Thursday, June 01, 2006
June 1: Au revoir Hong Kong
I'm sitting here at the Hong Kong Airport, killing time. One of the neat places in Hong Kong is a chain of coffee shops called The Pacific Coffee Company. Aside from expensive coffee ($2.80 or so for a cup of plain coffee - London prices for sure) they have computers at every outlet and if you buy a drink you can use them. They have an outlet at the airport, computers & all. The point is that I can waste more time in front of a computer.
On the topic of Hong Kong is Bigger than Life, I got to see the Hong Kong harbour today. The new Hong Kong airport (opened in '97 or '98 I believe) is bloody remote, and the most sensible way to get to it is by the airport bus, which is slower than the airport train but also much more scenic. Anyway, this bus goes by the container terminals of the Hong Kong harbour. The scale of this place defies description. There are containers and container ships literally as far as the eye can see. Thousands of them. Billions of dollars worth of cargo. How they manage to get this stuff sorted out is beyond me. I wonder how many illegal Chinese migrants hide in the containers planning to make a long journey to greener pastures...
Also, Mike "Tortellini" Tersigni pointed out that apparently part of Hong Kong's airport is built on man-made land. Hong Kong has a large land reclamation program in place. They literally extend islands by dumping clean fill into the sea, packing it down, etc. For example, the tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Finance Centre (building #2 of that to be precise) is built on reclaimed land. I think the fact that part of this (very large, very beautiful) airport is built on a man-made island is pretty cool. The only other case I'm aware of where something like this was done is in Osaka, where the Kanzai airport is built on a 100% man-made island - not simply an extension to an existing island. It's a marvel of engineering.
Something like that is also done on a small scale in Toronto, at the Leslie Street Spit, except the Spit is not used as space for an airport.
Not much else to say, really. My flight is in two hours. I'll be meeting Joel at Delhi's airport, and he'll take me to our hotel. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find ways to escape from Delhi's oppressive heat. At this time next week, I will be in the mountains!
On the topic of Hong Kong is Bigger than Life, I got to see the Hong Kong harbour today. The new Hong Kong airport (opened in '97 or '98 I believe) is bloody remote, and the most sensible way to get to it is by the airport bus, which is slower than the airport train but also much more scenic. Anyway, this bus goes by the container terminals of the Hong Kong harbour. The scale of this place defies description. There are containers and container ships literally as far as the eye can see. Thousands of them. Billions of dollars worth of cargo. How they manage to get this stuff sorted out is beyond me. I wonder how many illegal Chinese migrants hide in the containers planning to make a long journey to greener pastures...
Also, Mike "Tortellini" Tersigni pointed out that apparently part of Hong Kong's airport is built on man-made land. Hong Kong has a large land reclamation program in place. They literally extend islands by dumping clean fill into the sea, packing it down, etc. For example, the tallest building in Hong Kong, the International Finance Centre (building #2 of that to be precise) is built on reclaimed land. I think the fact that part of this (very large, very beautiful) airport is built on a man-made island is pretty cool. The only other case I'm aware of where something like this was done is in Osaka, where the Kanzai airport is built on a 100% man-made island - not simply an extension to an existing island. It's a marvel of engineering.
Something like that is also done on a small scale in Toronto, at the Leslie Street Spit, except the Spit is not used as space for an airport.
Not much else to say, really. My flight is in two hours. I'll be meeting Joel at Delhi's airport, and he'll take me to our hotel. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find ways to escape from Delhi's oppressive heat. At this time next week, I will be in the mountains!
# posted by Alex Perel @ 4:04 AM 
