ICAC.

On Sunday me and my sister went to the ICAC Open House at their new headquaters building in North Point, and we both agreed that it was quite an experience. When we arrived at the place, it was 12 in the afternoon and we saw the guided tour schedule was full until 1.30pm. So initially we thought perhaps we could try get the 4.30pm slot so that we could go watch a movie or something and then come back. Little did we realise, after one and a half hours of queuing up, the slot that we got assigned to was the last slot of the day – 8.30pm! There was ample time for us to go home, have a nap, watch a bit of TV, have dinner with Dad and then come back out again!

After getting the tickets, we went to Tai Koo Shing for lunch at the Food Republic there. To be honest, I think it’s been quite a while since I last ate at a food court, and the food was quite impressive – not to mention it was very filling!

Sis had a Taiwanese-style minced meat and fried oyster rice set.

While I had this jumbo udon that I simply could not finish.

We headed back out and reached ICAC at about 8pm, and the guided tour began at 8.15pm. First we went to visit an exhibition hall with exhibits on past corruption cases, such as the Yue Tsui Court short-piling scandal, in which 2 buildings have to be demolished because the piles were shorter than required to hold up the buildings.

The measuring tape – more affectionately known as the “Magic Tape” – used in the Yue Tsui Court scandal, of which the section between 5m and 15m was apparently cut off, so after 5m the next point it jumped to was 15m – to try to prove that the piles were of the right length, even though it’s at least 10m off.

Then there was the account book of the then Deputy Police Commissioner Peter Godber. This guy apparently took HKD 4 million in bribes in the 1970s. 4 million HK dollars is still a lot of money now, so imagine how much it was worth 40 years ago.

Then a model of the Yau Ma Tei fruits distribution market, where you can find apples, oranges, brothels, gambling dens and drug dens all in the same place. Apparently policemen received bribes to cover up all the illegal things that were going on.

After the exhibition, there were also visits to other places within the building, such as:

A show of the firearms that the ICAC officers have used.

The witness identification room, in which the mirror is really a one-way mirror which allows the witness to see where the suspects are standing, but not the other way round.

The well-famed interview room, in which the triangle table is perhaps the sight of the day.

Then at the end of the whole tour, we were able to try out the famous ICAC coffee!

What is famous about the ICAC coffee is that when people mention that “ICAC is treating Mr. ABC coffee”, it means that this guy is being called in for investigation (and gets questioned in the interview room). For me and my sis, we certainly didn’t get treated to the coffee – we paid $10 each for the coffee!

On a sidenote, when I woke up on Sunday morning, it was extremely foggy and this is all I could see out of my window: