Here are a few tilt shift photos that I’ve made from my recent trip up to Komtar Tower.  The view from the 60th floor was breath taking and provided a totally different perspective of Penang.  The day was also very cooperative with very little haze.  We could see as far as Butterworth BORR, Tg. Bungah, Penang Hill and Bayan Lepas.  Georgetown is still mostly covered by pre-war buildings.  High rise buildings are mostly found at the seafront like Gurney and the new Jelutong Expressway.  There is a sense of calmness viewing the city from the 60th floor, its the feeling that you get viewing a landscape or city from a mountain or a high location.  One can get lost in time dwelling at such locations. 

The Komtar Tower viewing platform was previously the Tower Restaurant.  Only in recent years, when the restaurant closes, this place was open up for public.  Sad to say, the place was poorly maintain with a few chairs and tables close to the windows, and the rest of the floor was empty.  This is far from KL tower nor those tower view abroad.  The good thing was that we were the only visitor there, we got the entire floor to our selves, unlike we have to fight for view in KL Tower or in Japan.  I believe the RM15 entrance fee may have contributed to the lack of traffic. 

Once arrive at the 60th floor, we were greeted by a friendly lady which sold us the tickets and gave us a bottle of water and two postcards each.  I guess this is the management’s lame way of making up for RM15 entrance fee.  The place looked liken an abandon empty building and it display the management’s lack of commitment to truly turn this into a tourist destination.  There is a vast potential for such a place, look at KL Tower for one, constant flow of tourist from abroad and locals as well.  When I was in Tokyo, their viewing tower was located at their City Council building as well and was also packed with local and foreign tourist.  If the management lack the will to make this tower a tourist destination with complete facility, maybe the building management should look into tendering this out to other companies that has interest, if not, at least run it as a state own non profit org. 

The place certainly lacks a few fundamental items that are a must have in such viewing facility.

1. A map of what you are looking at, with names of the famous buildings (located at each window plane)
2. A free view finder to get a closer look at the city
3. A few souvenir shops to remember Penang by. 
4. A restaurant for tourist to chill and get lost in time. 

Nevertheless, the view from up the tower was breath taking and provided plenty of opportunity for tilt shift photography or post processing tilt shift. 

On this day..

• Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-14 - 2009
• Internation Bloggers Day & appologies to Penang Bloggers! - 2005
• Rooms to let in Sg. Dua Penang - 2005
• This Morning - 2003