Arrived back in Beijing yesterday. Was a cool trip back. Went through Germany, and had a lot of quite airplane time. I’m finding I’m quite enjoying the airplane time lately (in right conditions) as its quite a little ‘oasis’ of detachment.
So, couple highlights – I saw a beautiful car in the First Class terminal in Frankfurt. A limited edition, Benz – price EUR 890,000. Only 75 made. Insanely beautiful. Got me excited about cars again. 
Then, I had an unexpected treat of flying in the Airbus 380-80 – this is the new double decker. Absolutely stunning and I was like a little kid, running around the airplane checking it out. In first class, they put 8 tons! (tons!) of insulation so that it would be more quite. If you think about how much that costs in fuel to carry its unreal. But what an airplane. On Singapore Airlines the same plane, has personal suites – on this airplane they opted not to do that, since apparently some people felt a bit claustrophobic in the suites. Needless to say, this airplane is huge, and the thing they do with the space is just crazy. Whole different experience. Even the toilet is tremendous. 
But, enough of the travel, car and airplane envy. Back at work, I spend the day re-organizing my email system. I’m preparing to have my PA manage my emails – so I wanted to split things up so that some things can remain confidential and other parts of my inbox can be delegated.
On the 380 I worked on the RedStores pitch and trimmed and optimized it to be more tight. Its off to Indians via Elance for final touches. I just need to plug in forecasts now.
In tangible terms, lots of good work done on software development and site development. Pearls are running well also, although we can see the mood of America – as the US based sales are down. Not surprising – my quick jaunt via US was quite down – the US mood is just down. Europe on the other hand is not. So, nice that we have diversified across the world to better help balance all these things out.
So, still fighting jet lag today – so besides basic admin stuff, haven’t done any ‘thinking’ work – and leaving that to tomorrow.