Tochi's Hut

I went to drop my sister off at the airport today. On the bus ride there, we noticed police officers at every intersection and a bunch of people with professional telescopic cameras standing on a bridge facing the runway. I jokingly told my sister to keep an eye out for the new Airbus 380. From the massive media coverage of the New York test flight a few days ago, I knew the plane was making a trip to Hong Kong some time in these couple days.

Anyway, we didn't give it much thought after that. After checking in, I saw my sister off. I then went to the bus-stop to wait for my S1 bus back to town, and lo-and-behold, what's that big cargo plane taking off? On closer inspection, is that A380 on its tail? OMG!!! Whip out my cellphone to snap a picture. #$!#@$!@#$. It's my Hong Kong cellphone... how to use camera?!?! Seconds later, that beautiful plane flew off into the clouds and left Tochi with his mouth gaping.

From my 10-second encouter with A380 @ 9:21 am, the most amazing aspect of the jumbo jet isn't its size. The plane is definitely larger than a B747, but its size just resembles a big cargo plane, i.e. a plane that I'd expect Fedex to use currently. However, this plane is QUIET! I was listening to the other planes take off after that (I can't really recognize any planes aside from B747, they could be B737, B777, A300's, etc.), and they were all so much louder than the A380. Imagine you are standing on the side of a road. The noise pollution of the A380 is like a BMW driving by (a long steady ZOOOOOOOOM), while all the other planes are like big trucks (loud rumble rumble rumble).

I'm still a little disappointed that I didn't get a picture. If I knew it was leaving HKG this morning, I would have waited with my camera ready. However, it's still pretty cool to see the A380 first hand. Who knows if and when I'll be able to ride one. :)

P.S. The huge police presence were for the Hong Kong Elections at the Asian Expo. There seems to be some debate or polling work today. Protestors, police, press, lots of people just mulling around. I found the protestors quite amusing. One group had about 10 cars decorated with huge yellow banners calling for the incumbent to step down.