Author: MarcusBurtBKK
The Rise of Bangkok’s New Districts #GlobalCities2015
The rise of the ‘new districts’ is a trend that is happening across the world, and is discussed in our latest global publication Global Cities 2015 Report, http://www.knightfrank.com/globalcities but whilst staff retention and attraction are also central to a company’s decision making process in Bangkok, the emergence of Bangkok’s new districts is also being driven by other factors.
Bangkok has a scarcity of prime development sites, and as such prices are climbing. In fact prime development sites in Bangkok topped the region in our recent Knight Frank Prime Asia Development Land Index, where Bangkok saw the largest increase at a stellar 18.2% in H1 2014. http://bit.ly/1t4ilNG
As occupancies climb to over 90% in the city’s high rise office towers, eyes are being cast towards locations that were previously shunned by larger firms. Facilitated by improved access via mass transit and advancing rents, locations such as Rachadapisek and Rama 9 have become increasingly popular, both with developers and occupiers who enjoy abundant retail, quality buildings, and convenient access, without the CBD rental premium.
Today more than ever technology and mass transit has made office locations less about being convenient for clients, and more about being close to where staff live and play. So perhaps it is only natural that locations such as Thonglor, Ekamai and Phaholyothin, which were once primarily regarded as high net worth residential locations, have become fashionable with young entrepreneurs who shun suits, ties and traditional office towers for jeans, coffee, and collaborative co-working spaces.
This trend looks set to continue, Bangkok has almost 200kms of mass transit routes under construction or being planned to complete over the next 10 years, and as it does, our notion of what makes a Bangkok business district will have to adapt.
To quote from our Global Cities report “the challenge for the Global Cities is balancing the conflicting demands of accommodating the new wave of firms, and their workers, in the same highly sought after districts”.
If you haven’t already followed that link to the report, I urge you to do so, its free and makes for a fascinating read with unique insights into the future of our work, and our cities.
Grab it at the link below:
Happy 25th WWW!
2. Smart property – by that I don’t mean the internet of things (see 4) I mean a method of recording transactions in a public registry using the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, the Blockchain (remember that word, it’s going to be important!)
Have you heard of the Keo Project?
Have you heard of the Keo Project?
“Each person on Earth is invited to send a message that will transcend time and space to reach out to our distant descendants 50,000 years later.
A message for 50,000 years later? It is an invitation to perceive ourselves under a different light. By sharing each others’ messages we can rediscover our diversity, our individual values as well as our common humanity.
Each one of us have 4 uncensored pages at our disposal: an identical space of equality and freedom of expression where we can voice our aspirations and our revolts, where we can reveal our deepest fears and our strongest beliefs, where we can relate our lives to our faraway great grandchildren, thus allowing them to witness our time
All the messages received, without undergoing any censorship, will be embarked aboard KEO.”
I’ve written mine, what will you write?
Bitcoin
So a few weeks ago I succumbed and splashed out on a few bitcoin, the following week MTGox the biggest single exchange of bitcoin promptly collapsed and the value of the BTC came tumbling down with it, so it hasn’t been my best investment.
However, it is early days and proponents will tell you that they are going tobe worth 10,000 USD in the next 6 months, year, two years and some may say never, ever.
I dont claim to have any answers. I can say that Bitcoin isn’t being used as a currency, despite that moniker being attached with it. Its all about speculation, people are hoarding or even day trading on the volatility, so in some ways it bears a closer resemblance to stocks than it does an actual currency, except BTC doesn’t actually produce anything of value.
The price seems to be determined by two things, supply and sentiment. I suppose if I brought in when it was worth 100USD / BTC I might be a bit more bullish, but I didn’t so despite my keen interest, I am sceptical.
Everywhere you look is someone else talking about BTC, this is because the more mainstream it becomes, the more it is spoken about (just as I am partly guilty of here), the greater the demand will be, and hence this will boost values. In some ways its not that different to a pyramid scheme, where the early adopters are the ones who make the real cash, and its never too late for you to get on board too!
The underlying technology of bitcoin, the blockchain has the potential to be hugely disruptive to the way people do business and conduct transactions. It could change the way banking is done forever.
I wont explain in detail but I will point you to an excellent podcast on the topic that really delves into the nature of what bitcoin is and where its expected to go.
They mention a few altcoins on here too.
If after all this you feel that you want to at least take a look at what this is all about for yourself I suggest heading over to Qoinpro, where they will give you a few bitcoin for free when you sign up and a little more every day, as well as a few other alt coins such as Litecoin, Feathercoin and Fedoracoin.
