The Palauan Capitol - Aspirational Or A Colossal Waste?

On the way back from Elab to Airai, we passed by Palau's Capitol building located in Ngerulmud, in Melekeok State.

The first sight of the Capitol building...

Zooming in...

Palau’s Capitol building sits in an imperious position, on a hilltop and is visible from quite a distance... 

Taking a detour to the left to head to the Capitol...

A market on the road leading up to the Capitol...

Landscaped and manicured gardens line up the road leading to the Capitol...

There she is, the massive Capitol of Palau. This building houses government offices and does seem quite large for a nation of nearly 20,000 people...

Location of the Capitol...

It appears as though the Capitol of the United States has been transported from Washington DC, and planted here in the middle of the jungle...

The original plans for the Capitol building were based on a traditional bai. These plans were abandoned in favour of a replica of the United States Capitol...

Palau was incorporated as a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands with the trusteeship mandate going to the United States. Over a period of time, the trusteeship dissolved and new states were formed - the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia in 1986 and the Republic of Palau in 1994. The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands chose to remain in political union with the United States, instead of becoming independent.

At that time, Palau had a choice to become part of the Federated States of Micronesia, but given that it had more natural resources and a smaller population, it chose a full independence rather than have a second rung status in a federation. 

As independence came, the administration in Palau decided that efforts would be made to spread the population over Babeldaob, rather than concentrate on Koror. Ngerulmud in Melekeok State was chosen as the capital, the local chief was willing donate a large chunk of his family’s land to house the government headquarters.

A lovely view from the Capitol...

Who wouldn't love to have an office here?

The dome stands out...

The building is indeed huge...

The architecture of the Capitol does seem out of place...

The Capitol cost USD 50 million to construct, financed by Taiwan - they gave low interest loans to the Palau. And Palau extended diplomatic recognition to Taiwan over the larger Mainland, one of 22 nations that over accorded Taiwan this privilege. In fact, Palau hosts one of the few embassies of the renegade province!

Ostensibly, this is a game that Taiwan plays in the Pacific, Africa and the Caribbean to curb the influence of the Mainland, gain influence on the world stage and block any unfavourable United Nations resolution, if the need so arises, even though Taiwan had been expelled from the world body.

Indeed the latest round of geopolitical ping-pong is still being played out here, only the players have changed and the Capitol is living proof of that!

And with ambitions of regional powers going beyond their "ponds", nations in the Pacific will be enticed with a lot more concessions, to wean them away from the United States...

A storm is brewing in the skies...

Some may argue that the Capitol represents aspirations of the new nation...

The Judiciary Building...

The building is indeed quite imposing...

One last look at the Capitol as we head back...

What's This Hello Kitty Craze?

"What's this Hello Kitty craze?"

Seeing this craze first hand in Taiwan made me go bonkers. They say God is everywhere, but in Taiwan, Hello Kitty is everywhere! The good thing is that you can see Hello Kitty, but you can't see God!

All through our stay in Taipei and travels through Hualien, Taichung and Kaohsiung, we had that creepy feeling that Hello Kitty was following us.

Now Hello Kitty was created as a comic character by a Japanese lady, Yuko Shimizu, for her employer, Sanrio in 1974. Immediately afterwards, Sanrio's sales - stationary and other kids' products skyrocketed. 

And then this phenomena spread through East Asia to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea and later to South East Asia. But its popularity in Taiwan was astounding. There are Hello Kitty cafes, Hello Kitty sweets, Hello Kitty debit cards and lots more. This phenomenon prompted the Chinese University of Hong Kong to research it.

My first introduction to Hello Kitty happened on the aviation spotters website, Airliners.net - it was there, in the mid-2000s I discovered that EVA Air had Hello Kitty stickers on their jets.  

And today, I discovered that EVA Air also maintains a Hello Kitty microsite...

But yesterday when we flew EVA Air to Incheon, the inflight reading material was full of Hello Kitty, too much of a cuteness overload!

There she is - Hello Kitty peering at me from EVA Air's duty free catalogue...

Hello Kitty toys...

Hello Kitty logojets...

Some more Hello Kitty dolls...

Models of Hello Kitty jets...

And if you thought this was too much, you won't believe this! Taiwan even has a Hello Kitty themed maternity hospital - how bizarre does this phenomena get? Perhaps there is a case for a sociological study on it...

