Chengdu

Well the bosses are back in town for me.  Hence I'm running around like crazy, probably not good for the race in a week to work hard, stress, not sleep and drink more alcohol than normal but it is what it is.

Late this past week we visited a furniture factory that is the largest in China that only supports the domestic China market.  I've been to a number of enormous factories but this puts them all to shame.  They support about 3,000 retail stores in China.  In fact this week the CEO of Ashley Furniture in the US (world's largest furniture retailer) visited them to try and partner.  However this factory wanted nothing to do with them as he didn't see that it would help him at all and they would end up competing anyway.

Below is a picture of their compound.  I can't even describe how big it is other than to say they have this urban planning scale model of the facilities and it was probably 15 feet by 15 feet in and of itself!

The only bad thing about the factory visit is that Chengdu is famous for two things:  spicy Sichuan food and panda's.  We got to eat some great Sichaun food but didn't have time to head to the mountains and see the panda's.  I guess a return trip is in order to see the panda's...and eat more of the food!