Business as usual

You leave the imposing Petronas Towers after your last meeting of the day at 11 pm.

You get in car headed to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and your driver is almost falling asleep. You wake him up - or so it seems - twice.

You check-in, go to the lounge and then to the gate.

You try to sleep but they won't give you the immigration papers so you can take care of that and effectively relax and go asleep.

You again try to sleep - after the papers are finally handed-in and filled-in - but the apparently newlyweds in front of you order food after more food and whisper. The hostesses do the same.

You finally fall asleep and the air hostess wakes you up not once, but twice. You explain politely that you have a "do not disturb" sticker on your chair. She does not apologize.

You arrive at Shanghai Pu Dong airport and wait in line for 30 very painful minutes before you go through immigration and hear that the luggage delivery for your flight has been delayed. You smile, because you only have hand-luggage.

You are driven through intense traffic into your hotel.

You check-in and get upgraded to a suite. You show no signs of emotion.

You have a shower, get dressed and give your dirty laundry for cleaning.

You get driven to the office and a new day of back-to-back meetings starts.

You look down for a second or maybe two. You are not sure if you are tired, fed-up or both. Then you whisper to yourself: "business as usal" and you get on with it.