I recently saw a car advertisement where the first thing I noticed wasn’t the car, but the backdrop. I swear it was somewhere in Hong Kong, but I couldn’t quite pick the location. So where could it be?
Time to start digging
I initially got Kennedy Town vibes.
Or Quarry Bay.
Definitely somewhere residential, with twisting roads up the hillsides looking down on a mix of residential towers, and not a New Town down at sea level.
The foothills of Kowloon around Wong Tai Sin was my other guess.
But after scanning around Google Earth for some time, I couldn’t find anything that matched.
A clue
These tall buildings looked rather distinctive.
So I headed over to Wikipedia’s list of tallest buildings in Hong Kong.
And I got lucky on entry #99 – ‘The Pacifica‘ in Lai Chi Kok was a match.
Exploringlife photo via Wikimedia Commons
I headed back onto Google Earth, and discovered Lai Chi Kok was right where Google’s 3D scanned buildings cut out. 😂
Google Earth
But the problem was actually at my end – turns out Google does cover it, but bad internet meant the page didn’t load the first time around.
Google Earth
Once I’d orientated the buildings in Google Earth to match the photo, I followed the terrain backwards until I noticed this loopy road hanging off the side of a hill.
Google Earth
Switching to Google Street View, I found it was a driveway leading to the ‘Villa Carlton’ development at 363 Tai Po Road, Cheung Sha Wan.
Google Street View
There’s another photo of this loop ramp over at the Gwulo website.
Unfortunately Google Street View doesn’t actually go down the driveway.
Google Street View
But it looks like the same spot to me.
Especially in the extra angles I found from the same photo shoot.
Definitely the same looping ramp.
Footnote – more Hong Kong locations!
I looks like the marketing team for the Polestar 2 electric car spent some time in Hong Kong.
Visiting Des Voeux Road Central.
This very familiar elevated road that I’m unable to pinpoint.
And this ‘generic’ freeway shot that just screams Hong Kong.
Any takers for finding the location of the last two photos? 😉
The first one is Wong Chuk Hang
https://goo.gl/maps/y9q6Y3DQ69pFvhH37
Thanks!
Turns out I actually walked right past there on my 2019 visit to Hong Kong – on the way to a cake shop called ‘Baking Maniac’, but they were closed for the day. 🙁
https://bakingmaniachk.com/
Unfortunately the photos from my visit are facing in the other direction. 😂
I think photo 2 is probably somewhere along the Hung Hom Bypass, but there isn’t a good angle on google maps images.
https://goo.gl/maps/fc1wQdg7Q5LDzSzS7
Nice work – the building in the background matches ‘Royal Peninsula’ at Hung Hom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Peninsula
I suspect the compressed backdrop in the TV commercial was thanks to a telephoto lens, possibly shot from the footbridge to the south of the Hung Hom Bypass.