One of the things I miss a bit about China when I am in Holland is having a coffee at Starbucks. Not that their coffee is particularly good, but it’s the only coffee that I manage to drink half a liter of, and still think about ordering another one. In summertime it’s great to pick up a frappucino, and in winter time I like to go for a Grande Hot Chocolate with whipped cream.

What is so special about it? Probably the atmosphere, every store is similar in a way. Wherever you are in the world a Starbucks coffee tastes like a Starbucks coffee, just like a McD burger is a McDonalds hamburger. Even in China. Another thing is the level of their service – you feel welcome as a customer, something other coffee chains (in both Holland and China) could learn a lot from. Plus you normally get your order within 2 minutes, not unimportant when you are in a hurry.

For some reason Starbucks never opened any stores in Holland. Their European headquarters are located in The Netherlands, but they did not roll out the concept yet. Actually, that is not completely true. There are two Starbucks stores in Holland: the first one is in Hilversum (yes, Spill Group’s HQ location) inside the Nike HQ, and the second one is in Terminal 1 at Amsterdam Schiphol airport (European departures). Problem is, if you are not a Nike employee you cannot buy a drink in Hilversum, and in order to buy a drink at Schiphol you need to have a flight ticket to a destination in Europe.

I hardly ever fly from Amsterdam to European destinations anymore, but I wanted to check out the Starbucks anyway. Normally customs does not let you through from international to European departures with an international ticket, but I told them I just wanted to get a Starbucks coffee. Because it was a quiet day they let me through. To be honest, I was not too impressed. The store is in the middle of what used to be an open area, and the staff was not trained too well (yet). The coffee was nice though, and that’s the main thing. And of course I got myself an Amsterdam Starbucks mug (I collect these and buy one in every country that I visit, I have about 40 different ones so far).

I heard that next month Starbucks will open 2 more locations on the Amsterdam airport, one in the international terminal and one in the arrivals hall before customs. That mean that from next month on everybody can have a Starbucks coffee in Holland, although you will have to drive to Schiphol to get it. Is this the beginning of the Starbucks invasion in Holland?

I have turned comment moderation on on my blog. This means that from now on a comment only appears on my blog after I have approved it. The reason is that the spam comments were getting out of hand. On some days I had up to 50 spam comments, and manually deleting them cost me too much time.

It does not mean that I will only approve comments that are favorable, as long as it is not spam the comment should appear on my blog as soon as I get a chance to approve it (which is basically whenever I am online).

I need challenges in my life. A life that is predictable and similar every day is something I cannot handle. My daily work is quite a challenge already, but I set myself a goal three years ago that I also want to have a real physical challenge once a year. The first year I ran the Shanghai marathon, and last year the Macau one (both within 4 hours). This year the Tibet bike trip was a major challenge, and for next year Gary and I are thinking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain.

It looks that there might be another physical challenge ahead as well. I told Marcel Ekkel that if he would be able to secure an entry to next year’s Hong Kong Trailwalker, I would join him. I just got this Twitter message from him: http://twitter.com/marcelekkel/statuses/311121592
Cool!

In case you have not heard about the Hong Kong Trailwalker, this is an annual event in which teams have to run/walk the 100 km MacLehose Trail in Hong Kong. The trail is mainly through the hills, and in order to do it in a reasonable time you have a good preparation. Teams have 48 hours to cover the distance (all 4 team members have to reach the finish line), but of course we want to do it a lot faster than that. I look forward to this Marcel, thanks a lot!

On Tuesday night I met the Dutch-Chinese race car driver Ho-Pin Tung while he was checking in for his flight to Shanghai. I knew he would be on the same flight with me, as I had exchanged a few mails with him the days before when I read in a press release that he would be in Shanghai during the F1 weekend. But it actually was a coincidence to meet him in the departure hall already.

Ho-Pin, the 2006 Recaro F3 champion and former Team China A1 driver, was traveling with his manager Bert Winkler, who I had met a few times before as well. We chatted a bit about the GP2 races in Valencia over the weekend, where he was in 5th position when problems during a pit stop caused him to lose several places. Bad luck… While talking Ho-Pin also met some members of the Australian A1 team who were on their way to London. Earlier this year Ho-Pin competed in the A1 for China, before he managed to get a seat in the GP2 series.

Ho-Pin will be at the Shanghai F1 track from today until Sunday, where he will show off his skills in a BMW Sauber Formula 1 car in the pit lane park. Not sure if I will be able to make it to the track in the next days, but if you do, make sure you don’t miss him.

Every now and then I wonder how safe planes actually are? I mean, they do not fall out of the sky often, and departing/landing accidents are also quite uncommon, but I often see small problems on board, that I wonder how many bigger problems passengers do not know about.

