As I begin this Post .. Patti is in-the-air heading from Hong Kong to Seattle Washington. When Patti lands in Seattle she will change planes and head 'North To Alaska' to settle in and readjust to normal living!
So here we go with photos of Patti leaving Hong Kong.
First .. one last-long-look at her dorm room in the YMCA.
Patti's bed was the lower bed (The 'D' bed in the dorm) beside the window. The natural light was excellent for Patti to sit beside and read her books.
One last-long-look down the corridor of the 9th floor.
Now a last-long-look by Patti at the view looking out over Victoria Harbor towards Hong Kong as viewed from the 9th Floor of the YMCA beside the Pay Phone.
Turn to your left and you have the below view of the harbor and Hong Kong's skyline.
I can't possibly estimate the number of phone calls that I have made from the above pay phone all-the-while enjoying the above and the below views during my visits to the Salisbury Road YMCA in Kowloon !
Time to rock and Time to roll! We walked out-of-the YMCA at 7:25AM for a 12 noon flight.
It took an-hour-to-the-minute to debark from the train at the Hong Kong Airport. We were at the Delta Airlines Check In Counter at 8:45AM fifteen minutes before the counter opened at 9AM. So Patti was the traditional US Marine .. "Firstest With The Mostest!".. first in line!
Leaving the YMCA we only walked perhaps 200-feet to board the Airport Express Bus that took us to the Kowloon Station Airport Check In Office. The bus runs on 20-minute intervals.
The fare for a round-trip ticket is approximately $21 U.S. Dollars (160 HKG Dollars). As I just wrote above .. from leaving the YMCA to exiting the train at the airport was right at one hour.
Is Patti happy to be going-home or is Patti JUST HAPPY to have lived the dream!
IF I live to be 'A Hundred' I will never be able to fully describe to you the state-of-the-art modernization of Hong Kong.
A view or two from the bus.
TOO FUNNY .. the below photo shows a sign on the side of another bus!
Do I like POPCORN ? Is water wet ? Is the sky blue ?
I am barely into this trip and already I am missing my POPCORN as in BADLY !
We are now at the Kowloon Station.
I have a theory about the Super Race. The Asian Child MUST use a lot more of its brain to master the incredible mandarin written language than do we in the West to master our simplistic alphabet.
Just look at the character on the right above! I mean come on! I read that there are literally thousands of these characters to be memorized. We have twenty six simple very basic characters in our alphabet. Can any of our twenty six simple letters compare to just the one mandarin character on the right above?
So you don't believe me! You! Yes YOU the skeptic! YOU start mastering the few mandarin characters below NOW!
Human beings in Asia were doing immensely complex things such as developing their language and creating ceramic porcelain works-of-art well before the Eastern Ostergoths and Western Visagoths crossed the frozen Rhine River to begin our Western Civilization!
Where exactly was I when I got diverted here?
Got it .. Patti and I were going to the Hong Kong Airport!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It is check in time at the Kowloon Station.
Patti is checking in with Delta Airlines.
Do you see Patti's bag on the right side of the above photo? Her one bag weighed 15.5 kg or 34 lbs.
Captain! This IS after all a program of honesty! Half of the weight of 34 lbs was my over packing that I decided to ship back to the States with Patti.
And Captain! The bag is my bag that I took with us so I shipped my totally unnecessary extra bag back home with Patti!
As you can see in the below photo .. Several airlines time-share counters.
I know My Dear One .. what on earth is he doing?
Oh come on lad! This is NOT rocket science!
Happiness is different things at different times in our lives. When it comes to long-haul International Airline Flights .. Happiness IS being four hours early!
Finally! Boarding Pass in-hand .. the bag checked .. time to catch the train to Hong Kong's phenomenal airport!
Is Patti thinking about far away places with strange sounding names?
Far away places with strange sounding names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange sounding names are
Calling
Calling me
Goin' to China or maybe Siam
I wanna see for myself
Those far away places I've been reading about in a
Book that I took from a shelf
I start getting' restless whenever I hear the whistle of a train
I pray for the day I can get underway
And look for those castles in Spain
They call me a dreamer
Well maybe I am
But I know that I'm burning to see those
Far away places with the strange sounding names
Calling, calling me
Me
Isn't copy and paste simply awesome!
We are on-the-platform and the train IS DUE in 4 minutes!
