On my last trip to China, I got to say hello to something new, and perhaps goodbye to something old. As I was in the food court in Newark’s airport, I saw a new way of ordering and paying for your food. Instead of actually speaking with someone behind the counter, you use a monitor to make your selections. But the changes didn’t stop there.
Once you were handed your order, you were also provided a receipt with a bar code printed on it. Then you took your receipt to a different kiosk to pay for your order. Thankfully there were no lines, because I would have hated to slow people down as I learned the new system. Actually, the system worked well for me, and it was easy to use once you knew what to do.
As you can see from the picture above, you can select a language to help with the process. I am still trying to understand how you tell the electronic touch pad you want extra ketchup!
On the other side of the spectrum, I saw something that kind of made me sad. When I graduated from college and started traveling for work, the shoe shine stands were always busy. Over the years I have seen a decrease in their popularity, so hopefully this isn’t a dying industry. Sometimes your shoes really do need a good shine during your travels!