INDOKIWI

WHILE making passengers stand to fit in more seats may be an innovative idea, the big question is how much favourite budget short-haul airlines can really gain in terms of operating bottomline.

If anything, they will probably be losing money taking care of all the backlogs of this proposal because such business concepts are just dangerously unsustainable.

The insurance premium will see a significant hike attributed by the risk the seating configuration imposes on passengers. A flashback in time on the aviation safety record shows how dangerous standing unnecessarily on board can be while the aircraft is cruising. Insurance underwriters will take this into serious consideration.

A Japan Airlines jumbo jet went into a sudden plunge after a ubiquitous turbulence at cruising altitude, sending passengers and flight attendants who were standing at that time to the cabin ceiling and causing serious bone breaks and injuries. Many similar incidents have also put the spotlight on the importance of strapping passengers in seated position at all time.

Irish Ryanair and Chinese Spring Airlines are looking at the possibility to squeeze in more passengers, which at this stage, the addition is planned to be around 60 seats in their Boeing 737-800s.

When each of these passengers is paying only half the full fare and most will likely find their way in taking advantage of the revolutionary one-euro or even one-yuan seats, how can these sectors be still profitable?

Slapping them hard on the face will be the fact that this revenue scheme is only going to see an increase in the number of passengers and correspondingly fuel consumption on each flight but not in the overall profit.

As a fledgling journo, I should have listened to what the old Journo says and brought a good camera with me all the time.

Here’s what happened at 1755 on Oct 8, 2008 at the intersection of Queen St and Shortland St.

A black chopper was hovering over Auckland CBD for quite sometime before three cop cars (2 with police livery and one black Holden) were seen weaving through the traffic on Queen Street. Cop bikes were already at the scene apparently.

One cop car accelerated and stopped in front of a green Honda with licence registration “TEK DIS”.

The driver was a Pacific Islander man who, when I got to the scene two minutes later, was already curbed and handcuffed by the police. He was shoved into the backseat of the second police car and made to wait in there for a couple of minutes as the coppers rummaged through his green auto.

One important thing I stupidly lacked at that time too was the courage to be a scooper. I waited around the scene just like every other citizen along that road, doing nothing but taking pictures I had already taken several times with my mediocre P1i camera.

I waited for my legs to lead me to one of the coppers, hoping I could pop some questions to get a clearer picture of what was going on. They didn’t budge until I saw the scene cleared up 3 minutes later.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I told myself in vain. I ended up with nothing but poor-quality pictures of the arrest on Queen Street.

At this point, what could have been an excellent scoop only turns out as a lesson to me. This has awakened me to the reality that I still have a long way to go before I can call myself a qualified journo.

Flying on budget airlines can never get anymore exciting than this. The two weeks I had planned with four of my mates to travel around Europe were filled with city-hoppings on EasyJet and RyanAir, which to our surprise were better than some full-service airlines.

In terms of service what we paid was extremely sweeping us off our feet. We were tactful enough not to expect any inflight entertainment or meal on our 10-euro-Dortmund-to-Paris flight.

First stop from our main hub Geneva was Barcelona. I couldn’t curb my excitement anymore as we started our descent into Aeropuerto de Barcelona. I kept searching for the sandy Mediterranean beaches throughout our last leg of flight (like an eagle scanning the tundra for rabbit, except I was behind an aircraft window). The summer spirit could be felt as soon as we set foot on Barcelona tarmac. If I remember correctly, there’s never been any time when I felt more grateful of being in the sun.

We headed to our hostel which I couldn’t remember the name of, but it had so many Americans in it. Very good location, fairly affordable and with breakfast. It is located 1.5km into the Las Ramblas. But we had to bunk in with eight other travellers and the thought of it shooed two of our girl mates away to a nicer hotel despite the beds being already paid for.

Our hunger got the best of us and we succumbed to the idea of going into the first fast food chain we came across. Shamefully enough, it was Burger King. After fuelling, we spent what’s left of the day strolling along one of the world’s longest parade, Las Ramblas. The avenue of shops, from my recollection, was about 30 metres wide and 5 km long; and was swarmed with people from all over the world. By this I mean, I have never seen a place as multicultural as Las Ramblas but of course it’s only multicultural because of the variety of tourists travelling and not living there.

Twenty hours later and some 5km inland, Gaudi astonished us with designs of this age and last. Tourists cluttered both the north and south facades of the building which have two distinct designs based on the same concept. Being the avid Asian food lover I was, instead of touring the legendary Gaudi interior, I went around it searching for a nice Peking duck or Sichuan beef in the middle of what could be the most Mediterranean city of Spain.

