And on the same day I came upon the announcement that Indian Railways was trying to revive a switch from plastic cups to the traditional kulhads (clay cups) in trains and train stations. Which is presumably another still-born attempt at greenwashing, given the logistical challenges of procuring clay to village potters, producing millions of kulhads every day, delivering and storing unstandardised cups, and figuring out how to recycle them. Not mentioning that firing and carrying these cups also has an ecological impact. Better start a campaign of bring-your-own-cup (which I tried to impose for a few conferences, mostly unsuccessfully!)
As “usual”, visiting Japan is a culture choc (in a most positive sense!), and this time as my first visit to Tokyo was no exception. Despite a rather heavy travel schedule to the Japanese (pre)-Alps, and five different housings!, everything took place as planed, albeit sometimes stressful. (To the point I fainted in a ramen restaurant the first day, presumably due to a combination of no sleep and no food for the past 24h. The ramen were fabulous, by the way!) One striking feature, related to the above, is the overall efficiency in daily life organisation, reflected a myriad of little details, as discovered in rental places. (With the correlated drawback of an abuse of plastic layers (bags-within-bags) and very limited recycling (despite the mottainai culture).)
Unsurprisingly, I had fantastic food throughout, mostly in backstreet tiny places with a few seats and a limited menu for much less than a duh meal in Paris (as last Saturday near Luxembourg!), e.g., fresh soba noodles in Takayama! (an almost empty place spotted by the 
We also (re)experienced the efficiency of transportation, from the fabulous Tokyo metro network to the Shinkansen, whose far-from-new interior reminded me that they were introduced twenty years before the French TGVs (but updated to get USB connections on every seat), with the Snowpiercer feeling of rushing at high speed between row of high-rises (and managing to catch it literally at the last minute in Nagoya, due to a late (!!) connection from the mountain line from Takayama. And enjoying the limitless offer of meal boxes at Tokyo Central.
Here are some new teas I sampled this summer, when visiting a few tea shops here (Paris) and there (Montréal):
