Yesterday we decided to make a 4WD trip through the mountains and the desert. A friend of mine, Martin, who works for Shell in Dubai likes to take his SUV for a spin in the sand, and he offered to show us the real Emirates. And he did a great job, we spent almost 6 hours off-road in one of the most desolate environments I have ever been in. We started in the direction of Sharjah, where you could quickly sense that people are a lot more conservative than in Dubai. No women on the street anymore (also not in burkha’s) and with mosques dominating the skyline instead of high rises. Because it is Ramadan we were not allowed to eat or drink with other people being able to see us, so we had to watch out a bit with drinking the bottles of water that we brought. Strangely, at a gas station we were able to get coffee from a machine, although we were not supposed to drink it there.

After about an hour of following the seashore, we took a small road that led us into the mountains. The road was paved, so it was a nice drive. Suddenly, however, there was a security checkpoint and we had to show our passports. The UAE soldier took those with him into a small guard house, and studied them for about 5 minutes. Because my wife has a Chinese passport we had no idea if he would let us through, and the minutes lasted quite long. But when he came back it turned out that he was not able to read any non-Arabic, because he asked Martin and me where we where from. We told them from Holland, and I immediately followed by saying that the third person is my wife. That seemed OK for him, and he opened the gate to let us through.

Then we really entered mountainous territory, and the road became a mixture of sand and stones. We followed a wadi (dry riverbed) into the mountain, and the views were stunning. About 30 minutes later, in the middle of nowhere, another UAE checkpoint. At least, that’s what we thought. But no, it turned out that this was the border of Oman. We had not planned to go to Oman, but apparently part of this remote region was not UAE anymore. Of course this was no good news, because Chinese need to apply a visa for Oman. So we pretended to have no idea where we were and showed the map and a location in the UAE that we wanted to reach. The soldier told us we had to follow this road and would eventually get there. But he would first like to see our passports. We did the same trick again, we gave him the 3 documents and told him that we are from Holland and that the person sitting in the back is my wife. That seemed reasonable enough for him, and with a friendly “ramadan rakeem” he let us through! So now we were in Oman without visa’s…

According to Martin there would be no border control at the other side of the mountain (where the UAE would start again), and I hoped he would be right. But if not we would just go back the same way. They would very likely remember us and hopefully let us go back. Luckily Martin was right, and we did not encounter any further check point problems. The road was pretty good (all stones) and it seemed like driving on the moon. All surrounding mountains were brown, and there was not a tree or plant in sight. A completely uninhabitable environment – and indeed, nobody seems to live here.

We passed the top of the mountain (1100 meters high) and went down on the other side. Here the nature was much greener, and we also saw a few scattered houses. Halfway down the mountain we saw a man standing at the side of the road, waving at us to stop. We did so, and he gestured to us that he wanted to go to a place at the end of the road. Desert hospitality does not allow you to say no to a hitchhiker, so we took him in. He did not speak any English however, and we no Arabic, so it was a bit weird. We had to put our food and drinks away of course, and wife felt a bit uncomfortable to sit next to a local who we could not communicate with. We had no idea who he was, but eventually figured out he was from Pakistan. What was he doing here in the middle of nowhere? We had no clue, but later formed the theory he might be trying to cross illegally from Oman to Dubai with our help. So there we were, without visa’s for Oman and with a Chinese and a Pakistani on board. We really hoped we would not meet any police or other checkpoints! But at the first town out of the mountains we told the person we would go in a different direction and let him out.

We drove to the beach to have a drink (nobody around) and then took a different road back to Dubai. This time through the sand desert. This was a great experience: no roads anymore, and only sand in all directions as far as the eye could see. Without a GPS this would be dangerous undertaking, but of course Martin was well equipped. We drove around without getting stuck in the sand (always a danger) and even met several groups of camels. It was late afternoon, and therefore not so very hot anymore. The warm desert wind was actually quite enjoyable when we made short stop to refuel ourselves. We found a nice camping site, but did not bring a tent, so decided not to stay overnight. Martin marked it in his GPS though for future trips.

Just before Iftar (sunset, when you are allowed to eat again) we got back to Dubai. In the last 15 minutes before arriving at his home we saw a total of 4 accidents. Martin explained us this is normal. Not only do most people here drive like maniacs (although in daily life they are extremely friendly), but they also did not eat and drink for over 12 hours, and all want to be with their family the moment Iftar starts. Many multinationals even tell their expats not to drive between 5 and 6 PM during Ramadan. But we also survived this last danger, and decided to have an Iftar meal ourselves at one of the cities top hotels. Only hotels are allowed to server alcohol, and we were dying for a cold beer! Looking back over a few drinks we all felt it was an exciting day with memories that will last a long time.
(All pictures of the trip can be found here)

I am in Dubai at the moment, and to my big surprise the Shanghai Daily website is blocked here. Also many other sites and services that work fine in China you cannot use here, Skype for example. But why on earth did they decide to block the Shanghai Daily? Other China newspaper sites like the China Daily and People’s Daily work fine.

What is very nice in Dubai, is that they tell you that if you feel the site is blocked in error you can contact the Internet Contact Center (they provide both a feedback form and a phone number). China can learn something from this. But I don’t miss the Shanghai Daily enough to file a request to unblock it.

Yesterday afternoon I planned to go for a run, but did not want to run in the gym. So I took my car and went to look for a nice place to run outside the city. I had no clue where to go, and just took the A8 in the direction of Hangzhou. When I passed the Songjiang exit I decided to get off the highway because I had never left the expressway there before. Right after the toll booth I saw signs for a compound named Thames Town, which I had heard is a replica of an English village surrounded by villa’s. Shanghaiist had written about it quite negatively before, and I also could not believe that a place like this could be any good, so I decided to take a look myself. I had expected a Disneyland-like place that would have nothing to do with a real English town, but as it turned out I was wrong.

The entrance to Thames Town is similar to all other compounds in China, with one notable exception: the guards all wear English guard costumes. The place itself consists of 5 different gated communities within the main compound. The center of it all is indeed a town square with small stores, cobblestone streets, at least one pub with real ales, a waterfront with warehouses, and even a church. And I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, the place really looked authentic. Because the compound is not finished yet, it still felt a bit like a film set, but with real buildings. There were not many other people around, except for some workers and a bride and groom that were taking their wedding pictures here. If someone had brought me here blindfolded and told me I was in England, I could have believed it.

My wife had gone with me and went for a stroll through the town center, while I decided to run all around the compound. It was a nice run, not only was the weather nice (26 degrees and sunny), but the air was much cleaner here than in the city center. And there were no cars or ‘laowai’-shouting pedestrians around. I seemed to have the whole compound for myself, which is quite an experience in this overcrowded country. The villa’s are very nice, but often more American than English looking. Most are 3-stories with gardens around it, and many are situated on a lakefront. The biggest difference with an English villa park would probably be that the villa’s are built quite close together, due to the high prices of land.

After the run my wife and I had a coffee together, and we both came to the conclusion that this is a very special place. It is not a theme park, but a real town. Close to Shanghai (35 km) but with a total different feeling. Not like the average compound where you only have villa’s and a club, but with a real foreign ‘village’ feeling to it. And it’s only about 6 km to Sheshan, the only hills close to Shanghai. So before we left we visited the local real estate agent to check out some of the prices. And these were not too bad either. The smallest villa’s have around 500m2 living space, and go for 5-6 million RMB (500,000 – 600,000 EUR). This is excluding decoration and management fee (RMB 1000-2000 / month). The agent told us that subway line 1 will be extended to close to the compound, and that a Wallmart will be built here as well. I don’t think we’ll move here (we just moved into a great apartment), but it is something I will keep in mind for the future. I smell a good investment opportunity!

Today is the last day of China’s National Holiday. Finally. The whole concept of National Holidays may seem nice, but for a company that works internationally it is very inefficient. The system works like this: three times a year, during Chinese New Year, May 1 and October 1, the whole of China closes down for 7 days in a row. This vacation started on Sunday October 1 and ends this Saturday. In order to compensate employers staff have to work the Saturday before the holiday and the Sunday after it (=tomorrow). This may be useful when your company only works in China, when all your competitors and clients/suppliers also do not work during this period. But for companies with any foreign exposure it is a nuisance. I continued working most of this week anyway, but many things had to wait until the company starts working again tomorrow.

And I wonder if the staff really likes a forced week off, is it not nicer to be able to take these days for example in the middle of summer or just during another time of the year? I would personally prefer to choose when to go on vacation instead of going on dates determined by the government, and we would also not have to shut down the whole office. On the other hand, as an employee it may be nice to know that you are not missing out on anything while away from the office, and knowing that there are not hundreds of emails waiting to be answered upon return to your desk.

But Micah Sittig writes on his blog that the whole concept of forced week-long holidays may be over soon. He quotes an article in the Party’s official newspaper People’s Daily that says a new concept may be necessary, among others because of transportations bottlenecks (the whole country wants to travel during the same time period). I would welcome this very much!

My car was overdue for a check-up, so I decided to schedule that for this week (it’s National Holiday in China). We called our Buick dealer on Tuesday to check how long it would take, and he told us we could drop the car on Wednesday and pick it up two hours later. That sounded good to me, so yesterday we arrived there around 2:30 PM. My plan was to do a bit of shopping and have a coffee at Starbucks, so I would be back home in time to do some work before a planned dinner party with friends.

But of course things did not work out as planned. First of all it turned out that nobody could check on the parking assistant that behaved erraticaly (the thing that warns you with beeps when you are parking and almost hit something), nor on the lights that sometimes do not go on automatically. Why could he not tell us this the day before over the phone?

Then we were told it would take a bit more time, and we could pick up the car only at 6 PM. I was not too enthousiastic about this. But because the car needed the check-up and I had already spend 30 minutes driving here I decided to change my plans, by just having a coffee and then taking a taxi home. But just when we got home we got a phonecall (it was around 4 PM), saying that the car was ready to be picked up. Great… So now I changed my plans because they would need more time, and then it turns out they need even less time. I already decided to pick up the car right before the dinner party, because I did not want to spend another hour in traffic, and decided to stick to my plans.

So we return to the dealer at 7:30 PM (they are open until 10 PM every day – that’s better than in Europe) to pick up the car. They give us a form to sign, and on the form it is written that the car has a nail in its rear left tyre. I assume they meant that the car had a nail in it, and that they fixed it. But no, they tell us that the nail is still in there. They could not repair it, so they just left it like this. Now I got seriously pissed off. In a not-too-soft tone I ask them why had they not told us this over the phone. Answer: but we are telling you now. Yeah right, so what am I supposed to do now? I drove to the dealership twice already, and now I have a car with a tyre that can blow up every minute. Well, they say, they can change to a new tire, but that would take two hours. I reply that that is exactly why they should have informed us about it earlier, and in my angry mood add that I have doubts about their mental capabilities.

Because we were having a dinner party I decide to take the car anyway, and go to meet my friends. I will find a solution for this later. The tyre has survived so far, but my trust in the service and capabilities of General Motors in China has gotten to an all-time low. This is an official Buick dealership and workshop (and I think it’s even the biggest in Shanghai). So not a hole-in-the-wall workshop, but one that has been accredited by Shanghai General Motors. And cars are among the few things that are not cheap in China, so that’s also not an argument to just accept a low-quality service. A big thumbs down for GM.

Chinese script writers will need to become more creative. SARFT (the ministry in charge of among others TV) will publish a regulation that asks for less extramarital affairs in soap opera’s on TV. According to an article in the Shanghai Daily, soaps have lost the interest of the audience, and less and less people are watching them. But I am afraid that not allowing to show affairs in soaps won’t increase viewership – the soap opera’s are already boring, taking out this part certainly does not make them more interesting.

An online survey of TV viewers showed that the cheating “affects family harmony and leaves a bad impression on the youth”. And it attracts audiences, but they forgot to mention that. According to the article CCTV recently dumped 700(!) episodes of soaps, most of them related to love affairs. So what will happen now? I don’t think Chinese script writers will come up with new great ideas or formats soon, so this means even less people watching TV. Welcome to Tudou.com TV audiences (and advertisers)!

