Tourist Attraction
Although British rule ended in Hong Kong in 1997, the tradition of the noonday gun is continued by Jardines. A small crowd usually gathers for this daily event. Other than noon, the gun is also fired by a Jardines official at midnight every New Year's Day to celebrate the new year. At the daily firing event, a Jardines guard marches up to the site in uniform. The guard rings a bell to signal the end of the fore-noon watch, a practice which dates from the time when Jardines' main offices and warehouses were located at East Point. Then, the guard marches up to the Noonday Gun and fires it., after which he rings the bell again, locks the chain blocking access to the gun and goes off. It is accessed from a tunnel passing under Gloucester Road from the basement car park in The Excelsior hotel, which is operated by Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, a Jardines subsidiary.
Read more about this topic: Noonday Gun
Famous quotes containing the words tourist and/or attraction:
“The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“All seemingly profound thinking which passes for realism, because it conveniently does away with all troublesome principles, has a great attraction for the adolescent mind.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)