Posts by Chris Waugh
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Nora, yes, airborne poppies.
Allan, they were still working on the Cenotaph on the 24, but it was all ready in time. Good turn out on the day, both at the Dawn Parade and the Civic Service. Also, the new Maori Battalion exhibition at the museum is worth a look.
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Not a home town, but significant, and I finally got back after nearly 20 years, Gisborne this Anzac Day.
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Gisborne cenotaph just before the dawn parade. My grandma took great care to explain that though she hates war, she always took my dad and his siblings to the Anzac services to teach them what it's all about - it's a terrible waste of good lives, and that's why we should remember.
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Some more…
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What happened to Chris W in Gisborne? Beautiful autumn colours up his way.
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Speaker: Hong Kong and The Matrix, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I took the train from the airport once, my first time, all the way into Central. Now I just take the bus from the airport. The train is cool, but the bus is way cheaper.
Yes to the ferries. They are much cheaper and much more pleasant transport between Tsimshatsui and Central or Wan Chai. But all the other ferries, too, from Central out to the outer islands, including Lantau. The older ferries with open decks are just much nicer ways to get around.
Also, the trams along Hong Kong Island. Rode them for the first time in February, and we had the good fortune to bump into an old guy who showed us how the system works - jump on the back door, get off at the front and drop your fare in the box as you go, simple flat fare, just make sure you have the right change. Again, a very pleasant way to travel around.
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I was in Hong Kong for a few days at the tail end of CNY, i.e. the last few days of February this year. The Bank of China building, I'm pretty sure, was in Central and not Kowloon, where it always has been.... But I put the poor visibility down to the damp, overcast weather. It cleared up by lunchtime on the day we spent at Disney, and I wound up having to buy a hat to cope with the sun, but otherwise it was just overcast and damp. I'm sure air pollution did contribute to the poor visibility, and I'm even more sure that my perspective is a little skewed by all those years in Beijing, but the air was actually pretty clear and those clouds really were mostly just clouds.
Cleaner fuels for transport and electricity generation would certainly help, as would limiting density so that wind can swirl around buildings and ventilate the streets, but all those ships and aircraft need pretty heavy fuels and simply packing people in so tightly is going to make for a dirty public space - air, water and ground - no matter what you do, I think. But I do love how Hong Kong has used its space so well so that it has a super-dense city but with plenty of small pockets of open space for sports, leisure, recreation - Kowloon Park is awesome, but there are many other, smaller spaces, too - and the city is surrounded by vast tracts of rural land and bush - Lantau Island! I love that island!
But Hong Kong as some kind of Matrix-like post-apocalyptic wasteland? No, sorry. I think somebody needs to calm down and take a deep breath - relax, it's Hong Kong, not Beijing.
Multicultural Hong Kong? I dunno. I like Hong Kong a lot, but I do find it to be a very highly stratified society, with the strata based as much on skin colour lines as class lines. Then again, there's Karen Mok and Bruce Lee and plenty more ordinary day-to-day mixing and matching.
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Landing.
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Lost to the winds of Wellington and the waters of Days Bay... my Hong Kong Disney hat. Oh well.
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Out at West Wind