Just like that! We are ON the train!
At the top of the above photo you see the electronic display showing all riders the progress in going to the airport.
Below is a closer view of this display.
One passenger (below left) seems to be concentrating on this display.
Tsing Yi Station .. we are moving right along.
Bingo! We are at the Hong Kong Airport!
More mandarin characters for you to master!
You can't tell the players without a scorecard can you?
You look for the Delta Airlines symbol and the DL designation on the right below.
YES! I KNOW! I am beating this drum to death! BUT I simply remain absolutely and positively amazed by the mandarin characters!
Daily .. Hourly .. Minute-by-Minute .. I am SURROUNDED by mandarin characters.
Take some time to study them! Some are SO complex!
There is Delta Airline's counter Patti!
Step up My Dear One .. you were first-in-line!
Sorry these photo are blurry. I was .. I MEAN .. I was hopping around like a cat on a hot tin roof to capture Patti's moments! You MUST slowly squeeze the camera button NOT jerk it.
I am at a total loss to explain Patti's expression or to caption the above photo."
I decided to try!
"Oh My Gosh Cap! After months of planning and so looking forward to this amazing trip .. it is OVER AND DONE WITH!"
Thank You My Dear One For Hanging In With Me!
Then Patti was gone! Snap-Your-Finger quick!
Love .. Cap
Got It! I Will Leave You With This Patti!
So much better!
So here we go with photos of Patti leaving Hong Kong.
First .. one last-long-look at her dorm room in the YMCA.
Patti's bed was the lower bed (The 'D' bed in the dorm) beside the window. The natural light was excellent for Patti to sit beside and read her books.
One last-long-look down the corridor of the 9th floor.
Now a last-long-look by Patti at the view looking out over Victoria Harbor towards Hong Kong as viewed from the 9th Floor of the YMCA beside the Pay Phone.
Turn to your left and you have the below view of the harbor and Hong Kong's skyline.
I can't possibly estimate the number of phone calls that I have made from the above pay phone all-the-while enjoying the above and the below views during my visits to the Salisbury Road YMCA in Kowloon !
Time to rock and Time to roll! We walked out-of-the YMCA at 7:25AM for a 12 noon flight.
It took an-hour-to-the-minute to debark from the train at the Hong Kong Airport. We were at the Delta Airlines Check In Counter at 8:45AM fifteen minutes before the counter opened at 9AM. So Patti was the traditional US Marine .. "Firstest With The Mostest!".. first in line!
Leaving the YMCA we only walked perhaps 200-feet to board the Airport Express Bus that took us to the Kowloon Station Airport Check In Office. The bus runs on 20-minute intervals.
The fare for a round-trip ticket is approximately $21 U.S. Dollars (160 HKG Dollars). As I just wrote above .. from leaving the YMCA to exiting the train at the airport was right at one hour.
Is Patti happy to be going-home or is Patti JUST HAPPY to have lived the dream!
IF I live to be 'A Hundred' I will never be able to fully describe to you the state-of-the-art modernization of Hong Kong.
A view or two from the bus.
TOO FUNNY .. the below photo shows a sign on the side of another bus!
Do I like POPCORN ? Is water wet ? Is the sky blue ?
I am barely into this trip and already I am missing my POPCORN as in BADLY !
We are now at the Kowloon Station.
I have a theory about the Super Race. The Asian Child MUST use a lot more of its brain to master the incredible mandarin written language than do we in the West to master our simplistic alphabet.
Just look at the character on the right above! I mean come on! I read that there are literally thousands of these characters to be memorized. We have twenty six simple very basic characters in our alphabet. Can any of our twenty six simple letters compare to just the one mandarin character on the right above?
So you don't believe me! You! Yes YOU the skeptic! YOU start mastering the few mandarin characters below NOW!
Human beings in Asia were doing immensely complex things such as developing their language and creating ceramic porcelain works-of-art well before the Eastern Ostergoths and Western Visagoths crossed the frozen Rhine River to begin our Western Civilization!
Where exactly was I when I got diverted here?
Got it .. Patti and I were going to the Hong Kong Airport!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It is check in time at the Kowloon Station.
Patti is checking in with Delta Airlines.
Do you see Patti's bag on the right side of the above photo? Her one bag weighed 15.5 kg or 34 lbs.
Captain! This IS after all a program of honesty! Half of the weight of 34 lbs was my over packing that I decided to ship back to the States with Patti.
And Captain! The bag is my bag that I took with us so I shipped my totally unnecessary extra bag back home with Patti!
As you can see in the below photo .. Several airlines time-share counters.
I know My Dear One .. what on earth is he doing?
Oh come on lad! This is NOT rocket science!
Happiness is different things at different times in our lives. When it comes to long-haul International Airline Flights .. Happiness IS being four hours early!
Is Patti thinking about far away places with strange sounding names?
Far away places with strange sounding names
Far away over the sea
Those far away places with the strange sounding names are
Calling
Calling me
Goin' to China or maybe Siam
I wanna see for myself
Those far away places I've been reading about in a
Book that I took from a shelf
I start getting' restless whenever I hear the whistle of a train
I pray for the day I can get underway
And look for those castles in Spain
They call me a dreamer
Well maybe I am
But I know that I'm burning to see those
Far away places with the strange sounding names
Calling, calling me
Me
Isn't copy and paste simply awesome!
We are on-the-platform and the train IS DUE in 4 minutes!
Just like that! We are ON the train!
At the top of the above photo you see the electronic display showing all riders the progress in going to the airport.
Below is a closer view of this display.
One passenger (below left) seems to be concentrating on this display.
Tsing Yi Station .. we are moving right along.
Bingo! We are at the Hong Kong Airport!
More mandarin characters for you to master!
You can't tell the players without a scorecard can you?
You look for the Delta Airlines symbol and the DL designation on the right below.
YES! I KNOW! I am beating this drum to death! BUT I simply remain absolutely and positively amazed by the mandarin characters!
Daily .. Hourly .. Minute-by-Minute .. I am SURROUNDED by mandarin characters.
Take some time to study them! Some are SO complex!
There is Delta Airline's counter Patti!
Step up My Dear One .. you were first-in-line!
Sorry these photo are blurry. I was .. I MEAN .. I was hopping around like a cat on a hot tin roof to capture Patti's moments! You MUST slowly squeeze the camera button NOT jerk it.
I am at a total loss to explain Patti's expression or to caption the above photo."
I decided to try!
"Oh My Gosh Cap! After months of planning and so looking forward to this amazing trip .. it is OVER AND DONE WITH!"
Thank You My Dear One For Hanging In With Me!
Then Patti was gone! Snap-Your-Finger quick!
Love .. Cap
Got It! I Will Leave You With This Patti!
So much better!
You did a better than fine job with this post, CAP!!
ReplyDeleteWhy did the Super Race have to design thousands of mandarin characters to express what we can accomplish with 26 letters? There is admiration in efficiency. More is not necessarily better.
I agree that learning all of the mandarin characters must develop children's learning skills beyond those who learn the English language. But I had to mention what I did in my previous paragraph.
I love to argue on a moderate level so if you wish to do so, I'll read whatever you have to reply.
Best wishes, Cap,
Shaddy
No argument no debate whatsoever Shaddy. I guess the Super Race decided to devise an incredibly complex written language to perpetuate itself! Wikipedia has quite a write-up on the Mandarin characters. I have had educated Chinese tell me as they shrug their shoulders .. "No I do not know all of the Mandarin characters. But who does?" I have heard-on-the-street that there are approximately two hundred (200) Mandarin characters that they feel are absolutely essential to master. I have never read this however so am unable to document it.
DeleteThe more we know .. the more we know that we know but little!
Cheerio .. Cap ..
Do you know that the simplified version of Mandarin is looked upon with distrust by many Chinese because in many cases the new characters omit subtle ethical mores such as honesty, etc. If I had my China trip notes with me in Halibut Cove I could explain it better. What a beautiful airport terminal.
ReplyDeleteIF you had your China Trip Notes with you! Gullible I sit and silently shudder to think what I will be thinking when you travel to India and return and begin posting about your upcoming trip to India. I think I will be constantly thinking .. "Gosh. I did not know that! Gosh look what I have been missing during my ten trips to India."
DeleteGullible .. on the infamous zero (lowest) to ten (highest) rating scale you break that scale with a Plus FIFTY (50).
Smiles .. Cap ..
Love the post Cap Sir. Very well managed with enough/beautiful images from Hong kong. Saying bye to Madam Patti, may not have been that easy, for you :).
ReplyDelete