TRAVEL | THINGS TO DO | Sky 100 at ICC / March 14, 2018 by Jenn Chan

South African Wayde van Niekerk is the current Olympic champion and world record holder at the 400 metre dash with a time of 43.03 seconds. Coming in just under 17 slower, a respectable showing, is the bullet-fast elevator at the Sky100 Hong Kong Observation Deck. It covers the 393 metres to the top in 60 seconds flat. Take that Vin Diesel!

Once you exit the elevators into the 360 degree, floor-to-ceiling, glass-walled Sky100 the sheer elevation has been known to buckle some knees! On our visit a handful of tourists seemed more than happy to relax in the tables in the café noticeably avoiding approaching the glass for fear of plummeting to their death. Ya, it's high. Hong Kong is known for many things: delicious food, a bustling financial district, Disneyland, but with 7.3 million people living in an area the size of Vancouver, and its paltry 1.8 million people, there's got to be more of everything: cars, buses, planes, trains and factories. The result is smog. It plagues every major city on Earth and my beloved Hong Kong, sadly, is no exception. So what do you do when you run a multi millionaire business whose aim is to provide a view to its patrons when sometimes there just simply is no visibility? You install state-of-the-art virtual reality app and let people 3D their way around the view! I won't attempt to describe the effects, but, happily, on our visit the skies were clear and the views amazing! After a turn on the new virtual reality experience, hovering outside the windows of the Sky100, and a quick stop off at Café 100 by Ritz Carlton, the only establishment on Earth with the Ritz brand outside of their hotels, for some crêpes and a couple beers and we proceed on our photographer's dream walk. 2-3 laps around and 2-3 hours later with our cameras' memory cards full and our inner ears acclimated to Himalayan heights we descended the elevator. We'll be back I thought to myself. Probably every time we come to HK!

Words: Scott Allan
Photos: Jenn Chan

TRAVEL | THINGS TO DO | English Heritage Stonehenge / January 26, 2018 by Jenn Chan

Admittedly and, sadly, irrecoverably whilst I'm abroad in Europe I am at the mercy of my Global Positioning System (GPS). Satnav, if you're from these parts, but time, necessity and my own not-giving-a-mother-f'ing whaaaaa dictate that I'm not going to Google, or as Jalen Rose would say 'Goggle' "Satnav" to give that silly acronym any credence.

When you're prone in life whether it be: spiritually, financially or merely spatially your surroundings seem to push down on you from all sides trying to squeeze everything you have inside you outside of you. Satnav says you pop up out of this freeway on-ramp and when you're almost there your excitements mounts.

If Stonehenge is a term you recognise then Stonehenge is probably a place you put on your "to-do" list. That list that wanderlusters put, and rank, mostly mentally, the countries they can, will and must see. I'd put Stonehenge and it's pre-historic significance in my top five. It's a millennium old and it was made in that time where they didn't write everything down. Remains dictate Stonehenge started as a burial ground/ religious site and archeologists have found many remains to back up those facts. No one in this random enclave, in this unremarkable British countryside, has left word of their customs or intentions and it is all at once intriguing and remarkable. A puzzle which is insolvable and therefore there remains an appetite for the facts that is unquenchable.

For the first time in my life I saw a sign that warned "queues likely", but there it was. I thought "we have likely taken a wrong, dumb 'slip road' and now we're down a 20-minute-delay rabbit hole as we drive 10-20 miles in one direction and then flip the next roundabout and head back." Happily, this was not the case. The "likely" delay was, and will be when you visit, due to rubber-necking nincompoops who routinely drive past the 5,000 year old monument. If you're an office drone, à la Steve Carrell in the beloved American edition of The Office, maybe you slow to 5 MPH everyday, every week, on your commute to work and think about these Neolithic tribes traipsing across the countryside. Or maybe everyone sucks. Maybe when you're running late every freeway will have likely delays. If that's your mindset, I'm sorry... I love you, even as a stranger, and people still care.

When you're visiting a UNESCO Heritage Site you know there will be, at least, is going to be a vending machine. The commercial infrastructure is just there and, yes, there were several. AND a gigantic gift shop and delightful café/ bar. I partook, unabashedly, in a late afternoon Stonehenge Brewery lager. Twas good and twas adequately large so that when we boarded the shuttle out to the historic site of Stonehenge from the visitor centre I was still sipping it. A few pictures were snapped, Stonehenge lager in hand, of yours truly, astride the ruins. Whether this was once a religious centre, burial ground, community centre or just where the kids raved I did what I do; left no mark on the soil and only took the mark of the experience with me.

The Jenn Chan Photography blog is a viable, vibrant entity because of Jenn's humility and love of photography and not my narration, positions or hawkish entrepreneurism. The next time you're at the beach pick up a stone that looks about the size of your thigh. That's it. Everyone has a different sized thigh don't judge just grab it depending on your girth. I'd say definitely brace yourself. Get a wide stance and lift with your legs and not your back. Now picture that rock as the equivalent of 14,000 thigh sized, gargantuan pieces of stone laying in slabs 50 KM's away. What compelled these people? How many years did they study the stars before they calculated the exact angles where the sun on the longest day of summer and the shortest day of winter collide into its epicentre ? If you were left stranded for 100 years, be it on a beautiful, lush island or a cold tundra, could you ever make a device to send an email? Where would you start?

Words: Scott Allan
Photos: Jenn Chan

TRAVEL | THINGS TO DO | Tower of London / December 6, 2017 by Jenn Chan

In the game of thrones, read Medieval English isle, if you control the Tower of London you control the South. William the Conqueror started construction in 1066 and the signature White Tower was added in 1078. William was the son of a bachelor in Robert I, the King of Normandy. Jon Snow, of the hit, no, smash hit, tv show Game of Thrones, was also of unmarried parents. In my pragmatic, narrow, Canadian mind I will now, and forever, equate the Tower of London with Jon Snow. As an aside I had occasion today to visit the Guildford Castle in my newly adopted hometown. Love what you did with the garden Jon Snow! Intuition tells me William probably much preferred his monicker 'the Conqueror' over 'the Bastard' despite my admittedly perfunctory knowledge of the actual, boots-on-the-ground connotations of the label a millennium ago. An even further aside, my home country just turned 150 years old this year; happy birthday Canada!!

As we parked we could see the majestic Tower Bridge in the distance and the signature four towers of the Tower of London in the foreground as we unwittingly made the march many a headless man made from the execution grounds on Tower Hill to the gated fortress. Ushered into an ancient house and presented with media passes we bypassed the lines and, as luck would have it, merged seamlessly with a tour group being led by an enthusiastic Yeoman Warder. To be a warder, an educated and chivalrous tour guide and ambassador to the grounds, you must have served at least 22 years in the armed forces and have demonstrated exemplary conduct. They live in the gated castle with their families and undertake these hourly tours for which their enthusiasm and knowledge should be exulted!

Views across the mysterious and harrowing River Thames, ancients swords, suits of armour, reproductions of royal bedrooms, torture chambers and some delicious food and drink in the café. It sounds like a good day to me! You?

Words: Scott Allan
Photos: Jenn Chan