I kid you not, we treaded all the way back to the coast where our hotel and everybody were and that was 5000 metres of walking on a hot Barca summer day. We were hoping we could see some matador action on our way back, but we passed at the wrong time. First things first, we wouldn’t even consider loitering around the arena for a couple of hours, waiting for the show to begin, while we could be joining the sun worshipers on the beach.

(To be continued)

Fabrics that can withstand abrasion, scuffs and most of all repell wind and water are simply the best to wear when you don’t have any other apparel to don during the nine months of trial and tribulation (that is a year minus the three months of summer).

They are guaranteed to never go out of style when your overcoats seem a little too formal or bulky and these windbreakers are definitely lighter than your woolmark or merino.

Shifting from the dandy and dapper European lifestyle and haute couture, I was surprised to find that a first-world country as costly to live in as New Zealand does not have a “high” taste in fashion (I’d be years and years away from Zara and Springfield, mind you how miserable I am here in terms of potentially acquiring decent apparel).

I’d second my journalist friend, whose name I cannot reveal here because of consent issue, and give her full credit on her article about how depressing it is to see a growing no of kiwis wearing too much black in this day and age. Simply said, fashionistas are a minority group here.

I used to hate “nylon” jackets because of how cheap they make me look. The normally mono or bi-coloured jackets may very well be resistant to water and wind but in my haute-couture sense, they just didn’t match my outlook. But as soon as I got tangled in a winter Kathmandu sale a few months ago, my whole perspective totally somersaulted.

Yes, I began to learn how useful they are to wear here; these cordura, goretex, nanotex and their siblings. Could the reason why I was so in to it be that the prices were almost 70% lower than normal(at least that’s what it says on the tag)? Was it only sale magic taking its toll on me? My penchant for it has been growing ever since. I’ve written my to-buy list, and stylish overcoats and metro-type jackets have diminished drastically in number as they have been butted out by the Softshell Jackets. I can walk in the blistering cold southern weather now without fear of getting bloated by winds of near-take-off speed.

I am just waiting for the next sale to hit the city which I’m sure would just be around the corner. I encourage everyone reading this, not that I’m working for any of the windbreaker or winterwear producers, to grab them when they’re on sale otherwise you’ll end up paying half a grand for something you can get for far less than that during certain period of the year. But becareful in selecting, you may be buying the same thing as a hundred other people in town.

Choose the ones that are not-so-”affordable” but still be at a bargain price, so you won’t have to dig in too deep while keeping abreast your disctinct and one-of-a-kind selections. Go for the turqoise or dark colour as they have the capability to camouflage subtly in any level of sunshine.  In the meantime, let’s just enjoy the summer and forget about the winter clothings for a while.

It is not New Zealand biggest event, yet it attracts people from all over kiwiland every year when spring is in the air. At least I think I saw more people in that Sakura Festival than I have on any good day in Wellington Central.

Two hours into our journey from the capital, both cars split ways; girls’ rolled east, us boys’ took the west route. We thought we could arrive earlier than the girls but they proved us wrong, and they got there ahead of us because they sped all the way through. We boys took our own sweet time; it’s undeniable we know better how to have fun on a trip like this. (They ended up having to wait for us at the gas station)

Finding a parking spot was tricky when you arrived right after everyone else. Our driver Dhani had to maneuver the car on the not-so-generously-spaced road beside the International Pacific College. The temperature outside was just right with pollens of Sakura flying in the air around us, unfortunately pulling up anywhere near the entrance seemed impossible.

Soon, we were already walking through the main gate and welcomed by rows of Sakura trees. I swear to the Creator, they are so pretty, yes i know i sound like a girl but I’d say it anyway.

Early birds got all the good seats, leaving us plenty of room to stand at the back throughout the show. (Well it was supposed to be a one-hour performance but arriving late, we only got to see the last few bits of the show). I don’t know what we missed but what we didn’t were good enough to refresh us after our journey.

[I am browsing through friends' facebook pics to get some inspiration as I write, so bear with me as I'm trying my best to string the story together]

As soon as the opening show was over, I separated myself from the crowd to get myself some food. Eating alone seemed ghastly in a place with so many visitors, so I grabbed Nince who also happened to agree with me that in a sakura festival it’s only appropriate to have soba, sushi, ramen and bubble tea.

The group we separated ourselves from decided to savour some Indonesian delicacies and although they looked fuller than us, I’m sure they weren’t that close to satisfaction than we were. OOH BY THE WAY, the soba made me feel so Japanese that day but the pork rice I had right after that made me realise that I was still Chinese.

As we were eating next to what looked like a well-shaped and solid bush, I had a clever idea and I put our glasses of bubble tea on it. Funnily enough what I thought would never happen happened; bubble teas were now only bubbles with no tea at all. The glasses “toppled” and the bush had been watered by tea. It left us giggling endlessly, it was fun.

