Jardine House locates at Central, opposite to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

The owner, Jardine, is a Scottish company.  It was an opium trader.  It sold Opium to China and caused the Opium War, which turned Hong Kong a British colony.  So Jardine is very important to Hong Kong’s history.

Jardine then became the major landlord of Central.  It spent the unprecedented 248 million HKD purchasing the land and just used 16 months to build the first skyscrapers, Jardine House, in Hong Kong in 1973.  The 52-story building was the tallest building in Hong Kong and even Asia in the 1970s.  Today, the building is just a little baby!

The building has about 1700 circular windows.  The round "moon gate" windows hold an honoured place in Chinese architectural tradition and offer beautiful views of Victoria Harbour and The Peak.

Want to have walking tour in Central? Just call Frank the tour guide.

在中環文華東方酒店對面，有一座白色的、有著許多圓窗的建築物，它就是以前叫康樂大廈的怡和大廈了。

怡和大廈曾保持的多項紀錄如下：

最高地價紀錄，為二億四千八百萬。最快完工紀錄，工人用十六個月就完成五十二層的大廈。香港及亞洲最高的樓宇。

可是這些都是1970年代的舊紀錄了，現在怡和大廈只是一個長不大的小朋友，在高度上已無法和其他高聳入雲的大廈相比了！

那些圓窗卻仍值一提，共有1748個，功用是減輕大廈的重量，一個又一個「月洞門」也是怡和大廈外形的主要賣點！

想到中環逛逛，知道更多古蹟和高樓的故事嗎?可和導遊阿亮聯絡。