This morning my wife and I went to ParkwayHealth in Shanghai (the former WorldLink) and we got some very exciting news: My wife is pregnant again and the 7-week old fetus seems to be in good health!

It was a bit quicker than we expected because baby Scott is only 9 months old right now, but we are extremely happy. The estimated date of birth is May 31, 2009, so we still have a long way to go. And the fetus still has a long way to grow, today he/she is just 1.19 cm tall but already has a heartbeat of 159 beats per minute.

I’d better dust off the ‘What to expect when you’re expecting’ book tonight – although there is not much dust on there yet!

Last night I was invited to the M1NT Shanghai soft opening party with my wife (full disclosure: I am a shareholder of the club). I was still quite tired from my Japan trip because I only arrived in China in the afternoon, but we decided to go anyway. And I am glad we did, because we very much enjoyed it. The club is not completely ready yet, for example the restaurant was still an open space (should be ready for the Grand Opening in mid-November) and the roof terrace with jacuzzi will not open until Spring 2009 (this was planned like this, so there are no delays). But it looked great already. A typical club atmosphere, but one that can and will also be used for more serious functions.
It was a full house last night, despite a Shanghaiist article saying something different (even at 12:30 AM there were still lines of people outside the building who wanted to go in!). The Shanghaiist writer made some more negative comments in her post that were all quite shallow (a painting she felt was sexist, the place is too big so she lost her friends, the appetizers were not appropriate, too pretentious etc.), but I guess you can never please everyone. Luckily most of the people I met were very impressed by the whole party (and no, most had no idea that I am a shareholder).
What surprises me, however, is that nobody realizes that M1NT is so much more than just a night club. Also last night this was not clear for most of the people that I talked to and that visited M1NT for the first time. For me the main functions are more business-like, such as meeting guests in an exclusive setting for drinks or dinner. This was also not emphasized last night, but for most of the clubbing guests the business functions are probably not a main reason to become a member anyway.

I look forward to the first events at M1NT and of course the Grand Opening Party in just over a month. Last night was a big success and I look forward to spend a lot more time at M1NT over the next months. Hope to see you there!

Last week I spent 3 days in Japan for the Tokyo Game Show, and for some meetings with online gaming companies and agencies. A short trip, but absolutely worth it. Especially the Tokyo Game Show and the things I heard during the meetings gave me a lot of inspiration for opportunities that still exist in Japan, but also ideas that can be used in other countries in Asia. Japan is so close to China, but it’s a whole different world.

It already starts when you arrive at Narita where you have to take a train in order not to arrive bankrupt in Tokyo itself. Taxi’s are outrageously expensive and the airport is about 80 km from downtown Tokyo. Hotels are similarly priced, we stayed in a hotel close to Shinagawa harbour and paid something like USD 160 per night for a 8m2 room (I think it was arranged by the Dutch government, next time I’ll take a hotel closer to downtown). Prices are not as bad as during the 80’s I was told, but I was still shocked at having to pay USD 40 for a couple of beers in an average bar. Even taking the metro is an expensive affair, taking a taxi in Shanghai would be a lot cheaper for the same distance.

What I like about Tokyo is that it’s a bit like a village. There are of course some skyscrapers (but not as tall as the ones in Shanghai), but generally there are a lot of 2-3 story houses all over the city. If you walk into a side street from one of the main streets you are immediately in a quiet environment totally unlike a metropolitan city. Also traffic is pretty good, there are not many cars around, even not during rush hour. Most people take the train, probably because it is cheaper and faster: traffic lights are horrible and it can take ages to get from A to B inside the city.

The Tokyo Game Show itself was fun, and also very different from ChinaJoy (Shanghai’s Game Show, that is actually bigger than its Japanese counterpart). While in Shanghai you see lots MMO’s and other online games, they are almost completely absent at the TGS. What you see is mainly console game titles (consoles are machines like the Playstation, Wii or Xbox360) or titles for handhelds (like the Sony PSP or the Nintendo DS). Next to that a lot of mobile game titles, with most of them programmed in FlashLite. But hardly any pure online games like you see them in the rest of the world.
We saw and met with some interesting mobile virtual worlds (think social network meets games on a mobile), very interesting to see what they have achieved so far in Japan. The rest of the world is still far behind in that respect. Not illogical, considering the fact that mobile internet speeds in Japan are higher than the fastest broadband in China. People seem to use their phones for everything, from playing games to watching TV to paying for their metro fee. Some even still use them to make phone calls!