A Lesson In Soft Power, On Board EVA Air...

And so we are finally back home in Incheon after 4 eventful, memorable and delectable days in Taiwan.

This was our first flight on EVA Air, which is one of the two Taiwanese intercontinental carriers, the other being China Airlines. Neeti and I were delighted by the service EVA Air gave us, right from check-in at Kaohsiung Airport to genuine, impeccable and friendly service on-board BR172 to Incheon. 

Moments after boarding the customary flight announcements began, starting off with safety instructions and all that spiel. And then, we heard something interesting - the flight attendant mentioned that EVA Air was pleased to have nationals of "India, Vietnam, Japan besides Koreans and Taiwanese on board!" 

"Did I hear that right?" I asked Neeti.

And she smiled. I got my answer. As we boarded, we appeared to be the only Indians on the flight. This was a sweet gesture, costing nothing, that instantly made us feel at home, on board. Little wonder, EVA Air is rated as a 4 Star airline by Skytrax. 

I bet Jet Airways or even the lousy IndiGo, back home in India, can learn a lot from these guys.

Once we were on board, an elegant, charming 50+ lady came and sat in the seat next to us. She was indeed quite a pleasing personality and smiled at us as she assumed her seat. And gradually she and Neeti got into an animated conversation.

It turned out that she was a Taiwanese headed for Seoul alongwith her husband - they intended to do a round of the Buddhist circuit of Korea. She was surprised that Taiwan is popular amongst Indians - this was the first time she saw Indian tourists in Kaohsiung!

The conversation that followed, between the lady and Neeti, was engaging. She mentioned how much she loved Bollywood. The last Hindi movie she had seen was Lunchbox. She was all praise for 3 Idiots and mentioned how similar she thought the education system in Taiwan was, putting pressure on kids. Then she asked Neeti for suggestions - among the movies Neeti suggested to her was Zindagi Milega Na Dobara.

I overheard the lady tell Neeti that her niece lived and worked in Bangalore for a couple of years, in an infotech company and added how India had grown over her. She also mentioned that she was a big fan of yoga.

The meal that we got on board was quite delicious, with generous helpings...

As their conversation continued, I drifted off into snooze mode. And as we began our approach into Incheon, the ladies were discussing the storyline of a Hollywood rom-com they had been watching on the flight's IFE.

As I am wont to, I got into "insight hunting" from this whole experience on board. This interaction between the Taiwanese lady and Neeti proved, once again, that India is sitting on an unimaginable potential that its soft power has. This conversation was particularly heartening simply because Taiwan and India do not have formal diplomatic relations, and travel between the two countries isn't that easy. Despite these hurdles, India occupies a significant part of the mindspace of Taiwanese, as we had observed during our travel in the island state.
Soft power is an intangible asset, a wealth that brute force cannot match and it makes India's rise seem comforting and not threatening to the rest of the world. And that is indeed great for India. But to leverage on this immense goodwill that India's soft power generates, policy-makers need to pay heed, which I guess they are doing under Prime Minister Modi!

As these thoughts were whirring in my mind, we landed at Incheon!

And it was time for a bit of Plane Spotting!

A Cathay Pacific Boeing 777 and behind that an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787 Dream)liner... 

As we were getting up to disembark, a Hong Kong Express Airbus A320 taxiied in...

Up In The Air .... Part 28

Another edition of Up In The Air is back, this onboard EVA Air flight BR172, from Kaohsiung, Taiwan to Incheon, South Korea.

We took off from Kaohsiung into some pretty imposing skies and I did not expect to capture much from the flight. But is was all different, kind of magical, up there...

A view of Kaohsiung below us...

There were patches of formidable clouds...

Some of them looked like the scary CB clouds that scare every aviator...

Kaohsiung looked quite beautiful from up here...

...a lot like a neatly laid out network of diamonds...

The strobes come on...

Setting course for ICN!

Gaining altitude to FL100...

Above Zuoying!

We had chosen these seats to catch the sunset, but alas, our flight got delayed...

The curvature of the earth is faintly visible...

And now we begin our approach into Incheon...

Overflying the Incheon metropolitan area...

Turning towards the airport...

On finals...

And there we go...

The airport is visible now...

And we're here, back home!