My current car is a Buick Lacrosse, less than 2 years old and of course Made in China (actually even Made in Shanghai). A great car, both to drive yourself and with a driver – with controls for everything on the middle console in the backseat. Never had any big problems with it, but that’s probably logical with such a new car and if you drive less than 10.000 km per year.

Until a week ago, that is. On New Year’s Day I drove with my parents through the French Concession behind a taxi. We approached a traffic light that was green, and which turned orange when we were about 50 meters away from it. The taxi was even closer to the light, so I assumed he would speed up and drive through. Wrong. He suddenly braked, and I had to make an emergency stop to avoid hitting him. And that’s when I realized that my brakes did not work well. I did not drive fast, but the car did not slow down fast either. It sort of skidded from left to right and the brakes made strange sounds. I had to steer my car into the other lane, where there was luckily no traffic, in order to avoid hitting the taxi. Scary, but nothing happened.

I decided to tell my driver about it so he could go to the workshop to get my brakes checked, but forgot about it. To my surprise my wife called me two days later, telling me that there was a recall for all Buick Lacrosse cars because of possible brake failure. Seriously, I do not make this up. I never had any problems, and two days after I notice there is a problem we get a phone call from our dealer to bring the car in for exactly that problem. A pure coincidence. I am glad the emergency brake situation did not happen at higher speeds at a more dangerous location. My car will be repaired as soon as possible, that’s for sure.

Sometimes you see signs in China where you really wonder what is going on inside. Sometimes you don’t even want to know. My dad snapped this picture the other day: The Naughty Family Veterinary Hospital….

Scott is 9 days old now, and in these 9 days my life has changed quite a bit. The most difficult thing right now is that he wakes up about 3 times per night. Just knowing that you will wake up 3 times already makes me sleep bad, and I don’t think this is something I can get used to easily. Last night (on a Friday) I went to bed before 10 PM already! I don’t think that has ever happened in the past 25 years, except when I was jetlagged or sick.

During the week I even went home once for lunch to play with Scott, and I on Thursday I went home at 5 PM already to spend some time with him. He is still so small, and I really miss him during the day. I am even considering to put a live webcam at his bed, so I can look at him whenever I want. And no, I won’t put the webcam’s address online.

It’s just great to see how quickly he develops. Especially the first days you really see changes in his behavior, he can already do so much more than a week ago. This morning Scott was trying to climb on my chest (not successful of course), and later he fell asleep there. That is such an incredible experience, I feel such a bond with him now already.

Priorities change a lot with such a small boy around. Instead of going for sports in the morning I want to spend time with Scott, and also for blogging I did not make much time. I was actually too tired for sports as well (lack of sleep) and during my usual blogging time (later in the evening) I was in bed already. I think this will change soon, I have to get used to this new rhythm of life.

In case you’re not too much into kids (like I was until a very short time ago), no worries. I did write mainly about Scott in the past week, but very soon my topics will cover other areas as well again. Having a baby is just too overwhelming, you will understand if you have a kid yourself or if you should ever get a baby. Thanks for you patience 🙂

While most of the world is still in 2007, the New Year has arrived in Shanghai already. I would like to wish all my readers a very happy and healthy 2008!

My plan was to write a looking-back on 2007 looking-forward to 2008 kind of post yesterday (like last year), but since I have a child time seems to evaporate before my eyes. Priorities can change fast with the arrival of a newborn. 2007 was an absolute top year for me. Business wise it was a booming year, with traffic on Tudou.com and game.com.cn growing by hundreds of percent over the past year. I did a few new angel investments, and so far all of them are doing fairly well (and one or two are doing extremely well). A highlight was the Tibet bike ride that Gary, my dad and I did in April/May, a fantastic experience. And of course the arrival of my son Scott was the most wonderful way of ending the year.