Here’s what they have to say about themselves
QoinPro was conceptualized in December 2013 and launched on January 29, 2014. We are based in Hong Kong and work from different time zones (Hong Kong and the Netherlands) to offer near 24/7 support.
QoinPro is a multi-coin faucet with wallet-like features giving different free coins (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Feathercoin, etc) on a daily basis to all subscribed members. The multi-coin faucet functionality is step one of a much larger plan to eventually become a leading cryptocurrency platform.
Our primary objective in step one is to educate people and making it (very) easy for them to get started with cryptocurrencies.
Sign up to Qoinchain via this link, and they will give me a few more coins every day, don’t worry, its free and no payment details are requested.
http://www.qoinpro.com/c068c77abd0ff1cf9132c50459e22664
But I also suggest getting a wallet over at https://blockchain.info/ and when you are ready to buy, head over to https://localbitcoins.com/
How I kept my New Year’s resolution part 2
The thing about setting a resolution to lose weight is that it requires a change in lifestyle, which as I mentioned in my last post is harder than giving up smoking.
The 5:2 diet worked for me though, but after about 4/5 months I reached a plateau. At this point I had already lost about 6-7 Kgs, but I knew that I had to do something.
I didn’t want to throw away another gym membership and I needed an activity that I could do any time and any where.
My super sister Sarah inspired me to go back and give running a try. I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing this but like me she also wasn’t very active but she turned that around by following a training program on her mobile phone app called C25K, which stands for from the Couch to 5 kilometers. Her transformation was incredible and incredibly inspiring.
It is designed for people just like me, (and perhaps you?), people who have done no / very little exercise for a very long time. I had been inactive for over 10 years, unless you count lifting pints at the pub as activity… I knew that getting back in shape was going to be an effort.
I downloaded an app called Runkeeper and embarked on the beginner 5Km course, because it started with a 2.4km walk. Yup, a walk, and very gradually over the course of 8 weeks it escalated into a 5km run. Not every activity is a straight forward run though, some are what the call fartlek runs / tabatha runs/ which are basically interval training runs.
But what on earth does that mean? Well it starts with a brisk walk for 90 seconds, and then you jog for 60 seconds and repeat that 8 times or about 20 minutes. As the course progress the rest periods shorten and the run intervals lengthen and speed moves from a steady jog to a fast run. This builds your strength. The program also has some runs labelled purely as 45 minutes. In which the goal is to run/walk for 45 minutes, just so that you get used to moving and being active for that duration.
I like Runkeeper because it has great integration with my withings wifi scale and I have a real soft spot for convergence so I want my gadgets/ tech to work nicely together, which thankfully the fitbit / withings / Myfitnesspal / runkeeper and my Pebble smart watch all do!
I can not say that my return to running has been easy or painless, it has not. I have had a few overuse injuries trying to push myself too far or too fast too quickly, and to top it all I had terrible running form, which resulted in black toenails and some patellar tendonitis (aka sore knees)
After a bit of research i learned that my running shoes were likely a size too small, and were not designed for someone weighing close to 100kgs but it was not until I visited Frank Elford Sports in Plymouth, England who carried out a gait analysis that I learned just how poor my posture was and that I had a case of over-pronation , which means that my ankles roll outwards when I run. The good news is that the right type of footwear with a lot of support can help to correct this.
I learned a good rule of thumb during this process which I think is worth sharing, which is the quieter you tread the better you run. Your feet shouldn’t be slamming hard into the ground, you should be looking to glide over the terrain as silently as possible.
Long story short I took their advice, took things more slowly, brought a new pair of running shoes, and have been injury free ever since. I joined the excellent guys and girls over at http://www.meetup.com/Bangkok-Runners/ and even participated in a few fun 5km runs, and recommend anyone interested in joining some fun races to check them out, or, if you want to go it alone, websites like http://www.jogandjoy.com list most of the upcoming runs throughout Thailand.
This year I have resolved to make more progress in my running and general fitness. My weekly schedule will be Sunday run, Monday gym (upper body, eg arms, shoulders, back, chest and core), Tuesday run, Wednesday Gym (lower body i.e. legs and core), Thursday run, Friday beer (because to be sustainable I only have to adapt not totally change!), and finally Saturday run, now the following week I may switch it and go Monday, Wednesday, Friday run and have a rest on a Saturday, because you know sometimes I have stuff to do.
The important thing is I am able to keep a fitness schedule because its flexible enough to live with for a sustained period. The big excuse was that I never had time. But I made time, I went to bed earlier and went running early in the morning, before work.
