Word: airport
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...While it's easy to dismiss these plane spotters as sad anoraks, they were local heroes to me?animated, cheerful souls absolutely passionate about their beloved airport. Their enthusiasm was infectious. Perhaps it was just as well I was flying back to London that night, otherwise I could have stayed there all week. Why on earth did men hang out in Wan Chai when there was such a spectacle? What pole dancer on earth could provide entertainment on par with this...
...affection. Kai Tak closed five years ago this month, but many still refer to it like a much-loved, weirdo uncle who's no longer around?one who will be forever remembered because he broke all the rules and made you gasp while doing so. Indeed, the airport's closure was another nail in the coffin for the era of romantic travel?Kai Tak was the last embodiment of an age when commercial flying was a buzz. Even an airline amenity kit became a novelty when you flew into Hong Kong: the supplied blindfold was not for sleeping...
...delays the terminal was soon crammed with a queue for taxis as long as Hong Kong's famous Lantau Trail. Even Kai Tak's greatest fans acknowledge that it had long since reached its capacity, but it didn't make saying goodbye any easier. And no one loved the airport in the guts of the city more than the spotters. To them Kai Tak was the best airport ever...
...Hong Kong via a Runway 13 approach, and it never ceased to amaze me how close you got to the houses," he says. "It's a special place. There is nowhere in the world to equal it." Meanwhile, his friend David England had worked on the design of the Airport Railway Link and his Kowloon Bay office overlooked Kai Tak's southern runway. "I kept a brass telescope on my desk," England recollects, "and my colleagues soon got used to me breaking off mid-conversation to look at aircraft landing...
...With Kai Tak gone, many Hong Kong residents are understandably proud of its replacement, Chek Lap Kok (its drab proper name is the Hong Kong International Airport). It is undoubtedly a well-designed, efficient, world-class facility. Inside it is everything Kai Tak wasn't?spacious, airy and, with an inventive use of natural light, a little too bright for some when the morning sun catches those check-in desks. But it's also like so many international airports nowadays: somewhat soulless and homogenized. You could be in Schipol or Singapore. One reason Kai Tak is still held in such...