Willem's Planet

Seattle is ‘cold’ and wet but I am very happy to be home.   The Chengdu billboard is from inside Hong Kong airport (if ‘real China’ is meant to say Hong Kong is not ‘really China’, well then, I guess Hong Kong can counter with ‘you got that right!’).  The puppets are from a display at Seoul airport.  In ancient times Korean parents would hang a straw rope called geum-jul across the main gate of the house for 21 days to indicate the arrival of a newborn and to ward off evil spirits (the parents look very happy!).    The phoenix is the latest Hermès scarf on display in their store, the bibimbap was dinner on the way to Seattle (this is before I threw in the white rice, red pepper paste and sesame oil and stir it all together – and before I knocked over a small glass of water on my seat neighbor’s leg.  I apologized profusely and jumped up and got some napkins to mop up the water.   Yes, I’m a clumsy idiot but at least it was not red wine or coffee!).   And finally, the Airbus A-330 from Korean Air that brought us across the Pacific, at the gate at Seattle airport.

.. for my flight out to Seattle on Wednesday morning.  We went across the border at the Shenzhen Bay (Shekou) border crossing again, and it was nice to have a very short line of cars in front of us to deal with.    The suspension bridge picture is on the way to Lantau island where the Marriott Skycity hotel is, right by the airport.

Yes, yes, I am in the Marriott Courtyard hotel as I have done many weekends before.   Too much money and stress to travel elsewhere for the weekend after a long, hard slog at work.  The dragon pillow is from Ikea (I now regret that I didn’t buy it), and the Lego characters and stainless steel tube chess set from Sogo department store in Causeway Bay.   Times Square is close by and always has an artsy outdoor display going at the mall entrance.  This time they had white trees  that reminded me of African boababs, with doll houses and giant lollipops below.   I think the gigantic high-res LED sign at the Emperor Watch and Jewelry store right there, is new.   As for the billboard of the wild-haired – nerds? -throwing the TVs and PCs around : my sentiments exactly!  ( at least sometimes).

The night-time pictures are all from around Central Station on Hong Kong island.    The ‘usual suspects’ Bank of China, Hang Seng Bank Corporation and Standard Chartered Bank are showing themselves off in gaudy night colors.   (Yes, there is a Occupy Hong Kong movement.   But unlike in Europe or the USA, unemployment has been falling in Hong Kong, a minimum wage was introduced in May and there seems to be little fall-out left of the 2008 banking crisis).  Can the billboard’s school kids with their red bow-ties be any cuter?  The building with the LED paneled strips going up is the AIA Insurance building.   And the building with the Season’s Greetings lights is yet another bank building.

Check out my little terracotta warrior replica, a gift from a colleague that visited Xi’an last weekend.    The real terracotta warriors date from the 3rd century BC and were discovered only in 1974 (!) by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi’an, Shaanxi province.   It is an UNESCO World Heritage site.   Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses (the majority of which are still buried in the pits).    I got the second picture from Wikipedia’s entry .. check out the rest of the entry at  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army.

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I hitched a ride into Hong Kong with a colleague that was taken to the airport.  The drivers that take us there have vehicles with plates for mainland China as well as for Hong Kong.  So we could stay put and not have to deal with the throngs of daytrippers.   Even so there was such a long wait for vehicles at the first crossing that the driver gave up and went to the Shekou crossing all the way over on the west side of Shenzhen.   We caught a glimpse of the 2011 Universiade Student Olympics stadium.  The Google map doesn’t show it but there is a suspension bridge to Lantau Island where the airport is, that gets one across the water.   From the airport I took the train to the city.   The promenade at the Hong Kong Art Museum is one of my favorite places in the city.     The guy in the boat is about to scoop up some floating debris in Victoria harbor.  Nearby at the Harbor City mall a crowd were snapping pictures of Pixar and Disney characters on a Happy Holiday display.   And up the street at the 1881 Heritage Plaza some recent graduates used the display of horses and carriages as a backdrop.  Check out the smart duck, the rose and the chipmink they are posing with.  I guess those are gifts they got from family or friends for graduating.  

It is Tuesday here in China but here are pictures from my connection in Seoul.    We arrived early so I had time to admire a model Korean junk boat and Hermès scarf in the shop windows.  (For Korea the symbolism of the crane goes back to ‘crane dances’ in the courtyards of early dynasties).   Then I headed over to Gate 10 where the A380 ‘superjumbo’ was getting pulled up to the gate.    I used that upper deck jet bridge to find my seat upstairs.    The plane feels more like an airship than an airplane.   As we started to lift off, it felt as if the ground speed was still way too slow (or maybe I was tired and dreamy).     Has the A380 made some inroads into the large jet airliner segment of the market once dominated by Boeing?  It certainly has – looking at the number of airplanes ordered and delivered* by EADS.   Both EADS and Boeing claimed victory after several rulings by the World Trade Organization in recent years in the world’s largest trade dispute.

*As of February 2011 there were 244 orders for the A380-800. The break-even for the A380 was initially supposed to be reached at 270 units, but due to the delays and the falling exchange rate of the US dollar, it increased to 420 units.  In 2010, EADS CFO Hans Peter Ring said that break-even (on the aircraft that are delivered) could be achieved by 2015, despite the delays; there should be around 200 deliveries by that time, on current projections.    As of March 2010 the average list price of an A380 was US$ 375.3 million (about €261 million or £229 million), depending on equipment installed.

I made it through the gauntlet of security hurdles at Seattle-Tacoma airport.   Out of the backpack and into the tray goes the PC, the iPad, the liquids, the cell phone, the jacket, the shoes .. still not good enough; off with the belt as well that the full-body scanner could clear me.   I hate that scanner!  but at least the TSA personnel put in an effort to be nice and not bark orders at the passengers.   It’s the first time I will fly in one of the turquoise airplanes of Korean Air.  It’s 10 hrs in an Airbus 330-200 to Incheon airport in Seoul, and then 4 hrs in the double-decker wide-body A380 (the world’s largest passenger airplane) to Hong Kong.