Sounds awful I know, I get it, but with enough repetition any activity can become a habit, even exercise. it doesn’t take long, for me it was perhaps a month or so (a bit like giving up smoking) and then I found that it made me feel better throughout the day. I regretted any run that I missed, but most of all was the impact it had on my weight-loss, which was significant, and to be frank the compliments that I started to hear again were pretty welcome too!
Running helped me. It may, or may not be right for you, perhaps you prefer walking, cycling, or swimming. But it doesn’t matter what you do, so long as its cheap and readily accessible because those two conditions, for me at least, eliminated any excuses that I had not to do it. Then making a schedule, in my calendar, meant that I kept to it.
My advice, if you are looking to get fit for 2014, the first point of call should be to examine your excuses for not exercising as objectively as possible, write them down, and determine a solution for each.
Good luck with whatever your resolutions are and I wish you all the very best for a happy, healthy and safe 2014!
2013 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
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Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,300 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 55 trips to carry that many people.
New Year’s Resolutions and how I kept mine, part 1 of 2
This is me in the evening of December 31st 2012 on Jomtien beach with my gorgeous wife, who clearly looks far too good for me (the truth is, she is!).
When I got back home after this really enjoyable trip, I weighed 103 Kgs. I used to tell myself “that isn’t too bad after all I am 191 cm’s tall”.
But the weight was not exactly evenly distributed. I had grown a beard to hide my growing double chin, but nothing, not even my ‘Jungle Birds’ Hawaiian shirt, could hide my bulging waistline.
When I arrived in Thailand, way back in 1997, I weighed just 78 Kgs. But that number crept up over the years. Mostly due to that amber nectar I am holding in the picture…
But as years went on I drifted away from the party scene and settled down (ish), and so a part of me wanted to blame the fact that I had become overweight on the after effects of quitting smoking, but the stark ugly truth is I got fat because I ate too much, drank too much and didn’t move enough.
[Boy that feels good to write, and its even more cathartic to say it out loud!]
I determined that day on the scales, after our New Year’s trip, that 2013 was going to be year that I was going to lose weight, after all I had given up smoking, so surely I could do this, right?
But I had tried before, many times in fact. I had followed the Atkins diet, I had cut back on portion sizes to little effect, I tried a juice fast, but gave up as it was far too inconvenient, and I didnt want to give up eating ‘real’ food. I also have a small young family so it was important to me that I didnt disrupt their lives too much either.
I couldnt see myself living with any those options permanently. The options out there like paleo diet and plant based diets whilst very good for you, just didnt seem like something I could stick with.
So in other words I wanted a diet, that
- wasnt a super duper Paleo / Veggie diet
- was sustainable
- would help me lose weight
- would be healthy
- and would be sustainable (Twice because its so important!)
Not much to ask right? I wasn’t optimistic, and then I recalled that I had recently watched a documentary that at the time seemed too good to be true, but it was from a television series that i had grown to love and respect over the years, it was a BBC Horizon documentary by Dr. Michael Mosley, called “Eat, fast and live longer”.
If you are still reading this you may be thinking about how to lose weight too, if so, make this your very first action point, after reading my blog, or better still go Google that right this very second, watch it, and come back here.
I have seen several of his documentaries, he is not some two bit shyster, he is a Doctor / Journalist who produces excellent programs on a wide variety of medical subjects, more information on him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Mosley and of course the BBC’s Horizon which has been running since the 1960’s is sheer class, the only criticism of it on Wikipedia is that it has been dumbed down recently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Horizon#Criticism
So when I saw this episode that promised that I could lose weight and still eat pizza, ice cream, chocolate and cheeseburgers I started to think that I should probably look into a bit more.
I went back and watched it again, and started Googling and the feedback I saw was good, really good.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one embarking on this path, this year the 5:2 diet as it has become known has been THE fad diet of 2013, and with good reason. It works.
You dont need to buy a book or special ingredients. Its dead easy to follow. This is ALL you need to know
“The diet specifies a low calorie consumption (sometimes described as “fasting“) for two days a week, which should not be consecutive, but allows normal eating for the other five days.[5][6] Men may eat 600 calories on fasting days, and women 500.[7] A typical fasting day may include a breakfast of 300 calories, such as two scrambled eggs with ham, water, green tea, or black coffee, and a lunch or dinner of grilled fish or meat with vegetables, amounting to 300 calories.[6] The daily 500 or 600 calorie limit requires small portions.” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5:2_diet
For me, my breakfast was (and indeed still is) oatmeal, prepared with water, and frozen fruit. I sometimes add a scoop of vanilla protein powder to it too. Then during the day I drink water / green tea / black coffee (all of course without any sweetener) and for dinner I have a tin of sardines in tomato sauce mixed with lemon grass, chillies, shallots, spring onions on a bed of lettuce. That’s it. I do this on Tuesdays and Thursdays
Seems meager right?
