Noonday Gun

Since Monday, December 27th was a holiday and the office was closed, we headed over to the Noonday Gun. We first heard of it on the Geocaching website, since there's a virtual geocache there, but it's a famous place in Hong Kong history. The cannon itself is on land purchased by Jardines, a shipping company, in 1841. The story goes that Jardines' private militia would fire a salute when the head of the company would arrive in Hong Kong. Such a salute was supposed to be reserved for government officials and senior military officers, so Jardines was ordered, as punishment, to fire their little cannon at noon every day. During the occupation of Hong Kong by Japan beginning in 1941, the practice was discontinued, and the cannon disappeared, but in 1947 the Royal Navy donated a six-pound gun to replace it and the sound was again heard each day. 
We arrived a little before noon, and sure enough, there was a small crowd gathered. A dignified man in a military uniform solemnly marched to a bell, rang it twice, went to the cannon, held up the shell for everyone to see, loaded it, and pulled the trigger: BOOM! (it had explosives but no projectile) After ringing the bell again, the gates were unlocked and all of us were allowed in to tour the small area and get a close-up look at the old cannon.