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Hong Kong's Jumbo Floating Restaurant, a famed but ageing tourist attraction that featured in multiple Cantonese and Hollywood films, was towed out of the city Tuesday after years of revitalisation efforts went nowhere.
The buoyant behemoth, which at 76 metres long could house 2,300 diners, set out shortly before noon from the southern Hong Kong Island typhoon shelter where it has sat for nearly half a century.
Designed like a Chinese imperial palace and once considered a must-see landmark, the restaurant drew visitors from Queen Elizabeth II to Tom Cruise, and featured in several films -- including Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion", about a deadly global pandemic.
The lavish restaurant's operators cited the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for finally closing its doors in March 2020, after around a decade of financial woes.
Restaurant owner Melco International Development announced last month that ahead of its licence expiration in June, Jumbo would leave Hong Kong and await a new operator at an undisclosed location.
Under overcast skies, a scattered group of onlookers gathered on the Aberdeen waterfront to see it be dragged away.
Watching the restaurant's ponderous progress across the shelter waters was Mr Wong, a 60-year-old man who told AFP he had come specially to see its departure.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220614-famed-hong-kong-floating-restaurant-towed-away-after-half-a-century