Well it is, and yes you get hungry, but you get to learn what being hungry is. Hunger doesn’t build and build, it comes in waves, just like that urge to smoke did when I gave up. But you can counter it by drinking water. one glass and it subsides, and you really don’t have to wait that long to the next meal. Keeping busy at works helps too.
People ask me if I over compensate the following day, and to be frank I thought I would. But after a good breakfast, perhaps throw a banana and two scoops of protein powder and some toast. I’m good, and then at lunch I eat a normal lunch and have a normal dinner.
But what is a “normal” balanced meal? To determine that I knew that the “normal’ diet consisted of approx 2000 calories a day, but what does that even mean? How many calories are there in a beer, or a plate of khao man gai? So to educate myself I started using a calorie counter / food logging app called http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ which seemed the most comprehensive with lots of Thai dishes, whereas others are very Western focused. This process made me more aware of what I eat when I wasn’t fasting which I am sure helped a lot too.
By March I had dropped from 103 to 97 kg without doing any exercise whatsoever. RESULT! But I still had a gut, and logging food was becoming a chore. So I decided to get more active, I still wasnt ready for actual, you know, exercise, so I bought a Fitbit and started monitoring my general levels of activity.
The WHO recommend that people should take about 10,000 steps a day. I thought I was active, walking around properties etc. but it turned out I was averaging 1,200 steps a day!
I was shocked, and started working to get more active. Taking the lift to two floors below and then the stairs to the office, walking to restaurants that are further away I was loving it, right up until I lost the Fitbit.. its so small, and it seems many people have this problem with them.
But none the less my discovery of the Fitbit had led me into the world of health monitoring which in turn lead me to my next and perhaps.. No. Scratch that, THE most important health monitoring gadget purchase that I made the; Withings Wifi scale:
What is it? Well in its simplest description is a set of bathroom scales that is connected to the internet where it logs your weight on a private website.
But it can also estimate the amount of body fat that you have (arguably a more important measure) by sending an electric signal through your body and measuring the resistance as it comes back to the sensor (fat & muscle do not conduct electricity at the same rate)
Now, there is some criticism of this method of body fat measurement but so long as you do it at the same time under the same conditions the record will be good enough, but really what you are most probably looking for is an overall trend down wards! Their latest ones even record air quality in your home!
I had heard talk that you shouldn’t measure yourself too frequently, so why on earth would I want a gadget that encourages that and costs 7000 Baht for a bathroom scale??
Well in fact for precisely that. For me the record of my activity has been a powerful motivational tool. Its taught me to understand how my behaviour affects my body. Now, of course I know academically in an almost abstract way what drinking a pint of beer means (200 calories or so, or approx 10% of a daily recommended amount of intake), but to see the effects of a big weekend right there in hard data and a line on a graph, spoke to me in a language that was undeniable, the bare naked truth.
I say go weigh yourself often. I did, because it taught me the most important lesson. To be responsible with food and drink consumption. I can not overstate this.
I’ve lectured enough, time to put it out there, here are my weight and body fat loss charts for 2013, but before I do see if you can spot the following:
- when I started the Zero to 5 K running plan with runkeeper in May (great app BTW)
- my summer holiday to the UK
Weight loss in KGs (the straightline from January because it allowed me to record my weight from a previous date. You’ll see that I have lost 15 kgs in 2013, and in November it was even more
Body fat mass in KG
Now the keen eyed amongst you will see that this year’s silly season has already taken it’s toll, but I haven’t been running or fasting, I have been enjoying my holiday season secure that I know now how to deal with that, and so this year in 2014 my resolution is not to lose weight because I know I will do that, but to get fit which is something else altogether.
I am doing 5 km runs now, but I hope to build on that substantially this year.. let’s see how I do!
(Ps I eventually found my Fitbit ultra, which had been washed and no longer worked. I got in touch with Fitbit to see if there was anything i could do to get it working, here’s what they said
Hello Marcus,We are happy to know that you were able to find your Ultra tracker, but first your Ultra tracker did not work and then gave it signs of life. But when you remove it from the base station no longer works.Since we’re no longer providing Fitbit Ultras as replacements, we can offer you our upgraded Ultra product, the Fitbit One.You can learn more about the Fitbit One here: http://www.fitbit.com/one. Please provide the following information so that we may process a complimentary replacement for you:- Your first and last name
– Your purchase receipt
– Your shipping address
– Your phone number
– Your preferred tracker color (Black or Burgundy)We are looking forward for your response in order to proceed accordingly.Sincerely,
Maria Ra and the Fitbit Team
I dont think I have ever experienced better customer service, so go get one. I dont get anything if you do other than the satisfaction that a good company is getting more business.