Not sure how 2008 can top the past year. The most important thing for me is for my family to stay healthy, to enjoy what I am doing and to spend a lot of time with Scott and Grace. Also this year you can of course keep on following my business and private experiences on this blog. Plans for next year include for example climbing Kilimanjaro (Africa’s highest mountain) with Gary and my dad, and of course attending the Olympic Games in Beijing. No predictions here for this year, I’ll take it as it comes.

Happy New Year!

Life has changed a lot since Scott arrived on this planet, especially since Scott came home yesterday. Our home was always nice and quiet, but is suddenly filled with life. Not only because of the screams of our baby. Our ayi used to only work in the morning, but she now stays a couple of hours longer because of Scott. We have a 24-hour Nanny that is trying to dictate life in our house (bad luck Nanny, not in my household), and even the driver regularly finds reasons to come up to our apartment to get a look at the baby. My parents are still here, but they wisely decided to take a hotel room at night (at least they get some sleep). And several people have visited already. If you plan to visit, please let us know in advance. Grace and Scott still need to rest a lot, so preferably wait a couple of days.

But I love it. Having a small boy around the house that is the focus of everyone’s attention is very nice. He can be very loud, especially when he is hungry, but most of the time he is lying quietly in his little bed. He is very active, moving his arms and legs all the time and making small sounds. So sweet. But at night he can be a nuisance. Last night he woke up 3 times (at 12:30 AM, 3 AM and 5 AM), and he shows that by crying for food and attention. My wife then breast feeds him, I don’t envy her for that. I felt pretty much broken this morning because of a lack of sleep, and to compensate I slept for an hour on the couch this afternoon. But Grace sleeps even less and does not seem to be tired at all.

I am sure the nights will get better, and even if that will take a while it’s totally worth it. A baby gives life so much extra value and meaning, I could not imagine that just a week ago. Even though I am tired, the end of 2007 is a very happy one for me.

Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 16:58 Scott William van der Chijs was born in the Wordlink hospital in Shanghai. At 53 cm and 3.770 kg Scott is a big and healthy baby, and also all health test showed that (Apgar score was 9 after 1 minute, and a perfect 10 after 5 minutes). And I am the happiest man in the world!

I twittered the whole process, from the moment we left home until Scott was delivered. Lots of people contacted me during the day because of that, through Twitter or through email and SMS. One of my Twitter contacts even called Scott a Twitter-baby! Thanks for all the best wishes and congratulations, I appreciate it very much. I will paste the Twitter tweets here – without the twitter-replies that I received during the day, in order to make it more readable.

06:46 AM Going to Worldlink hospital with my wife. Our baby will be born today! Nervous and excited.
08:46 AM In the hospital now, with wireless internet. The doctor estimates that it may take at least another 8-10 hours before the actual delivery.
08:50 AM Baby heartbeat in the womb around 160 bpm. When doctors touches belly it goes up. Very cool.
08:52 AM My parents are in the hospital as well right now. Our room is very spacious, with among others TV, DVD player and private bathroom.
09:17 AM The hospital has excellent coffee. Having an espresso now, did not sleep much last night.
09:20 AM It’s almost like a hotel here, now the nurse comes in with a menu where I can order food from. I opt for a salad with grilled chicken.
09:35 AM Installed iPod docking station on top of the TV, so my wife is able to control volume & songs she wants to listen to with a remote control
09:42 AM Forgot my headphones, want to watch movie “I am Legend” on my laptop between contractions, but don’t want to disturb my wife with the sound
10:33 AM Trying to upload pictures to Flickr, but it seems the hospital does not allow that. Both through website and uploader tool I get error msg.
10:42 AM It seems the hospital has a limit on what you can send out on their network. Even uploading by email does not work, email size too big…
10:58 AM Contractions are regular and come every 3-4 minutes now. Luckily not very painful yet. Baby’s heartbeat still at 160 bpm.
11:03 AM My wife is still making phone calls from her bed, which is a good sign. If contractions get worse phone calls won’t be possible anymore.
11:18 AM My wife wants to see what I put on Twitter, so I will show it to her
11:49 AM The lunch in the hospital was excellent. I found out that they outsource the catering to Element Fresh, so that explains it.
12:01 PM Going to watch Sex and the City on DVD with my wife (she brought a whole season with her), turning off laptop for a while
12:32 PM Dilation is not going fast enough, so the doctor will break the water to speed up the process. Scary…
12:53 PM Contractions are getting more frequent and more painful now. Will not be online much anymore, just some updates through mobile phone.
01:34 PM Sitting next to my wife, holding her hand and trying to comfort her. Labor is getting very painful now. And this is just the beginning.
02:17 PM Dilation 5-6 cm now. Labor pain is becoming unbearable, I signed the release for a (walking) epidural.
03:08 PM An aunt of my wife comes to visit in the middle of labor, bringing a big bag of food. Not sure if it is very impolite to send her away.
03:09 PM Luckily the epidural starts kicking in, so my wife is able to talk again. Contractions come every 2 minutes now.
03:51 PM A doctor and three nurses around my wife’s bed. 9 cm dilution. We’re going to the delivery room!
05:27 PM Done! Scott van der Chijs was born at 16:58, 53 cm, 3770 gram. Delivery was not easy, but mother and baby are doing very well. Very happy!

