Tea & Horse Caravan Trail, Pt 3: On the road to Lijiang
Overnight rain has left Shaxi looking drenched and there’s mist in the mountains. It’s early morning but the students are already out, taking their painting classes. In one corner, a teacher marks their work.I watch as she comments on each piece and someone keeps tabs of the scores. The students [...]
Tea & Horse Caravan Trail, Pt 2: History, art and pasta collide in Shaxi
I wake up to the pattering of rain on my bedroom window. I rise from my bed of roses (the most colourful bedsheets I’ve ever slept on) to face Day 3 of my Tea and Horse Caravan Trail.We decide to have breakfast at Bakery 88 (breakfast at Landscape leaves much to be desired) and there, we meet anot [...]
Tea & Horse Caravan Trail, Pt 1: Kicking off in Dali
I’ve just returned from an amazing trip which took me on part of the ancient Tea and Horse Caravan Trail where merchants of old brought tea and horses on mules from southern Yunnan across the border to Tibet and India.In those days, it took them years to reach their destination. These days, where [...]
Thoughts from the adobe huts of Shaxi to Journeys with MAS
It is somewhat surreal that I should be spending the night in an adobe inn in the historic town of Shaxi, Yunnan, when just five days ago I was at the global Adobe Digital Marketing Symposium learning about how much marketing has changed.At the event in Singapore, there was a lot of talk about how t [...]
#wit2013: Connecting the dots with The Asia Factor
For the most part of this year – OMG, is it already mid-July – I’ve been travelling places and speaking about Asia, how the region’s changing, how travel’s moving and, most crucially, how we as folks in Asia are evolving as citizens, consumers and travellers.It started with the AIME even [...]
Old world and very new one collide on Yunnan’s tea and horse trail
Today is the first day of my tea and horse trail adventure in Yunnan. Over the next seven days, I will cover by four wheel drive the same trail that ancient tea and horse traders traversed on their way from Dali through Lijiang and up to Zhongdian (Shangri-La), on the Tibetan-China border.It’s a t [...]
Postcard from Taiwan: Taipei 101 flashmob captures the Heart of Asia
I’m Taiwanese and proud of it; for anyone who knows me, it’s no secret that I love Taiwan. That’s why when this flash mob video hit YouTube a week ago, featuring classic songs that stir all Taiwanese people, my pride for the country swelled to the heights of the Taipei 101. I’m pleased to [...]
The changing nature of work and the critical role of mentors
I feel like I’ve won the jackpot. This week, I was told I was randomly picked out of 13,000 people in Singapore to be interviewed for a new survey the government is doing on job skills.So feeling lucky – actually I felt sorry for the student who showed up at my door, he had this air of being use [...]
#witroadshow: Lessons from Froggy and proof of leapfrogging
For some reason, I’ve got frogs on my mind. Perhaps it’s the fact that my favourite character in Phare, The Cambodian Circus I caught on Saturday night in Siem Reap was named “Froggy”.(What a fantastic show by the way, make sure you catch it next time you’re in Angkor Wat. That's me with [...]
From Adelaide to the road: The Asian travel story continued
And so begins our road trip for the WIT Hospitality Workshop, powered by INFOR EasyRMS … in the next five days, we will be covering Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Kuala Lumpur and Siem Reap.See, an itinerary like this would not have been possible up to three or even two years ago but low cost airlin [...]
