Advertisement
Published: July 22nd 2014
Hey Everyone,
Well it has been a few busy days here. Not really adventurous in the sense of exploring, but I am certainly learning a lot about what it means to be patient. The airplane arrived safely to Hong Kong Business Aviation Center (HKBAC) on Saturday at 7:30pm and I was only able to look at it through the window. Apparently one week wasn’t quite long enough to get my temporary badge that allowed me access to the ramp area. I was still able to meet the passengers and they are extremely friendly, very nice people. We spent a few minutes talking while the a/c was unloaded and their belongings were loaded into their cars. The crew finished up cleaning the a/c and we all headed to the hotel. That night we were supposed to reposition the a/c to our hangar at China Aircraft Services Ltd (CASL), but since I was unable to get my access badge, we had nobody to ride the brakes for the a/c. Riding the brakes means that I sit in the cockpit with the APU running and hydraulic pump on to stop the airplane should anything happen during the towing process. I was told I
would have my badge the next day at 10 and that we could reposition the aircraft across the field at 10:30.
After a few hours of restless sleep I headed back to the airport, spent an hour getting my badges, and we moved the airplane to its new home at CASL. Upon arrival to CASL (20 minutes later) I gave up my badges that I had worked so hard on as they were only good for the action of towing the plane from BAC to CASL. I then got another badge that was good for CASL. I will have to repeat this process each time we move the a/c from one location to the other which will be every flight. After we got the a/c in the hangar the Bombardier Field Service Rep and I spent the rest of the day with the airplane going over this and that. It is such a cool airplane, so automated, so many cool toys in the cabin, so many things to break!
Sunday started out at CASL with the airplane for a few hours and then about 2pm I met the captain (Russ) and he and I headed into HK to
Lan Kwai Fong for the beer and music festival. We took the train to Central station and took the "mid levels" (elevated walk ways)to LKF. Hong Kong is so crowded that there are sidewalks for local foot traffic and then the "mid levels" for people with longer commutes that don't need to shop. This makes it a quicker commute by foot and also makes the streets less crowded. This was a pretty fun time because it was Sunday and the mid levels were full of the Filipina maids who had the day off. Maids in Hong Kong have a mandated day off which is Sunday, but they typically have no where to go, so they gather in certain neighborhoods of HK. The Central area attracts the Filipina maids, the video is spotty, but I was trying to conceal it a bit to not be rude. This is but a very small sampling of the population of thousands of girls sitting with their friends on their one day a week off.
Back to beer fest. We did watch some bands and took the video attached to this post as they were seriously the most unenthusiastic band I have ever seen.
I had a few great beers down “Micro-brew street” that are from local HK breweries. I had some delicious slider sized tacos and watched people for a while. A totally stereotypical old Chinese man with long hair, a horrible smell, and very few teeth came up to me while taking the picture of me and the big inflatable beer glass. Of course I had no idea what he was saying, so I just smiled. He made the universal sign for picture and I sort of smiled and nodded. He then made the gesture again as Russ was taking the picture so I again nodded and smiled. He then ripped the inflatable out of my hand and ran off with it hunched over like Quasimodo. I’m not sure how many of these things they started off with, but now there was only one, and I think I gave the other one away. It should be noted that at this festival, nobody spoke or even tried to speak Chinese. We may as well have been in any large city in the US. Russ and I went to dinner and ordered what we thought was going to be a good Chinese noodle dinner.
What we got was a good Chinese noodle dinner, but not at all what we thought we were ordering. I still don’t know what it was, but it was good. We ate at a recommended “authentic” noodle place off the beaten path. It was very good, but no pictures on the menu and nothing in English.
Monday was spent with the airplane and I really didn’t do much but sweat. It was 112F with the heat index and it sucks. I mean really, it just sucks. The air conditioning in every building is soo cold that you feel like you need to put your clothes back on, then you walk into a clear broth of humid heavy air and take them off again. Nobody seems to care that I walk around naked all day.
Today started off at CASL to fill out some paperwork to try to get a long term badge so I don’t have to continuously apply for temporary badges. I am looking forward to eliminating the step of waiting outside for 10 minutes while security looks over my passport and fills out the temporary badge paperwork. I then went to the Bombardier Customer Support Office
where I have set up a temporary office. I needed to head into Kowloon to give the owner’s wife her glasses back and then I was off to have the tailor do my initial fitting. I must say, it’s pretty cool going in to an enormous sky scraper in HK that is named after the person you are going to see. Think Trump tower in NYC and going to see Trump. A quick exchange returned the glasses to their rightful owner and then it was off to Tsim Sha Tsui to get my initial fitting with the tailor. Russ and I got there right on time, but the tailor was running an hour late. We headed to a Dim Sum restaurant and got Chicken Feet (won’t do that again), shrimp, and Chinese sausage roll. See the pics. Let me take this time to tell you that I have tried to really take advantage of this opportunity and eat local food as much as possible. When eating at local eateries, it is nearly impossible to spend more than $100HKD for a meal that leaves you feeling like you just ate Godzira. The exchange rate makes that about $12 USD and normally
you don’t spend more that 50-75 for a meal. Our dim sum lunch was $124HKD or about $15USD for the two of us which included two milk teas. Oh! Milk tea, I will miss it for the rest of my life. It is a tea that is made by each eatery; they use their own blend of tea leaves which means that it is vastly different from one place to another. Even chain restaurants let the franchisee make their own milk tea so it is really different every place you go. Once they get their tea mixture ready, they add a milk mixture that is a combination of milk and condensed milk and again it is up to the maker to decide the ratio. You can have it hot or cold and as you may have guessed I prefer it cold as cold can be. I haven’t tried one that I haven’t liked, and I haven’t ever tried anything like it. Back to the tailor, I tried one of three shirts and the suit for my brother’s wedding. See the photos. You really gotta be cool with perfect strangers gettin all up in your business as they do take EVERY
measurement. They took the measurements, marked the changes, and then we were off, only problem……..scariest, loudest thunder storm ever! It was sunny, and then it wasn’t. In the city, you can’t see what’s coming as you are surrounded by huge buildings that don’t allow for big views. The storm was directly above us as was evident by the simultaneous thunder/lightning combination. The sounds sent people on the street running for shelter for their ears; it really was a deafening sound. The tailor offered to let us stay in his shop while it passed, but there was no way I was missing this experience. I went and stood under a small awning and just watched and plugged my ears. Pretty cool! Finally Russ and I needed to leave so we darted across the street to a mall which eventually leads to the MRT station. In the amount of time it took to run across a small two lane street we got completely drenched!
So that catches everyone up. I will try to make the posts more often so they aren’t so long, I love seeing all of your comments so please keep them coming. I got data on
my phone turned off today as I burned through all of my data in the first week letting Google maps help me explore! Oops! I am planning on heading to “Ladies Market” sometime soon so if anyone wants a legit fake Rolex watch, Oakley glasses, Raybans, Louis Vuitton Bags, etc let me know. They won’t be real, but nobody will ever know but you! Keep in mind they are illegal in the states so I am putting my life on the line for you. Thankfully I am posting this on a super private site so nobody can ever bust me!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.082s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 60; dbt: 0.056s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Vicki
non-member comment
Too cool
Man - you are making me hungry!!