation in the race.

I wonder if this will be the end for the Beijing marathon, I don’t think big athletes will come back again next year (if it even takes place), nor will foreign tour operators who now have a big problem to solve for the people who booked a trip to Beijing for this year’s marathon.

Shanghai will likely get government sponsorship to make up for the lost revenue from Toray, but will likely lose a lot of its participants. Tons of them were Japanese, and not only will these runners cancel this year’s participation, they also won’t return next year. Sports and politics don’t go together…

This week I was in Amsterdam for 2 days for business meetings and to give 2 speeches. It was a bit unexpected, I had not planned to be in Holland this month, but it turned out to be a good trip so I was glad I took the time to do this.

On Wednesday morning I started with some meetings at Spil Games HQ in Hilversum. I am not there very often anymore, so I always try to make a trip to Spil when I am in Holland. Spil Games is still going strong with a good strategy and excellent management, happy to see that!

After lunch at the Spil Games restaurant I went over to the Media Park for a radio interview on Dutch Radio 1. At first I did not want to do it because of time constraints, but it turned out that I could just fit it into my program. The live program lasted one hour, and there were 2 other guests, the mayor of Rotterdam Mr. Aboutaleb and Dutch pop singer Bennie Jolink. Mr. Aboutaleb could not join the full program because he had to catch a plane to Shanghai (which was a coincidence!), but he asked me in the program to meet up next time I’m in The Netherlands.

Bennie Jolink is well-known in Holland as lead singer and composer of the Dutch band Normaal. I knew his music but never met him, despite the fact that as a kid I lived several years in the village of Wehl, which is very close to where he lives (he told me afterward that he lives just 4 kilometers from there).

The interview was mainly about my career so far and about doing business in China, similar to most media interviews I did in Holland over the past years. I actually did not know that there was a live video stream as well (broadcast through the Internet), you can see about 10 minutes of it here – of course the audio is in Dutch.

After the interview I took a train to Amsterdam for the LOEY Awards 2012. These awards are given to the Leading Online Entrepreneur of the Year and I had been asked to give the keynote at the ceremony. The event took place at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, one of the top museums in Holland. The museum has been closed for several years for a complete renovation/reconstruction and will be opened officially later this month. So we were able to see the new museum before anyone else (even Queen Beatrix), which was a nice perk.

After a short meeting with the jury and organizers the managing director of the museum gave us some background information of the place and showed us several of its the architectural features. Then we did a sound check and rehearsal on stage, during which I found out that most of the slides of my presentation had been automatically modified (I used Powerpoint on a Mac and the organization used Windows, and that combined with the font I used caused the trouble…). Just in time we managed to change it!

Several hundred people attended the evening, mainly online entrepreneurs but also investors and leading business people in bigger companies. The title of my story was “The Art of Doing Business in China”, which fit well with the art museum location. The 3 topics I touched upon were the state of the Internet in China (trends etc.), challenges of doing business in China, and opportunities for Dutch entrepreneurs on the Chinese market. I really enjoyed giving the keynote speech, especially for an audience like this.

After the awards ceremony, won by Pieter Zwart of CoolBlue, there was a dinner in the halls of the museum, and after a couple of beers and wines I went back to my hotel room to get some sleep. When I’m working I don’t really feel my jet lag, but after a busy day and some alcohol it suddenly hit me, so I was in bed by midnight.

The next morning I had some more meetings, among others with the entrepreneurs at PeerReach (in which I am an investor). After that I had a lunch and then I had to go to the Opening of the Academic Year of Nyenrode New Business School. I had been asked to give a keynote and because I was in Holland anyway I agreed to do so.

It was the second time for me to open the Academic Year in The Netherlands, the first time was in 2009 when I gave the keynote at my alma mater Maastricht University (see this video of my speech). This year’s opening was a lot less formal, especially because this is a relatively new business school and because it’s focused on entrepreneurship. I was wearing a tie for the first time in several months, but many of the people in the audience (incl. some of the board members) did not wear one. Very different from the official ceremony at Maastricht University, where all professors wear their traditional robes and the opening is a very formal affair.

Nyenrode New Business School is very different from traditional universities in Holland, it is much more practical and focused on entrepreneurship. During the afternoon I learned that the school is actually called the Amsterdam School of Entrepreneurship, and indeed most of the students that I talked to had a very entrepreneurial mind. Before I gave my talk I had to randomly draw the names of 15 students who had to pitch themselves on stage for one minute. Most of them were quite nervous (several of them even started their pitch by saying this!), but all of them did a pretty decent talk in front of several hundred people and a couple really managed to sell themselves and their entrepreneurial ideas.

I had decided to use the same title for my kenote as for the LOEY Awards presentation, but I changed the content a bit for the students. I focused more on what they can do to become successful entrepreneurs and of course I encouraged them to do part of their studies in China (I was told that Nyenrode is setting up a campus in Chengdu).

After the Opening of the Academic Year I had a chat with some of Nyenrode’s board members and students, and I left with a very positive feeling about this business school. Even though it’s a relatively young business education I feel they achieved a lot already and they managed to recruit some very entrepreneurial students.

At night I had dinner and drinks with some friends and then the short trip was over already. It was pretty busy, but I am glad I took the time to fly over. I met a lot of people, learned a lot and of course had a lot of fun as well!

Next week Holland will have general elections for the 5th time in 10 years. Government cabinets generally don’t last long here because there are too many parties and they can’t cooperate to solve the countries problems. Even worse, some of the populist parties seem to have no aim other than to criticize and attack others without having real solutions themselves.

This is called democracy, and it leads to slow (or no) decision making, and short term thinking instead of solving long term problems. I still like being in Holland, but when I see the mess the politicians are making I don’t mind not living here myself.

I have been away from Holland for 17 years but I normally don’t realize how much the country has changed over the years. Yesterday I had one of those moments that I saw changes I did not see before. I returned to my Amsterdam hotel room after giving a speech and turned on the TV to watch the news. After the news an election debate between the leaders of the leading parties was scheduled. I was working on some emails and did not really pay attention to it until I heard all of the politicians laughing.

I looked up, because I thought an election debate is supposed to be a serious program where parties discuss ‘important’ topics. But no, one of the party leaders, the most controversial and (probably) most hated one, Geert Wilders of the populist anti-foreigner/Islam/Europe party PVV had his birthday. So the presenter decided to ask the other party heads to sing a birthday song. Of course nobody dared to refuse (one tried by saying “let’s do this afterward”, but was conveniently ignored by the presenter) and the whole singing was ridiculous. Even the guy who had his birthday looked uncomfortable, and I was wondering how anyone could take the rest of the program serious when you start off like this.

But it got worse, after the singing the party leaders had to give a funny one liner about a picture of one of their opponents. They had turned the debate into an enterainment program! It seems elections in Holland are not about the ideas and solutions of politicians anymore, but about how good they are at giving witty remarks in what is supposed to be an important debate. Is this what Dutch viewers want to see nowadays? Don’t they understand the significance of electing smart politicians who can execute in the middle of a European crisis, instead of ones that are funny and can sing well? I turned off the TV.

This morning while having a quick coffee in my hotel room before checking out I turned on the TV again, and coincidentally a new debate was announced: a debate in today’s “Jeugdjournaal”, the daily news program for kindergarten and primary school kids…. The Jeugdjournaal interviewed Geert Wilders in advance of the debate and he was passionately talking about the toys he used to have as a kid. I picked up the remote control and pushed the off button. Holland changed a lot.

Source of the pictures of the debate:
Economische Faculteitsvereniging Rotterdam (EFR),
https://www.facebook.com/efrnl

In early June I was very lucky to be one of the first guests to experience Paul Pairet’s cooking skills at his new restaurant Ultraviolet. I wrote a blog post about the dinner in which I said that it was an incredible food experience for me. And it seems I am not the only one, because this week Ultraviolet was voted “Best New Restaurant in Shanghai” at the Shanghai Food and Drink Awards. Quite a feat considering that so far only about 650 people have been able to participate in this feast of the senses. Next to that Paul Pairet was voted “Best Chef” as well, and I fully agree with that.

I had been able to make reservations for my parents at Ultraviolet last Wednesday and I expected they would enjoy it as much as I did. My dad has had lunches and dinners in the best restaurants in the world during his career (my parents took me and my sister to top restaurants from a young age onward, for which I am very grateful), so I was looking forward to hearing his opinion. My parents thought it was amazing, they never had such a dinner before in their whole lives. I talked to them for at least half an hour after they came back (which was long after midnight!), they had a fantastic night and could not stop talking about it.

It was already hard to get seats at Ultraviolet, but now that the restaurant starts to get awards it will be impossible to make reservations. I just looked at their site, they open up reservations 90 days in advance, but there is only 1 seat available over the next 3 months. All other days are fully booked. That’s the downside: I would love to go back and experience the fantastic food once again, but it will be very hard to get seats. But I am very happy for Paul,Fabien and the rest of the team with this early success: Ultraviolet is a winner!

In Shanghai I hardly ever run outside, most of my miles I make on the treadmill in my home gym. One reason is that the air is often too polluted to run comfortably, but also the fact that there are no quiet streets to run in my neighborhood plays a role. And during summer it’s just way too hot to run.

Occasionally I drive out to the countryside to run, for example in the area southwest of Sheshan, where it’s still relatively quiet. But within Shanghai I also have one favorite running place: in a riverside park along the Huangpu river in Puxi, at the end of Ruijin Nan Lu (the street where I park is called Ruining Lu). The government built this park quite recently (not sure when, but on the satellite pictures in Google Maps the park is still under construction), and it’s not very crowded yet.

The park stretches just over 3 kilometers, with a pedestrian walkway all along the river. No cars, no bicycles and just some other runners and pedestrians. Because it’s next to the river you can always watch the ships sail by and there is normally a bit of wind. I enjoy the scenery a lot, it’s probably the best place in downtown Shanghai to run. The Bund may have a nice scenery, but it’s just too busy there to enjoy the run.