The next part will be on how I started running after decades of lethargy and hedonism and not much else!
I sincerely hope this post helps someone, if its helped you please let me know in the comments below.
Best of luck with your NY resolutions whatever they are
Bangkok Motor Show 2013
The Bangkok Motor Show this year was as good as ever, saw some great cars, bikes and the usual sights, it runs through until April 7th so there’s still some time to go and take a look for yourself.
But if you can’t make it here’s a few pics to tide you over
Fishing with kids
I am the father of a wonderful four year old boy, and this past Sunday a few friends , brought our little ones along to Pilot 111 for a half day fishing.
Fishing with kids has several challenges. Not the least of which is the fact that they have an attention spam approximately equal to your target species.
This means that its important to be sure that they are always doing something. This is why lure fishing is, in my opinion the very best way to get them started.
At first we removed all of the hooks from their lures, and set the kids a challenge with the reward being to attach real lures, with hooks and the possibility to catch a fish!!
The challenge sounded simple enough: ” Cast the dummy lure far out straight ahead, three times in a row”.
So for the first half of the morning we found a quiet pond at Pilot 111 and got to work to teaching the little one’s the finer art of casting. We chose the Asian redtail catfish pond, which also happens home to some rogue barramudi and striped snakeheads. The fact that it doesn’t have any overhead cables, very few obstacles and is rarely fished played a big part in that decision.
It was great fun to see confident kids boasting about their casting prowess (before they had ever actually tried) meet reality, and then watching as they went from over confident, to humbly dropping the lure behind their backs, and asking for or just accepting assistance.
After a few helping words, it was wonderful to see huge smiles from their sense of achievement as they made their first ever good cast, or even just managed to cast the lure into the water.
After a few hours most of the kids succeeded in their challenge and were rewarded with a nice shiny lure with real sharp and pointy hooks, which all were keen to explore. Thankfully none of them stabbed themselves, but more than a few shirts got hooked!
My little one took a little while longer to get the hang of casting, at just 4 he was the youngest of the group, who were at least 7 years old and up.
I equipped my boy with a rod rated for 5-10 lb line and a Shakespeare E-Z cast spincaster reel preloaded with 8lb line to which I attached a Texas-rigged Berkerley Powerbait plastic worm, of the stinkiest variety I could find, in this case one meant for salt water fishing.
I did this because it enabled him to be fishing even after he wandered away as he left his lure out, so he could still effectively be ‘dead-sticking’. Which is exactly what happened.
We got a bite, and moments later my boy was desperately trying to reel in a fish. But it soon became very apparent that he wasn’t going to manage to bring this one in on his own, it was as you might be able to appreciate from the pic below, simply far too strong for him.
After an electric fight that seemed to take forever, with several dashing runs, (and next to no drag on his reel!) the end result was an 8lb Asian redtail catfish.
Soon afterwards, now excited with “having caught a fish” my son’s attention returned and he set about casting again. Then one final time he cast his lure and as he reeled it back in, yet another 8lb redtail catfish took the bait and screamed off.
This time he had cast the lure, reeled it in and set the hook. I still had to land it as it too was making the same scintillating runs that made suspect it may have been the same fish. But for me and in my mind it was this second redtail that counted as his first, and will do so until the day that he can reel one in and land one himself.
I can honestly say that catching these redtails with my son, on this light tackle was just about the most fun I have ever had fishing.
At the end of the morning our group caught lots of fish (redtails, barramundi and a few giant snakeheads) and proved to the kids that fishing games on the iPad are not nearly as much fun as doing it for real, and we dads got to spend some real fun quality time with our kids. (Both boys and girls I hasten to add)
Fishing with kids is rewarding for all involved. The children learned new skills, which they applied to challenges that they met head on, and achieved their goals, and all whilst having great fun, outdoors.
Patience is certainly needed to teach them, and they need constant supervision at the water’s edge. But remember this is not your fishing trip, its theirs. But the time you get to spend with them and the joy you get from sharing in the pride they take from their achievements is worth every moment untangling lines, removing hooks from clothing, etc. (just about!)
2012 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 10 years to get that many views.
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