If you live in Shanghai you know that this is not one of the healthiest cities in the world to live in. Not only does work go on 24/7 here (well, at least when you run your own business), but also the air quality is quite bad. It’s actually so bad that it’s very likely that unitedstyles will be the last company that I set up in China, and that I will eventually move somewhere else. I am sure I will be in China regularly for my investments and other business related issues, but at least I want my family out of here.

Nobody really knows how bad the pollution is, because the government data seems to be “adjusted” and data for PM2.5 (the smallest, most dangerous, particles) are not released. For sure downtown it’s much worse than out in the suburbs where I live and where unitedstyles has its office. But also there it can’t be too good. I hardly ever run outside where I live, for example, because I feel the air does more harm than sports does good. And if I do, like during the Shanghai marathon, I normally feel it in my throat for several days after the run.

Today Shanghaiist has an overview of how dangerous it is to live in Shanghai. Although they play down the risks a bit (by for example saying that the city may be gradually killing you, but that Beijing is worse), the article confirms that living here is far from healthy. It’s a pity there is not more data available, but I am sure that is something that will change soon: the government will install PM2.5 measuring devices this year, and because they may not be trustworthy, likely private organizations may also start measuring this.

So, should I move to Hong Kong then? No, probably not. It seems pollution there is not much better, mainly because of all the smog coming from Guangdong province. The School of Public Health publishes an index showing the effects of the air pollution there (thanks for the link Marcel Ekkel), and they do it in a pretty radical way. Not only do they show the actual and past air pollution index, but also the economic loss because of this and the number of premature deaths and hospital visits. Not a pretty picture either. I hope the government will start working on a solution soon. I am lucky to have the option to leave, but many people can’t do so.

I don’t mention Tudou a lot on my blog since I am not involved in the company anymore, but the latest Tudou news is quite significant, so I decided to share it here.

Tudou announced on Friday that it is launching an improved platform for Sina Weibo users to seamlessly share and upload Tudou videos. In case you don’t live in China: Sina Weibo is the Chinese Twitter and has over 250 million users, and mother company Sina owns a significant share in Tudou.

In addition, Sina Weibo users who are not registered with Tudou, but who wish to share their videos with Tudou’s users, will automatically become a registered Tudou user. Their user account names at Tudou will be identical to their Sina Weibo account names. Sharing functionalities enable users to sync comments and discussions on both platforms.

In the press release that was sent out about the deal Gary comments on this:
“We are building a more powerful video user ecosystem. The Internet’s core strength lies in creating and sharing information. Sina Weibo creates strong interaction between its users, and Tudou generates deep emotional connections between Internet users and content. Creating and sharing content is at the core of the Internet, and Tudou’s cooperation with social networking sites such as Sina Weibo is a powerful combination which will deepen consumers’ online video and sharing experience.”

An excellent deal for both Tudou and Sina IMHO. Tudou’s stock shot up after the news and ended up over 16% higher than Thursday’s close.

This afternoon I was talking to a colleague who told me that he felt that it was stil unusually quiet in Shanghai after Chinese New Year. I told him I had the same feeling, because there were hardly any traffic jams on the highways today. Chinese New Year’s Eve was last week Sunday, so 12 days ago, and most people should be back to work by now, but I wonder if maybe more people decided not to return to the big city.

I have no proof for this (well, except that Scott’s nanny decided to stay in her hometown), but it feels it is more quiet than other years. And high inflation plus more opportunities in inland China may lead people to decide to stay closer to their hometowns. I assume it will be much more busy again next week (the picture above was taken at 5 PM today from my office, normally a time with traffic jams), but I would not mind too much if people stay away a bit longer.

Delays are quite common when you travel by plane, especially in China or with Chinese airlines. Over the years I had many bad delays, including one 28 hour delay on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Shanghai (it seems the blog post about that one has been lost in cyberspace) and many 6+ hour delays because of air traffic control in China. You can’t change it, so I try not to get too upset about it, it’s just part of the deal when you fly a lot.

Last night we planned to take a 0:55 AM flight from Singapore back to China. The flight would get in around 6 AM, so I would just be home in time to wake up the kids, have breakfast with them and take them to school. But no, that did not happen, because the flight was delayed. Instead of leaving at 0:55 AM the flight would not take off until an expected 3:15 AM. During daytime a delay is a nuisance, but in the middle of the night it’s a lot worse I feel, especially when you are tired.

So what do you do in that case? Well, I went to the business lounge, found a good recliner, put on my sleeping mask and put in my ear plugs, and slept for 2 hours straight. I was sleepy after a day of meetings and was still a little jet lagged from the New Zealand trip, so I was asleep right away. I put my alarm to wake up on time (getting up after 2 hours of sleep was not too easy), found out that the flight was even more delayed and eventually boarded the plane around 3:40 AM.

The China Eastern flight that we booked was operated by an old Shanghai Airlines plane with terrible 1980s-like business class seats (a bit better than economy ones, but a far cry from what you normally get in business these days). But despite that I managed to fall asleep before departure already and only woke up around 8:15 AM, while we were starting our descent into Shanghai. All in all I had a decent sleep, despite the non-optimal situation.

The kids were not happy that Grace and I were not there to wake them up. We had talked to them over Skype video the night before, and they were very disappointed that we had not arrived yet. Scott even refused to get up until I would be there, because I had promised him that… Next time I probably won’t tell them that I will be back early the next morning, because I feel really bad about it.

Tuesday and Wednesday Xander and I were in Singapore for business meetings. I had not been to Singpore in almost 2 years (except for stopovers on the airport) and it was good to be back for a few days.

Next to the busy meeting schedule we also managed to see a bit of the city, especially because our meetings were scattered all over the place. During most of my recent trips I stayed in the city center, so I noticed that the city changed quite a bit since I last spent more time here (which was probably back in 2003 when Grace did a semester at INSEAD here, almost 9 years ago already).

My parents were also in town, so I had drinks with them at Boat Quay and of course my favorite Pepper Crab at Jumbo on the East Coast. The East Coast never changed, simple chairs and tables on a concrete floor next to the beach and excellent food (and cold Tiger beer!).

The area around INSEAD had totally changed. We had a meeting at Fusionopolis, and when we arrived there I realized it was right next door to the INSEAD campus. I think that in the old days there were just some fields around the INSEAD buildings, now there was a nicely looking building towering over the INSEAD grounds (see picture above).

On Wednesday after our meetings were over we had a late afternoon drink on Sentosa island with my parents. I used to like Sentosa a lot, but the place has become a kind of amusement park. It’s a pity, but I guess that’s what people want. The (man-made) white sand beaches were still there, but all of them now had bars with music and on the other side of the road there were all kinds of attractions to keep people busy, including among others the biggest indoor skydiving place in the world… It doesn’t fit to the island, but people seem to like it.

Also the Singapore skyline changed dramatically because of the addition of the Marina Bay Sands hotel and resort area. When driving into town from the airport it looks okay, but from other places in town it is just plain ugly. I decided not to take a picture of it but to only put the old skyline in the picture below!

Last week I spent 6 days in New Zealand to learn as much as possible about local wines. We traveled with a small group of family and friends (among others with Gary and my parents) and tried to combine visits to wineries with some sightseeing activity as well.

After a day in Auckland and Waiheke we traveled to the Bay of Islands, a beautiful subtropical area about 40 minutes north of Auckland (by small plane – by car it would take many hours). A very nice place for a holiday and still relatively undeveloped. That’s the nice thing about New Zealand: because not so many people live there, even popular tourist areas are still very quiet and unspoiled. And because New Zealand is so far away from the rest of the world I don’t think there will be a lot of new tourism soon either.

The down side is that NZ still feels a bit backward, in many rural places you feel like you’re suddenly back in the 1960’s. That has its advantages and disadvantages of course, but coming from a 21st century 24/7 megapolis like Shanghai it takes some getting used to. Trying to get a coffee at Starbucks in Nelson at 6:30 PM was not possible for example because every single shop including coffeeshops close by 6 PM at the latest. Trying to visit a real estate agency on the weekend? Forget it, they only work on weekdays when most people who are in the market for a house probably work.

But the upside is that you can arrive at the airport 30 minutes before your plane takes off and that there is not even a security check for domestic flights. At a local market a knife maker (yes, you still have those in NZ) had an advertising sign saying that you can bring them on board of airplanes. Quite a difference with the rest of the world where every passenger is a potential terrorist… And while on a helicopter trip the pilot told me to just leave my phone on, because of course he did not believe in mobile interference. That’s the spirit I like!

The Bay of Islands also had some wineries, especially around Keri Keri. We had dinner at one of them (Ake Ake) after a wine tasting there, and enjoyed both their food and drinks. Most wineries there are quite small operations, without any export sales, so you likely won’t find these wines in Europe or China.

After one day in the Bay of Islands we flew to Nelson on the South Island. A nice small town on the waterfront, surrounded by a beautiful nature. Also here we visited several wineries and did a lot of wine tastings. After having sea food for several days in a row we decided to check out the local Chinese restaurant. The food there was not bad (even the Chinese in group said so) and we had a big meal with some bottles of local Gewurztraminer (excellent!).