It was a very inspirational trip for me and I am glad I took the time to go the Tokyo Game Show. Last year I decided not to go, but because we will launch our first site in Japan soon I am glad I went this time. Japan is a different country from most other Asian countries, but I believe that we can be successful there as well. Time will tell whether it will work out, but I am quite optimistic.

Just now I took this picture from behind my desk in my hotel room in Hong Kong. I love the view, it’s always very inspiring. On the one side the green mountains (you cannot see them in the picture) and on the other side the Hong Kong skyscrapers and Victoria Harbour.

Right now it’s still a bit foggy because of the heavy rainstorms over the past 36 hours, normally you have a much better view of the New Territories mountains in the back. At night the view is even more spectacular when all the building are lit up.

Today Marcel and I did another run, this time section 3, 4 and 5 of the Mac Lehose trail. Quite a challenge, especially after the intensive run yesterday. And the low pressure area caused by typhoon Higo made sure we did not stay dry today…

After an early breakfast with my wife at the Brunch Club in Soho, I took the MTR to North Point where Marcel joined me. From there we set off to Sai Kung by MTR and minibus, followed by a taxi to the start of section 3. Section 3 and 4 are the most difficult sections of the whole trail, and they were indeed not easy. The weather today made it even more difficult. The moment we entered the trail it started to rain like crazy. If you have ever been in a tropical rainstorm you know how hard it can rain, it was like being under a shower with your clothes on. Luckily a lukewarm shower, as the outside temperature was still in the upper 20’s Celcius.

Actually I felt the rain made running easier today, because it was not as hot as yesterday. I took 6 liters of water and sports drink with me (which does not make for easy running I can tell you) but only drank about 3.5 liters in the 7 hours that our run lasted. Section 3 started off with a long climb and I immediately felt the pain in my legs from yesterday. But the pain eased off after a while and when we arrived at the top of the first mountain I felt quite OK. Most of the other mountains that we climbed today were also not too bad, but the path was often very difficult to walk on. Very slippery and you had to take extreme care not to fall off the trail. Because of the hills and the weather we did a fast hike most of the time, it was just impossible to run not even down the hills. But it was fun and an excellent training.

Also the weather eventually got a bit better and we even saw some sunshine. But not for long, because during the last hour of our run another rainstorm hit Hong Kong (we actually saw it coming in from the ocean). We got soaked again and were glad that we were almost at the end of the trail. However, it turned out that right before the end a landslide had hit the road and we had to go around the backside of the last mountain. We first made a mistake and ended up in an area where we were not supposed to be (a radio transmission post on (I think) Fortress Hill). We had ignored the ‘no entry allowed’ and the ‘high radio transmission area’ signs, but when we got close to the transmitters and could even hear their humming we realized we were not in the right place. The place has a great view over Kowloon but it all felt a bit scary. Because of this and the detour around the mountain we decided not to finish section 5 (we just had a few km left until the end) and go down to Kowloon.

I look back on a great day in a fantastic natural environment. We hardly saw other people because of the weather, which made it even nicer. It was extremely tiring because of the long distance and the 3000 meters that we climbed in total, but it is something that I would not have wanted to miss.

Tomorrow I will likely not be able to walk much because of the muscle ache, so I will travel around Hong Kong by taxi instead of on foot and by public transport. And if I feel good on Tuesday I might do another (much shorter) hike with among others Spil Games’ Peter Driessen, who will be in HK as well. Just over four weeks until the Trailwalker, I am not yet ready for it but I feel I am getting in better shape – just in time!

Today my Trailwalker team went for a run on Hong Kong Island to train for the big event on November 7. Just over 1 month to go, so the training becomes a bit more intensive now. Over the past weeks I did not really train in the mountains, because there are no real ones in either Shanghai or Holland, and that did not make it easier for me today. Likely the trainings this weekend will also be the last mountain runs that I will do before the actual trailwalker, so they are quite important to me.

I was a bit afraid that typhoon Higo would ruin the weekend, but luckily the hurricane hit land on Hainan and now reduced to a tropical depression. Because of it we had a bit of (heavy) rain, but most of the run the weather was sunny, hot and humid. I did not bring a hat nor sun creme (you don’t need that in a hurricane, do you?) so as usual I managed to get nicely sun burned 🙁

The run itself was great. Even Hong Kong Island, although home to one of the biggest metropoles on this planet, has a beautiful nature. We started off in Central, the middle of Hong Kong’s CBD and ran through Hong Kong Park to Bowen Road. From there it was up-up-up to the top of the mountain, from where we had a great view over the city and Happy Valley. Shortly afterward we could see the other side of the island and from there we ran on to Violet Hill. This all went quite easy, despite the heat.