Back in the festival, a group of drum dancers (I’m not sure what they’re called) were already lining up, taking to street their war dances, male in black kimono-like costumes and female in red.

The heat of day was building and so was our photography spirit and the suffering our camera memory cards had to put up with became inevitable. Everyone of us (me excluded of course) grew wilder and more megalomaniac in style. An estimate of 1200 pictures were taken that day alone from 8 cameras aggregated.

If you think this is real, I made it up. The closer estimate would be 600. We weren’t prepared to call it a day so we rolled uphill to a wind farm, where more photography uncontrollably took place. And so went the rest of the day till we made our way back to Palmy city centre for dinner and drove back in fatigue to Wellington, feeling sakurised.

Travelling is a regular agenda for most people now that airfares are cheaper than a week’s groceries but for those who don’t know how to pack their bags and pick the best arrival time, they’ll end up having to empty their pocket to meet these unforeseen costs.

The introduction of no-bags airfare by Pacific Blue has stepped up fare competition among airlines in this side of Pacfic, well actually just between them and AirNZ for now.

The idea is brilliant; you’re waived $8 of the normal oneway fare when you carry less than 7kgs onboard, but be mindful there are more restrictions on the type of items allowed in your handcarry. Bid your expensive-smelling perfumes and bottles of contact lense solutions farewell as it is part of the civil aviation tighter regulations to eliminate the chances of terrorists ever bringing liquid bombs into the cabin. (ha ha… very clever CAA! you’ve just made life more difficult for avid travellers)

On the other hand, national flag carrier AirNZ has made their seats more worth buying by increasing their baggage allowance by 3kg on normal fare (an intelligent trick to get back at their rival). When aggregated, you’ll find you can bring more and heavier bags on AirNZ than on PacBlu. Let me put this in perspective, AirNZ $70 Wellington-Auckland fare allows you to bring 23kg + 7kg altogether while PacBlu $62 fare after reduction on the same route only allows you 7kg, no question asked, forget about payment of oversize or overweight baggage.

Now that I’ve paid nothing on baggage allowance in order to avoid being charged the unnecessary $8 on Wellington-Auckland, I kinda feel I’m jeopardising myself as I’m pretty sure my handcarry will be screened and doublechecked for its size and weight. It’s too late to change my itenerary now, I should’ve pondered this carefully before punching my CC number online. Shoot!!! They’ll start checking handcarry for size and weight more strictly now.  Isn’t that harrowing? Imagine all the trouble and painstaking packing people moving for a very longtime to another city have to go through.

Aww and one other thing, don’t ever pick flights with incorrigible arrival times. This will only compell you to either spend the night at the terminal (for those with extremely limited pocket depth) or take a cab to the city centre because cheap public buses timetables are not conjured up to meet these unfriendly ETAs.

“Picture of the junction by my apartment… Those clouds are real and I don’t live in a high-altitude area”

Five months have gone since I first set foot on this zeal-land and just as I thought I have seen all there is to this side of the world, I am once again astounded by the sights of clouds settling in outside my first-floor-apartment door. The overcast is so low this time that it beats my record of the lowest-sighted clouds - in Montreux.

Up in the mountain in Montreux, I happened to forget to shut the windows and doors of my flat one winter day. Alas I couldn’t save my dry apparels and stuff as low-floating clouds intruded my room and spread evenly their dampness on all things mine. Yes I had clouds in my room and I had no idea how to shoo them.

But that was then. Today, I am almost as flabbergasted as I was back in Montreux days. I manage to walk down the street shrouded by a school of clouds again only this time, they don’t get anywhere near my stuff in the room because I always shut my windows and doors before leaving.

Some friends I have never gone out with took me out for a movie last night. I was damn tired after a full-day class in a squeezed-in seminar seating arrangement yesterday. Movie night did not nestle in my mind at anytime yesterday except when the brit. teacher said something abt going to the cinema. Anyway, he did not walk his talk, so the four of us left without him.

We watched 21. It’s one of those smart students in casino conspiracy types of blockbuster. I can never remember names of people in the movie, well except when they are gorgeous enough, I will. So here, I will refer to them A B C D E and so on.

A group of Harvard students are gathered by A, a retired pro card counter in Vegas and its vicinity who is now a Harvard professor. B, C, D, and E are A’s most brilliant Harvarders before F came in. To A’s suprise, F finally joined the card counter club after a bout of unsuccessful coaxes. F became the lead card counter backed by B, C, D, and E; and scrutinised tightly in any games by A.

F got too emotional and A nicked everything he’s won, including F’s college money.

Okay I don’t feel like writing anymore, you guys should just watch it yourself. I won’t get your expectations too high by saying it’s a fantastically plotted movie, but I’d say, you should go watch it.