Yesterday evening I flew from Amsterdam to Shanghai with KLM and so I had some time to think about this. KLM should be a relatively reliable airline, with planes that are maintained well. But is that really the case? A summary of some minor things that I noticed yesterday. First of all, when I entered the plane it was incredibly warm on board. I was quite late, and people were using newspapers and magazines to fan some cool air in their faces. I asked a flight attendant about it, and she told me that there was a problem with the cooling system in the air conditioning. But they were fixing it. They did indeed, but it took at least another 1o minutes.

When I sat down, I noticed that the plastic inside cover of the window was loose (see picture). Not only at my window, but also on several windows behind me. This has no effect on the plane, but it makes me wonder if KLM does not maintain its planes regularly.

I put my chair back a bit, but when I tried to put it back up again it was stuck. I had to pull it up in order to get it back in the upright position. I know that the seats were old, and that this was probably an older plane, but I still feel this cannot happen. Maybe the cabin staff does not know about it, so they cannot repair it (I also did not tell them actually), but it still should not happen.

Then I noticed that of the two toilets on the upper deck one was locked for usage, because it was not working (note: this was before take-off, while we were still at Amsterdam airport). Why do they not repair this? The other toilet had a problem with the water tap. You had to pull it up otherwise the water would keep running. The crew had actually already put a post-it note on it. But why was it not repaired before take-off? I have the feeling that planes are used too intensively, and there is no time for basic maintenance. Not good.

When the plane was supposed to leave, we taxied to the runway. There we waited a while, and then the captain came on the intercom. There was a problem with the brakes and we had to go back to the gate to get it repaired. I am glad they did that of course, but I do not understand that this can happen. We only taxied for maybe 100 or 200 meters, can they not see that earlier? Or do they not test all their instruments and engines (incl. the brakes) before leaving the gate. I find it all a bit scary, especially in combination with all the other problems that I noticed on the plane.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to fly at all. I have experienced more dangerous flights, for example when I flew on an old Air Koryo plane (a Russian one, forgot the brand, probably an Antonov or so) from Pyongyang in North-Korea to Beijing. There were not enough seats for all passengers so some had to stand during the flight, and some of the luggage fell down during take-off because the overhead luggage compartments could not be closed. Or when flying a small Merpati plane from Lombok to Bali, when halfway the flight the stewardess ran out of the cockpit and right after that the plane nose-dived for a few seconds. I still don’t know what happened, but I vowed that this would be the last time I would ever fly Merpati.

KLM is probably among the best airlines in the world. But if their planes already have these problems, what issues do smaller, less profitable airlines have? I think I don’t want to know. But I assume that the last thing they try to save on is engine maintenance, so probably flying is never really unsafe. It just feels a bit like that sometimes.

The past week I mainly spent in Amsterdam at the PICNIC07 conference. It was a very interesting week, not only because of all the presentations and discussions that I attended, but also because I finally got to meet a lot of my online ‘friends’ in real life. A few months ago I actively started Twittering, and through Twitter I got to know a lot of people quite well, without ever meeting several of them in real life. Among many others I finally got to meet Erwin Blom, Holland’s most active Twitterer, who immediately interviewed me with his Nokia E61. The interview (in Dutch):Audioreport Picnic07 #21 – Big in China! (Erwin Blom)

Today the Dutch quality newspaper NRC Handelsblad blundered with the date on its front page. It’s only September 29 right now, but according to the NRC it’s one month later already:

The whole week I had planned to work on an investment proposal. To do that I need a couple of hours without any interruption, but it’s almost impossible to work longer than 10-15 minutes in my office without any disturbances. Therefore I decided to do it on Saturday. However, when I woke up yesterday after 10 hours of sleep (a new record I think, I guess I needed it) I was still too tired to really be productive. Work at Spill Group Asia has been busy from the day I set up the company, but it’s getting more busy and stressful lately as the company grows. The recent problems do not really help either. No complaints from my side, I don’t mind to be busy, but I also know that there are limits to what you can do.

In the past I went running almost daily to clear my mind, but since bike riding in Tibet I have a knee injury that does not want to go away. Each time I start running the pain comes back, so I have cut back a lot on sports. But I have now started with something completely new (to me at least): yoga. I always thought that would be nothing for me, but it is a completely different experience from what I expected. I actually thought it was just relaxing and it would not take much effort. But after one hour I am totally exhausted and the next day all my muscles are sore. But I am also very relaxed, and during the class I manage to switch my mind completely off work. I love it!

I have a private teacher, and she was surprised to have a beginner student (people normally start in group classes when they do yoga). For me groups don’t work because of my work schedule. They start at 7 or 7:30 PM, and I often cannot make it on time. If I do it, I want to do it right and not miss half the classes. Also, progress is much faster with a private teacher. The basic postures and breathing techniques are quite important, and getting these right is easier when one person constantly observes and corrects you.

I just started two weeks ago, so these are just my first impressions. Let’s see how I feel about it in a couple of months. I think it would be perfect to combine this with long distance running, after my knee allows me to do that again. Right now it looks like a good way to reduce stress, and get more out of your day – both work wise and in terms of quality time.