I stayed overnight in the hospital with Scott and my wife, I did not want to be alone at home while she was there with our baby. And of course she also did not want to be alone there the first night without me. Well, I did not sleep much. Every time the baby made a sound I was immediately awake – most of the time Scott was just dreaming and making little sounds, but I wanted to make sure nothing was wrong. Or the opposite, you don’t hear anything and get up to check if the baby is OK. Of course he is, and if you softly touch his face and he moves his mouth or makes a sound you feel so happy.

Then when you finally sleep a nurse comes in to check Scott’s temperature or to check his sugar level (they do that 7 times in the first 2 days). Of course that wakes Scott up and he immediately starts crying loudly – imagine someone suddenly sticking a needle in your foot while you’re sleeping! Not long after that a nurse comes in again because it is breastfeeding time. You probably catch my drift, it’s impossible to sleep in a hospital with a newborn next to you.

Therefore I decided to sleep at home tonight, and leave our nanny with my wife and Scott. Luckily it’s OK for my wife, if not I would have been a zombie tomorrow. And the good thing is that I can now also update my blog and upload some of the pictures I took. I made a set of the pictures already, they can be found here.

I am in the hospital right now, where my wife is in labor. Our baby will be born at Worldlink in Shanghai. A private hospital with excellent service, nice rooms and (not unimportant for me) internet access. The actual delivery is still a few hours away. I am putting regular updates on my Twitter account: http://twitter.com/marcvanderchijs

Until yesterday I thought that Shanghai had just one ice bar (the one on Huaihai Lu), but it seems there is at least one other place where you can drink in sub-zero temperatures. I had a Christmas Day dinner with my parents at Binjiang One, and found the restaurant has an ice bar on its premises.

Binjiang One is a fusion restaurant located in an old villa on the Pudong side of the Huangpu River, about 300 meters from the Shangri-La next to the river ferries. Both the food and the location are excellent, and the view of the river and the Bund is also great. The only dissonant is that the neighboring floating seafood restaurant’s fluorescent lights spoil a bit of the view.

After dinner we went down to the ice bar, where we were given thick winter coats to wear inside. My very pregnant wife could not stand the cold too long, and left after a few minutes. My mom followed her, but my dad and I decided to have a vodka. The bar has a pretty big collection of different vodka brands with all kinds of vodka flavors (in total 103 different kinds of vodka). I decided to try out a crystal clear chocolate-flavored one, while my dad opted for an espresso vodka (both from the Van Gogh brand). Both tasted excellent, but maybe that also had to do with the surroundings. The drinks were not cheap (RMB 70 per shot), but it was worth it. It’s a nice experience to be surrounded by ice, in a freezing cold environment, especially during Christmas. We decided to only have one shot, and the freezing Filipino bar tender seemed to be very happy with that!