Swine Flu House - the Latest!

I am always pleased when HK reminds me just how mad it is. I used to notice all the time when I first arrived, but then, after only a few months, I got used to it and saw the madness as "ordinary and expected", but every now and again ... WHAMMO!!!

Road blocks.

Hong Kong suddenly once again reveals it's profound insanity.

It's an entire block crazy with media:

International Media too:


And these flag-waving guys:

No idea who these guys are,
and there was nothing in the papers.
I hope they were Mexicans.

And more police officers in one place than you have ever seen in your life:

Wall-to-wall police.

Not to mention police bikes and police cars and ambulance officers and every other thing you can imagine:

Just one of the many
clusters of police bikes.

Yes, it's night of Day 7 and time for the release of hostages at Metro-Pork Hotel.

Swine-flu House.

Whoever would have imagined it would be a multi-million dollar exercise to get a bunch of people out of a hotel and onto these buses:

The nine buses needed to disperse
the quarantined.

See, these are the fun things you get to spend taxes on when you don't have a welfare state; if it's not this, it'd be ... I don't know ... Old Age Pensions or something.

Finally allowed out and
bused straight to the airport.

And from the reactions of everyone around me, it was as if even after an entire week of being locked away from the world and not even developing a headache, overly-cautious, Girly-Swot Hong Kong still refused to believe these folk didn't have swine-flu. (Wait, sorry, we aren't to call it that anymore because that's Pigist: it's H1N1.) People around me were actually holding their noses and trying not the breathe while these poor isolatees were out on the street.

Anyway, amidst all this madness, I decided to "play Diogenes" and look for small signs of sanity.

First off, I chose these two students who continued to study through all the chaos around them:

But then I noticed ...

No, not that one of them
has fallen asleep!

Resistance is useless:After that, I gave the prize to these two tourists who walked indifferently through the Bedlam and found a policeman (not difficult) to get directions:

To these two intrepid fellows I award the Bronze Medal!

And then there was Eddie from the Transport Department whose job it was to film the entire operation and beam it through live so that two different departments could study the procedure to see what they could improve on next time:

A two-camera operation.

I mean, what's there to study? People! Buses! People get on buses! Buses leave! It's not brain surgery! Eddie, a total darling, himself thought the entire procedure was so over-the-top it was funny. To him I award the Silver Medal!

And I liked these foreign journalists who stood around on the street talking, laughing and drinking!

Way to report, fellows!

But they only get an Honourable Mention!

And then there was ...

THE SWINE-MASKED SAGA

A group of folk from England awaiting the release of a friend ...

Another lot of isolatees are released to the buses ...

Swine-masked friends notice ...

"Yoo hoo! It's us! Over here! Over here!"

Police officer comes over, most irate and "Get back behind this barrier!" he orders ...

"But it's our friend." they say! "Behind the barrier!" he orders again.

Blond swine-girl waits until the police aren't looking and ...

... she's off!

There she is,
in the middle of the snap!
Running madly!

"Go you, Girl!" her swine-friends shout!


But a bus leaves at that very moment ...

... and so I miss the reunion!

But without a shadow of a doubt, the Gold Medal has to be awarded to Blond Swine-Girl who didn't let something like fear of swine-flu or Fearful Hong Kong Police stop her meeting and greeting her loved one!

Oh, and one final Honourable Mention must go to whoever it was in the Media who managed to get past the police cordon and get those Live-Feed Hostage Interviews:


Later: And see what I found on youtube. Runs a bit long but shows you what was happening around the front: