I became a fan of green tea 13 years ago when I first traveled to Japan. Over the years I’ve mainly indulged in the regular hot version of the good stuff. Well that all changed as I toured Korea, China and Japan for 16 days with my grad school cohort. Ice cream, frappucino, cold tea, Kit Kat. Yep – you read that correctly. There are green tea flavored Kit Kats and they are beyond delicious. And Starbucks in Asia has green tea frappucino. America needs to step up their game on the green tea items. I’m pretty sure all the green tea I was consuming on a daily basis contributed to weight loss I also enjoyed on the trip. Either that or the 96 miles we walked in five cities in three countries.
The other thing that America needs to step up their game on is transportation – particularly trains. We had the opportunity to ride two bullet trains (one from Beijing to Shanghai and one from Nagoya to Tokyo) and it was pretty sweet. Traveling at speeds up to 320 km/h (200 mph), the train was smooth, spacious and an affordable option to flying. We all were discussing how much better business travel would be between KY and DC, Chicago, Detroit, NYC and more if we had bullet trains.
Have you heard of WeChat? We hadn’t either until China, but it’s all the rage there, and now many of us are signed up and connected with those we met on the trip. WeChat is China’s version of WhatsApp and has one of the largest user bases among the ever-growing number of chat apps. Currently 549 million people use WeChat and only 100 million of them are outside of China. If you have friends or business connections internationally then WeChat and WhatsApp need to be part of your social media collection. Both are now in my rotation!
alicrain 