Posted on 12/17/2024 10:13:40 AM PST by zeestephen
Hong Kong-Taipei (Taiwan) is the busiest international flight route...Seven of the 10 busiest international routes in the world are in Asia-Pacific...New York-JFK to London-Heathrow is the only route on the top 10 list that touches down in North America and Europe.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Less than 300 miles, but just one major road between the two urban centers.
Roughly, 15 million people live in that corridore.
The two countries have been discussing a high speed rail system since 2010.
No progress so far.
Those busiest routes would be those hauling the cash out of the United States before Trump takes control.
It’s hard for Americans to understand that they’re not actually the center of the universe.
The problem with the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore high-speed rail route is how to handle immigration and customs control Malaysia and Singapore. That’s the big holdup on that high-speed rail project.
Maybe on the Left, but I doubt you’ll find many American conservatives who do.
I’ve had my passport checked a few times on trains by agents who board at one station and depart at another to switch back in the other direction.
With the Eurostar, they do passport control before you board, as I understand the process. I did something similar decades ago - went through US customs in Toronto before flying to the US on a transfer there from Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuala_Lumpur%E2%80%93Singapore_high-speed_rail
I took a local train from Florence to Assisi in Italy.
We had to make a switch somewhere.
A local train cop got on at the stop and asked for ID.
I told him we had left our passports with the hotel in Florence. I showed him pictures of our passports on our phone.
He said that was not allowed.
My wife had her drivers license from NH. My son and I had no ID. Fortunately, we had an Italian friend with us who explained we were stupid American tourists and spoke Italian.
He proceeded to fine us in CASH. EUROS only. No credit card allowed.
My Italian friend said the guy gave us a break. I personally think he made an extra 120 EUROS that day. Live and learn.
“””It’s hard for Americans to understand that they’re not actually the center of the universe.”””
Then why are billions of them doing everything they can to get here?
A lot of those flights may be international, but the distances involved are pretty much LAX - O’Hare. A lot of business centers are on that list and a lot of money moves around all over the world.
When in Rome....or in your case, Florence.
Correct. Essentially, they do the equivalent of a US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) check before you get on the train at St. Pancras Station in London and Gare-du-Nord Station in Paris. In Hong Kong, Chinese customs authorities do their check at the station before you enter the train platform for their CRH service into China, since the train platforms are still considered Chinese territory even though the station is on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong.
However, typically you surrender your passport to the front desk when you check into a hotel. Even with an Air B&B they asked for our passports when we rented apartments. So, typically if you are just walking around the city and you are stopped you just tell them that the hotel has it. They may walk/drive back to the hotel and ask the management to confirm your ID.
Our mistake was we should have brought them on the train.
Our Italian friend told us that the policeman could have taken us to the local station and held us there. Then my wife would have had to go back to Florence and get our IDs and then return. They were in the safe in the room.
FYI, my son and I both had purchased ID holders that we wore under our clothes. We also both purchased money belts. I had four 100 Euro notes in mine. He had about the same.
We were in technically wrong. I just think the policeman was being a dink. At first he did not want to accept my wife's NH drivers license too. Even though it is a real ID. He did and fined both my son and ID for not carrying ID.
Lesson learned.
Another expensive lesson happened in Positono on the Amalfi coast. Never order in a restaurant on the waterfront without looking at the menu first. That cost me almost as much as the train cop. My wife order a half dozen oysters and a cappachino. I ordered a Lemoncello spritzer. The oysters
were 14 EU a piece. The spritzer was 26EU. Exchange rate was
about 10%. So, in the first minute of sitting down we spent about $132 US.
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