Tag Archives: Po Lin Lee
Random weirdness for the week of Dec. 19, 2017
With Christmas nearly here it surely must be a merry feeling to many there isn’t a huge ugly red box outside Po Lee Lin’s Santa-themed workshop any longer. OK, at least not that big red box. Instead, the pieces of what used to be her 9.4-meter-high Santa’s mailbox outside the workshop are now being stored in a large red container a short distance from where the box stood before being removed in late November.
Going postal: After getting screwed on the last day of Santa’s giant mailbox, owner stages a farewell gathering and break-in
Update 5:30 p.m. Sunday: Workers hired by Po Lee Lin began disassembling the mailbox Sunday afternoon, although it will largely be intact and visible one final night since the work was limited to putting up scaffolding and removing a few preliminary screws. Jan Olov Dahl, supervisor of the project, said the work should take about three days. Details added to story below.
Original story: For a final night the nearly 10-meter-high Santa’s mailbox was lit up so people could come and say goodbye before its owner started taking it down the next day. Except plans to let people take a final look inside it were thwarted when the city sealed the entrance door at the back with screws. So, after being on the losing end of many months of legal battles, Po Lin Lee staged one final act of defiance.
ALERT: Lights removed from giant Santa’s mailbox, which is scheduled to be taken down Nov. 20 after lengthy permit dispute
A nearly 10-meter-high Santa’s mailbox standing at Tynset since December of 2013, but which the city ordered removed a year ago due to lack of a proper permit, has its lights removed Monday and is scheduled to be taken down starting Nov. 20, according to its owner and a city attorney.
Holiday plans cancelled: Po Lin Lee loses planned hotel site in addition to giant Santa’s mailbox due to faulty paperwork
To use an analogy apt for Po Lin Lee: If you mail a wish list to Santa you might not get everything on it, but if you don’t mail it you definitely won’t get anything.
A failure to send proverbial wish lists is now costing the Hong Kong native more than her gigantic Santa’s mailbox that’s facing imminent removal, as she is now being denied previous approval to build a hotel at Elvesletta. Her company Svalbard International received a permit to build the hotel in 2014 that was valid until mid-December of 2015, but property owner Store Norske now plans to offer the site to another entity.
Return to sender: Giant Santa’s mailbox benefactor back in Longyearbyen, bewildered at rejection of gift to community
Santa’s Little Helper is back in town – and says she doesn’t understand why her gigantic gift to the community is causing such a huge fuss.
Random weirdness for the week of Nov. 21, 2016
If we got an exclusive with Santa and could ask only one question it definitely wouldn’t be this, but gives us 10 or so and – to gain some insight into this critical part of his job – we’d ask: “Is the owner that giant and now illegal Santa’s mailbox on your nice or naughty list?”
Briefs from Svalbardposten for the week of Sept. 6, 2016
City: Giant Santa’s mailbox must be removed by Sept. 30
A 9.3-meter-high red mailbox set up at Sjøområdet by Po Lin Lee just before Christmas in 2013 must be removed because a temporary permit allowing it will not be renewed, according to Longyearbyen city officials.
Postal going? ‘World’s largest Santa’s mailbox’ needs to get in ship shape with ‘real’ mail, says local postmaster
The world’s largest mailbox to Santa is turning out to be a wee bit of a problem.
Santa’s getting his mail, but most of the letters with real stamps being sent to other people apparently aren’t, at least not in anything close to a timely fashion, according to Oddny Slatlem, postmaster at Longyearbyen’s post office.
“For us it is important to emphasize that this is not a real mailbox,” he told Svalbardposten. “We have urged the owner to either close it or hang up clear information in several languages that this is not a mailbox.”
Seriously postal: ‘World’s largest Santa’s mailbox’ gives creator a gigantic challenge
It’s said Santa needs to travel 11 million km/h to deliver his gifts, assuming no bathroom breaks or pauses to eat all those cookies. There doesn’t seem to be a corresponding thesis for how long it takes him to read all the letters to him, but Po Lin Lee might qualify as at least for fill-in duty should the jolly old elf be waylaid by a traffic cop or too much cholesterol.
Random weirdness for the week of March 21, 2015
We’re not suggesting he be deemed a dangerous sex offender for life, but he seems to have topped Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin as this week’s Most Hated Person, at least among the locals on social media.