The next morning we rented a helicopter to fly to Marlborough to visit a winery and get a feel for the area from above. It’s a nice ride from Nelson to Marlborough, especially because you have to fly over some mountains and also get to see the Marlborough Sound from above. Close to Marlborough it was a bit cloudy and there was even some rain, so we had to descend to below the clouds in order to see where we were going.

The winery we visited in Marlborough was Highfield, one of the best wineries in the area (there are a lot of good wineries there). We got a tour of the winery and some of the vineyards and got to taste all of their wines. We were quite impressed, especially with their Sauvignon Blanc and their methode traditionelle Champagne-like wine Elstree Cuvee Brut. Because of our busy schedule we had to fly back to Nelson for other appointments and could not do a lunch at Highfield.

In the afternoon we among others visited another winery (Kahurangi), where the winemaker let us try some of their new wines directly from the barrel. After that we visited the house of another INSEAD almuni living in Nelson. His villa was built on the top of a hill and he had an amazing view over the coast line, nearby islands and the sea. We were all quite impressed with it! The next morning we visited a local farmers market in Nelson and walked around the town, before taking a flight back to Auckland in the afternoon.

In Auckland we stayed again at the Hilton, which is located right on the harbour. It’s a nice hotel in the best location in town, but has one big disadvantage: in summer visiting cruise ships moor right outside the hotel (arriving 6 AM, leaving 6 PM), meaning that you have no view at all from your balcony during the day time. If that happens once it’s still acceptable, but during our stay at the beginning and the end of the trip there were cruise ships every single day. If you manage to get a room on the top floor closest to the harbour (which we did during the 2nd stay there) it’s okay, but otherwise I would not advise anybody to stay there during the summer months. Ah, and they also charge NZD 30 per device per day for Internet, which is a rip-off (as regular readers know I hate paying for a commodity that should be free).

On Sunday Gary, my dad and I went back to Waiheke to visit 3 more wineries for wine tastings, but we were not too impressed with the wines after tasting so many other good wines over the past days. The wines were generally good, but nothing special. Waiheke’s best wines for me are Te Whau and Cable Bay, those were the ones we visited during our first ferry trip over the week before and those I highly recommend (but they are both relatively small wineries and may be difficult or impossible to find outside New Zealand).

Looking back we had a great trip where I had a lot of fun, learned a lot about the NZ wine industry and tasted at least 60-70 different wines. I already was a big fan of New Zealand wines, but now my appreciation for their wines is even higher. It’s a pity that many of their wines are not available for sale in China yet (or only at very high prices), but this may be a question of time. Once Chinese start to appreciate white wines New Zealand may be country that can deliver them. Especially the more fruity varieties may do well (Riesling, some Chardonnay wines, and of course Gewurztraminer). I will keep on following NZ wines closely from now on. I’ll be back!

A selection of all the pictures I took during this trip is here in a set on Flickr.

Today we visited Waiheke, New Zealand’s Island of Wines, located just half an hour by ferry from Auckland. I had read a lot about the island over the past weeks, so I was very excited to see it with my own eyes. I expected a nice island, but nothing too special. But I was wrong, this island is a dream come true.

The island is quiet and has a real holiday feeling to it. It is very green (the recent rains certainly helped), and when you drive along one of the few roads on the island you often have fantastic views of the sea.

There are lots of beautiful beaches, many very quiet despite the fact that this is the last week of New Zealand’s summer vacation. And of course there are lots of wineries, which was the main reason we were visiting.

When you arrive you are immediately in a holiday mood. The ferry lands at a secluded bay where sailboats are moored on anchors and where there is a small beach. The bay is surrounded by hills with some very nice villas on it.

A small bus was waiting at the ferry terminal for us to drive us to several of the island’s wineries for wine tastings. We had a guide who explained us everything about the wineries, their vineyards, their locations and the resulting quality of the wines from these wineries.

We spent most of the day at Te Whau, which not only had a stunning location, overlooking the sea on 3 sides, with a private beach, some jungle and even a view of Auckland in the distance, but also excellent wines.

We talked to the owner for quite some time and he showed us the whole property. We had a very good lunch there, the restaurant is well known for its high quality food and cooking.

And of course he let us taste some of his best wines. His Chardonnay blew me away, what an amazing taste. Much better than the Chardonnay that we had last night during a seafood dinner at the Viaduct Basin in Auckland (we ordered at least 4 bottles of Chardonnay last night, so it was certainly not a bad wine!). Also his cabernet sauvignon was very nice, I had not expected a full bodied cabernet sauvignon from this island. And at the end he also gave us a Syrah to taste, once again WOW!

We ended the visit to Te Whau with a walk to their private beach, right below the vineyard. What an amazing location!

The last visit of the day was to Cable Bay Vineyards, where we also had some very nice wines. The winemaker showed us their facilities and then gave us a private tasting. Cable Bay is very different from Te Whau, it’s a much bigger operation and the winery is very nicely designed (modern, we all liked it). Their wines were great as well – I guess we only had good wines today… Should you drop by try out their Syrah and their Syrah Reserve, and if you want to try a special dessert wine ask for the Viognier one. Especially the women in our group loved it!

The wine tastings were so good that we almost missed the ferry back, we made it with just a few minutes to spare. On the ride back I fell asleep (jet lag or too much alcohol?) and had dreams about one day living in a place like this. I loved it. Should you ever be in Auckland make sure you take a day out of your schedule to visit Waiheke. Combine it with some wine tastings and you’ll have a day you won’t easily forget!

I put all pictures that I took so far in a set on Flickr, over the next days I’ll add more pictures of our trip. You can see the set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chijs/sets/72157628999856845/

It’s Chinese New Year Eve, a time that you normally spend with family eating a huge dinner and then watching the CCTV New Year Show. But not this year. I am sitting in the lounge at Guangzhou Baiyun airport with a small group of friends, among others Gary and Grace, waiting to board a flight to Auckland right after midnight. When we booked this flight I did not realize it would be Chinese New Year Eve – but it probably was no coincidence as we only booked a few weeks ago and all other flights were fully booked.

We flew from Shanghai this afternoon and things did not really go the way we wanted from the start. At check-in there were some problems as Grace was flagged by New Zealand immigration authorities because they thought she only booked a one-way ticket. That was correct, because we fly from Auckland to Singapore for business meetings, not back to Shanghai, but they could not confirm that in the system. So we had to sort that out in Guangzhou, meaning that we could not check our luggage through to New Zealand.

The airport was virtually deserted. After weeks of the biggest human migration on earth everything suddenly became extremely quiet this afternoon. No lines at all at the airport, not for checking in nor for security. At the lounge in Shanghai we were almost the only guests. Kind of strange, because I am so used to the crowds on airports in China.

On the plane things were okay, although even in First Class the food was not particularly good. When I asked for sparkling water they told me they did not have that, but the friendly stewardess told me she could give me red wine instead. So much for flying China Southern – and we still have 12 hours or so ahead of us on another China Southern plane…

In Guangzhou the first thing I noticed was that it was really cold. On the plane the flight attendant had told me that it was 8 degrees Celsius in Guangzhou, but I assumed she made a mistake and that it should be 18 degrees. But no, it was really 8 degrees. No big deal, except that the airport does not have heating and we did not even bring coats.

Staff was waiting for us at the gate to arrange Grace’ ticket problem (that’s the advantage of flying First Class I guess, in Economy they would let you sort this out yourself), and within minutes we had our boarding passes (seat 2A for me, so I can see the fireworks right after the start). We then had to get our luggage and check in again, and then go through the security check and immigration. This took us about one hour, but we had enough time so it was no big deal.

Next up was finding a location for the Chinese New Year dinner. I had assumed there would be some decent restaurants at the airport, but that was not the case. Most places were closed because of New Year’s Eve, so we ended up in a coffee shop having some fried rice and noodles for an exorbitant amount of money. Then we walked to the lounge where Gary and his girlfriend were already sitting watching the CCTV New Year show on TV. Also here it was freezing cold, but luckily the others from Beijing had coats with them so Grace could warm up.

It is a bit strange to watch the New Year show in an almost deserted lounge (well, actually I am not watching but working on an update of unitedstyles financial plan), especially when it’s cold. It feels like we are doing something wrong with our lives, being in this place on a night like this. Gary actually put on his Weibo (Chinese Twitter) that he was watching the CCTV show for the first time in 10 years in an airport lounge, and many people pitied him that he had to work so hard that he has to spend CNY Eve on an airport.

The lounge itself is pretty good, and especially the wines are very nice (a.o. a Bourgogne Chardonnay, a German Trockenbeerauslese, and even 2 different bottles of Sauternes dessert wine). Because we’ll visit a lot of wineries this trip we have already started the first wine tasting. I am looking forward to the next couple of days in New Zealand, it’s going to be an interesting journey. Glad we decided to do this and glad that we managed to fit it into our schedule!

Happy Chinese New Year – 新年快乐！