After Violet Hill we hit the Twins, two mountains connected by a small saddle, high above Repulse Bay. That’s where I suddenly hit a wall (figuratively speaking): from one moment to the other I could not put my feet up the steps anymore. I did not know what happened to me, but I felt intensely tired and could only think about sitting down. Dolphin was right behind me and stopped as well. She quickly analyzed the situation with me and we concluded that I had not eaten enough. For breakfast I only had a cup of tea and a piece of cake from 7-11, not enough for a mountain run. So after two hours my energy level had gone down to zero and my body did not want to go anymore. The solution: a power bar and some raisins. Within minutes I felt fine again and we continued the 1200 steps to the first top of the Twins. There I ate and drank a bit more and I had no further problems during the remaining 3 hours.

After the Twins we went partly down the mountain to Repulse Bay to buy some more water and sports drink (locally produced Pocari Sweat, not sure who came up with that ‘tasty’ name). Because of the heat I drank over 3 liters during the first 3 hours, and wanted to bring another 3-4 liters to be on the safe side. And I drank most of it during the remaining 2 hours through the peaceful Tai Tam Country Park (beautiful reservoirs) and over Mount Butler. We ended at Quarry Bay from where I took the MTR back to Central and did a final run up to the Mid-Levels. A nice run with an approximate 1800 meter vertical ascent.

Tomorrow Marcel Ekkel and I will do another run, 33.5 kilometer on the MacLehose Trail (Sections 3,4 and 5). These include the two most difficult sections of the trail, so hopefully I won’t feel my muscles too much from today’s run. But even if I do I still have to run, it’s the only way to get in shape on time. But now I am first going to eat lots and lots of pasta to fill up on carbohydrates!

I arrived in Hong Kong today for two days of intensive training with my team for our 100 km Trailwalker race next month. But yesterday I got an email from one of my team members, saying that a typhoon with strenght 8 would hit Hong Kong over the weekend. I checked online and indeed it looked like a direct hit (picture below is from Thursday):

I was a bit concerned because that would mean running in the mountains would be out of the question (too dangerous with falling trees and potential landslides). But I decided to go anyway, no risk no fun, right? That seems to have been a good decision, because just now I saw the latest update and it seems Hainan will be hit instead of Hong Kong:

That means we can still go running this weekend, although there will be lots of wind and even more rain. I look forward to that, intensive sports in nature is the best way for me to relax and forget all work-related stress.

Yesterday the NRC newspaper for the iLiad contained not one but three files: the normal Thursday newspaper, Wednesday’s newspaper and a letter of apology. What had happened? The Wednesday paper that was sent out to all ePaper readers was a bit strange, to say it in a nice way. Lots of articles were about a journalist that was retiring, and from the articles it seemed like he was a combination of a god and an alcoholic at the same time. The way he did his work as a bike racing sports journalist? By drinking until the sun came up, watching the bike race on TV close to the finish line and then quickly interviewing a couple of riders. It certainly lowered my esteem for the professional traditional media journalists (bloggers sometimes report in a more professional way!).

I assumed the journalist would be very famous in Holland, but that because I did not live there since 1995 I had probably missed that. But it turns out the reason for all these articles was a different one: it was a mistake by the NRC. The paper makes a special edition of its newspaper for every journalist that leaves, with personal stories about his or her professional life. These stories were not meant for publication, but NRC by mistake sent them out to all iLiad readers. Their second big mistake in 3 days.

So the paper sent out an apology to its readers for its blunders over the past days and for this one in particular and tells its readers that they will get compensation for these mistakes. That’s fine, but what’s not so good is that they replaced the ‘wrong’ paper of Wednesday with a new updated one. They literally deleted the Wednesday paper and put a new one in its place. I think this is very wrong, they don’t get to decide what is on my iLiad! Suppose I had written some comments next to articles (which I do sometimes, just like in a normal paper), they would be gone now as well. The papers seems to try to hide their mistake in this way, but is only making it worse in my opinion. People own their content in the digital age, not the media.

NRC is doing its best to deliver new media content, but forgets new media is different from traditional media. And new media means two-way communication, so I hope they don’t mind this blog post. At least NRC is experimenting with ePaper (and the only paper in Holland to do so) and that’s something to applaud. They are not afraid to be entrepreneurial, even though that inevitably leads to some errors. I wish them good luck solving all the problems!