All your doubts about Beijing's readiness for the Olympic Games? These Segway-ridin' police will crush them!
Security forces recently held an "anti-terrorist drill" in Jinan, in Shandong province south of Beijing, to practice riding these truly terrifying electric scooters. The demo also gave cops an opportunity to show off their martial arts skills, flamethrower handling and mob dispersing techniques. Watch out, nightclub owners!
We're always interested in how to bribe police officers in foreign countries. Not that we're planning anything sinister; it's just in case we mess up. So we're happy to tell you about the latest scheme in Italy: In the Campagnia area, police officers have been pulling cheese delivery vans over, inventing some rule drivers have violated and demanding either a hefty fine or some mozzarella.
We think there are easier ways to get your cheese in Italy. Apart from the obvious plan of visiting the supermarket, there are also tons of small mozzarella factories to visit. Any number of tour planners can hook you up with a lesson in making mozzarella, and the Delicious Italy website gives the independent traveler tips on where the best cheese can be made, bought and eaten.
But if you want to go the adventure travel way, just try dressing up as an Italian cop and pulling over a cheese delivery van. Give us your money or your mozzarella!
Watch what you check on a flight out of Mexico City: someone might pull a tricky switch on you. A top Mexican police dog--star of many a good drug bust--named Rex IV was mysteriously kidnapped this week on a flight from Mexico City to Mazatlan.
When handlers unloaded the dog cargo at the Mazatlan airport of Sinaloa, Belgian Malinois Rex IV had disappeared and been replaced by a small black puppy. Quite why the thieves bothered leaving the puppy in Rex IV's place isn't clear, but perhaps they just wanted to ease their consciences. Maybe on your next flight your YSL suitcase will be replaced with a K-Mart shopping bag, so keep an eye out.
Philadelphia International Airport just became the latest airport to utilize Segway Personal Transporters, joining places like Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam (where HotelChatter editor Juliana Shallcross witnessed them on her field trip), and O'Hare in Chicago. PHL has purchased four Segways (at $5,000 a pop) for police to use to patrol and/or procure donuts more effectively. But there's only room for one on a Segway PT, so you won't be able to hitch a ride anytime soon.
Americans may never look as adorable on scooters as the Dutch, but you can witness a bit of the action at PHL here.
Come on, now. Do they even have crime in Canada? Ever since we realized that the Canadian government gives bands money to film music videos and go on tour, we've refused to believe there is a single bad thing about that country. Yes, we have pissed off at least a couple of Canadians who swear it's not a total utopia up north.
If you believe this farce about "crime" in "Canada," you can try living the dream at the Vancouver Police Museum. For $7, the museum will teach you about some of Canada's most famous "criminals," and the "police" who stick it to them. You can sit in a police car, study firearms through the ages, and view a collection of all sorts of bizarre confiscated weapons as well as a morgue exhibit. There's The museum also offers a summertime "Sins of the City" walking tour that will expose you to the city's "edgier" side, including the evolution Vancouver's drug and sex industries. Unfortunately, no tribute to the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen exists.
Discover Vancouver says it's the only police museum in Canada, which makes sense given our suspicions.
Oh, how we love Vienna. And oh, how pissed we are that we didn't see any of these for ourselves when we were there. They're probably not in the center city, but in the outer districts.
There are some life-sized photo cut outs of cops set up around town and in the 'burbs, meant to scare hooligans enough that they'll think twice before doing anything illegal. Some are used to spook speeding motorists. Does this mean that someone, somewhere, actually has enough faith in people to trust his or her fellow Austrians to obey a cardboard cop? How sweet.
Public Enemy Number One in San Francisco is not BALCO labs or George W. Bush (we're as surprised as you are). No, it's a graffiti artist, who is tagging BNE stickers all across the city. Mayor Gavin Newsom has posted a $2,500 award for his capture; we can only assuming that he's hiding in a cave somewhere in the hills of Berkeley, if CIA intelligence is to be believed.
Actually, we were most entertained by the quotes from the man tasked with catching the BNE tagger, who is (we're not making this up) named Officer Putz. According to the Times, Officer Putz is consumed with his duties:
Officer Putz, who has been on the graffiti beat since 2001, takes his work seriously; he will not allow his face to be photographed and he gives his age merely as "in my 30's," for fear of tipping his hand. "It's a chess game," he said.
Sure, San Francisco has a big homeless problem, and there's that whole earthquake thing. But stickers? Now that's a chess game.
Carding in Bangkok? Who knew? Prolly the whole lot of you, but we're surprised. Because of a "social order" campaign first launched in 2001, bars and clubs have been becoming more and more careful about IDs and about enforcing a bar time of just 2 am (at the latest). Even better, there are police raids, some of them "accompanied by local TV crews. Exits are barred, music grinds to sudden silence, lights flash on. Confused and scared patrons who a moment before were partying down are suddenly confronted by brown-uniformed police officers who demand to see their ID's, frisk them or occasionally force them to urinate in a cup to test for drug use." Nothing says party like peeing in a cup! "Bangkok is a dead town," says one of the club owners who are hanging on. "It was one of the most fun places in Asia."
But wait! The Times is often a little behind the times -- hence the name. Could it be that Bangkok is actually a Sodom on the Chao Phraya again? Could someone get back to us on this before we go there in a few months?
2 Comments - Add Yours
by pbb
Carding in Bangkok? Who knew? Prolly the whole lot of you, but we're surprised. Because of a "social order" campaign first launched in 2001, bars and clubs have been becoming more and more careful about IDs and about enforcing a bar time of just 2 am (at the latest). Even better, there are police raids, some of them "accompanied by local TV crews. Exits are barred, music grinds to sudden silence, lights flash on. Confused and scared patrons who a moment before were partying down are suddenly confronted by brown-uniformed police officers who demand to see their ID's, frisk them or occasionally force them to urinate in a cup to test for drug use." Nothing says party like peeing in a cup! "Bangkok is a dead town," says one of the club owners who are hanging on. "It was one of the most fun places in Asia." 