Yesterday it was race day again in Shanghai, and also this year I was present at the Shanghai F1 racing circuit. Spill Group’s Reinout te Brake and Peter Driessen joined me for what turned out to be one of the best races of the year. Because I was not able to secure a parking ticket (you need to buy at least 4 F1-tickets for that), we decided to take a shuttle bus at the Shanghai Stadium. But there were such long waiting lines there, that we changed plans and took a cab. The cab driver was a potential Schumacher: he literally raced us to the stadium even using the parking lane on the highway to pass cars. I liked it though, and I guess it was a good experience in Chinese driving for my colleagues.

After arriving at the race track it suddenly started to pour down heavily, and we were very lucky to find a big Coca-Cola umbrella to stay dry. The heavy rain luckily only lasted a few minutes, after which we walked to our seats. It turned out that my assistant had booked us excellent seats: at the end of the pit lane, just before the first curve! From there we overlooked the first three curves, and could also see the start and finish. Although last year I had Grand Stand seats right at the finish line (that were twice as expensive), this year’s seats were actually much better. In case you plan to go next year, try to get seats at the B1 area.

Food and drinks at the track were so-so. The hot dogs were edible, but there was only ketchup and no mustard. The beer was Foster’s, which is drinkable, but not when it’s not very cold (and this was not the case). It should not be too difficult to improve this a bit for next year’s race. But at least prices were reasonable, with about EUR 3 for 0.5 liter of beer.

The race itself was great. Right after the start the track was still wet, and that made for some exciting scenes. We were all fan of Schumacher (just as most of the Chinese around us), but he did not manage to pass anyone at the start (he started from position 6). But he was driving a great race and with some great maneuvers and a well-timed first pit-stop he managed to get into third place. The next rounds were amazing, for some reason Alonso was loosing 3 seconds per round during two consecutive rounds (without live comments you are left guessing what happened), and not much later Michael managed to pass him. Right in front of us! The whole stand was jumping up and down in excitement, and for a moment I was actually afraid the thing would break down. When he later also passed Fischichella (again right in front of us!) the crowd got crazy, and it was fantastic to be part of that. On the screens we noted that on the other side of the track it started raining about 4 rounds before the end, and we were a bit worried that this might cause Schumacher some trouble. But it did not rain hard enough to force him to come in to change tires (on our side it actually stayed dry), and he managed to win just before Alonso (who was allowed to pass his team mate – causing a thumbs down at him from many people when he passed us). All in all a great race, much better than the first two editions in Shanghai.

Today was an important day for all of us at Spill Group Asia, because we took a majority share in one of China’s leading game developers, Zlong Games. This is the first major investment that Spill Group Asia made in China. Spill Group just sent out the following press release about this take over:

SPILL GROUP buys majority share in well known Chinese game developer

Shanghai – September 29, 2006 – SPILL GROUP, leading developer and operator of online gaming portals, today signed a deal with the well known Chinese game developer Zlong Games Ltd. which makes SPILL GROUP Asia majority share holder of the company.

Zlong Games was founded in 2005 and already is a profitable company that focuses on online casual games, massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG), PC games and mobile games. Furthermore, the company does the outsourcing for the design of 2D and 3D game characters. Currently Zlong Games develops online games for leading US, European and Chinese game companies, such as Real.

The acquisition of the majority share in Zlong Games will help SPILL GROUP achieve their goal of becoming the world’s biggest source of the best online web games and games for mobile devices. Online games will be developed for the Asian market, but also for external parties as well as for SPILL GROUP internally. The games enhance game advertising possibilities and will increase the quality of SPILL GROUP’s own game content for its game portals to an even higher level.

One of the online game portals of SPILL GROUP ASIA is www.game.com.cn. This website is one of the fastest growing game portals in China. Due to this success SPILL GROUP is looking for further acquisitions worldwide. More information on these future acquisitions will follow soon.

For more information on SPILL GROUP visit www.spillgroup.com

For more information on SPILL GROUP Asia:
Marc van der Chijs (CEO)
Phone: +86 21 5155 6358
Mobile: +86 1381 781 0517
www.spillgroupasia.com