This morning my dad and I arrived there around 7 AM for a run, it was my first outdoor run in Shanghai since the beginning of summer. The temperature at 7 AM was only 27 degrees Celcius, so quite comfortable for a run. During daytime it’s still way too hot to run, it will take at least another 2-3 weeks before you can run again during daytime. And the good thing is that there is not much traffic early in the morning, so the drive from my house only takes about 15 minutes. If I have to face traffic jams to drive there I would not even consider running here.

We ran just over 12 kilometers (2 times back and forth along the whole waterfront) in just over an hour. This is my favorite speed for an outdoor run because you don’t really get tired and you can still easily talk a bit during the run. There were a few more runners, some pedestrians and some groups of Chinese doing tai chi exercises. But generally it was very quiet, especially towards the southern part of the park (south of the bridge).

After the run we freshened up a bit at the (brand new and very clean) toilet area next to the parking place and then drove back home. We made a stop at the French bakery on Hongmei Lu for some croissants, pain au chocolat and a baguette and then had a nice family breakfast at home before 9 AM. A great start of the weekend!

The riverside park is located just south of the Expo 2010 on the Puxi side of Shanghai. If you come by car there is a paid parking space on Ruining Road (RMB 10) or there are many places where you can park for free. If you come by public transport it is easiest to take Line 7 to Chuanchang Road. The park is also nice for an afternoon or evening stroll, so try it out!

In early June Grace and I were early for a dinner at Bund 18, so we strolled around the luxury shops downstairs and by coincidence Shanghai painter and paper cutter Li Shoubai (李守白) was having an exhibition there. Although he was not there anymore (the exhibition was officially only open during daytime) we spent quite some time looking at his paintings and paper cuttings, and I really liked his art. He has a very distinctive style (contemporary but quite realistic) and focuses on Shanghai scenes, especially things related to life in and around shikumen (traditional Shanghainese houses).

A few days later Grace visited his gallery in Tianzifang (Taikang Lu) and she bought among others one of his books and a 3D paper cutting of a Shanghai scene. We  took the paper cutting to Holland a few weeks later and gave it as a present to my parents . The day after a photographer came to do a photo shoot of me at my parents house and he wanted a Chinese touch to the picture. He then decided to put the paper cutting in the window through which he shot me. This picture eventually ended up in a Dutch newspaper (you can see the picture here) and Grace put it on Weibo. Guess what, Li Shoubai saw the Weibo tweet and she got in touch with him again.

This morning we visited his studio with my parents to look at some of his works. Li Shoubai showed us around and explained everything about the different paintings, cuttings and sculptures that he makes. He also introduced us to his team of artists and to his daughter, who is also an artist. We also met his wife, a very nice lady who, judging from her looks, was probably a model for several of his paintings.

Li Shoubai is getting quite well known, he told us that he just got back from a trip to Germany where he held an exhibition in Hamburg (the show ended yesterday). Also one of his large art pieces is used in Starbucks in Xintiandi, right behind the counter where you order your coffee. And many famous people visited his gallery, among others I saw a picture of the French prime minister and of course pictures of many well-known Chinese.

We both like his work very much, and we therefore bought one of his paintings today (it’s the one that’s above my head in the picture). When his works from Germany are back in Shanghai I plan to come again, because during the exhibition in Bund 18 I had seen some works that intrigued me but that were not in his gallery, but might have been in Hamburg.

If you like contemporary Chinese art you should visit his gallery and studio in Tianzifang, located in Lane 210, right off of Taikang Lu. Also check out his websites at www.shoubaiart.com and www.lishoubai.com.

This morning after taking the kids to school I decided to visit Qibao. This is a small watertown that is now part of suburban Shanghai, located in the same district (Minhang) where I live. It’s only a 15 min drive from our house (30-45 min from downtown), but I had never been here.

My parents who are in town also joined me, they had actually visited the place before and wanted to see it again. When I told my driver we wanted to go to Qibao he told me that he has a house there where his parents are now living!

Qibao is a typical Chinese water town, but it is very small compared to the water towns around Shanghai. It’s basically just one river (or canal?) with a few bridges and a couple of small streets full of small shops and restaurants.

We only spent an hour there, which is enough if you just want to do some sightseeing. But if you want to indulge in the many different foods that are sold here (see this article on CNNGo for example), or visit a museum or temple, you will need more time.

We were quite early (we arrived at 9:30 AM) and it was still relatively quiet in Qibao. But when we left an hour later it became really crowded already. My parents had been here once during the weekend and then it was so busy that you could hardly pass through the small streets. So if you want to check it out make sure to go early.

Qibao can be easily reached by subway, take line 9 and get off at Qibao. Take exit 2 and walk 200 meters south from where you will see the signs to the Qibao Old Street and the canals. More info on the town and its history here on ChinaTravelGuide.com. More of my Qibao pictures here on Flickr.