Riddle #1 - how I solved it...

I'm going to try and be cryptic about this. Why? Well to not to take too much of my time or yours of course. Surely you're just interested in knowing how I resolved the mystery?

Well here goes...

What I was given

Not much of course, that's the whole idea... Here's where I started. Where in the world is/was the person who took the photograph below?

What do I see / recognise at first glance?

Well not much... With these kind of challenges for South African locations I often recognise the location or have a good hunch, which I can follow up. In this case

• ...the location looked foreign to me (as a South African)
• ...it also didn't look 'local' in terms of the clothing styles of the people in the photographs
• ...it seems as if it may be winter (northern hempisphere) as the people in the photograph are warmly dressed?
• ...it's clearly a city location, there's a high-rise building in the back
• ...it looks a little touristy
• ...it's a public plain or open space
• ...there's an elevated highway in the background
• ...there's a pole with lots of signage in the middle-ground, which may contain clues?
• ...the gentleman in the brown (leather?) jacket seems to be of chinese descent, but that doesn't mean too much. It's a city location and probably cosmopolitain.
• ...the gentleman's clothing however seems a bit 'hipster'-like, which made me wonder if it could be London or New York?

Can I view a higher resolution of the photograph?

As mentioned in the Riddle post on this blog, the challenge came to me on Google+ via +South Africa Travel Online , the original post being here. I was on my phone at the time and a bit limited in time and means. But...

• I clicked on the image to open it in a new tab and then zoomed as much as the image resolution allowed me to, which wasn't much. It's a pretty small image at 660x487 pixels.
• The first thing I wondered about is whether the soda next to the women was a Pepsi, which would confirm my hunch of this being a foreign location. Pepsi is virtually non-existent in South Africa. But the resolution was too low and I think the logo is turned away from the camera anyway.
• I tried to see if I could see a brand on what the lady was eating. It looks like chicken or fish, but once again the packaging she's holding in her hand didn't help me.
• Then I looked at the signage on the pole in the mid-ground behind her, but on my phone at least the writing thereon wasn't legible.
• But what I did pick up was a partial IMAX sign at the entrance to the building to the right and what seems to be a large movie poster on the exterior of the building further away, reading HUBBLE 3D.

• I also tried to figure out the pizza signage on the white wall in the back, but what I could make out wasn't enough to recognise a brand.
  
  (Update: +Philip Sterne were able to figure out that the white text between 'eat' and 'pizza' is 'love'. See his comment below this post. Once he pointed out that it was 'Love' I could also make that out in the photograph - but not before :-). Searching for IMAX + "Eat Love Pizza" would have added enough to the process to probably get you to the result quicker...)

IMAX theatres in New York or London showing "HUBBLE 3D"?

I was still on my phone, with my kids begging for attention, so I took a bit of a leap on this one. Combining the IMAX and HUBBLE poster with my hunch of the location perhaps being in New York or London, could I quickly solve the mystery?

As it turned out the answer was no. I opened Google Maps on my phone and searched for IMAX in New York and none of the satellite images seemed to confirm my hunch. The direct environs were either too built-up or the theatre was located inside a large mall. Most telling was that there were no noticeable elevated highways near any of these locations, as is the case in the photograph. See red square below.

• So even though a quick glance for the location of the IMAX Theatre at the London Science Museum didn't show up an elevate highway either, and I don't remember ever seeing any in London..., I decided that the LSM IMAX could still turn out to be correct and that I would follow it up in the evening. I had to spend time with my kids in the meanwhile. I said as much on Google+ and +Rob Baker (?) replied that I was on the right track, but it was not LSM. He did indicate that it was in an English speaking country.

I have another look at the photo on a large pc screen at home

So when I got home, finished my domestic duties, etc., I opened the Google+ post on my computer and viewed the image on a larger screen. I picked up something else, which unless the statement was outdated, I immediately realised may clinch the challenge for me. See the red square in the image below.

It's barely legible and rather faint, but to have a look at the content of the red square, right-click on the image and choose "open in new tab". You may have to zoom in a bit, in chrome you do that with Ctrl+'+'. I could clearly make out above the large 'IMAX' the words "The world's big...". Seems to be stating "The world's biggest IMAX"? Once again it wasn't clear enough to be 100% conclusive, but it seemed like a potential clincher.

So where is the world's biggest IMAX theatre?

I knew that finding out where the "world's biggest IMAX..." is couldn't be too difficult. Whether it was the world's biggest IMAX theatre or screen I did not know. But I duly googled for "the world's biggest IMAX". The very first result on Google's SERP solved the riddle, well I was 99% sure of it.

Why not a 100% sure? Well Sydney clearly has the biggest screen. But I don't know if the signage in the photograph referred to the screen size or the size of the theatre...

So how to confirm that Sydney is the answer?

I expected this bit to be easy, but it turned out to be more difficult than I expected. I went off to Google Maps and searched for "Sydney IMAX", zooming in a bit, with the satellite layer and 'labels' activated took me to this level...

Ok, so I found the Sydney IMAX and there are clearly elevated highways to the north and south of it. That's another piece of the puzzle falling into place. But the highways also obscure the direct surrounds of the theatre and it is difficult to tell if it fits with the picture in other ways.

So down to Google Street View level we go. Except that you cannot move around the theatre in Street View.  The closest point I could get to was here (see below) on the eastern side...

I've embedded that Street View position below, so you can look around yourself if you want:

View Larger Map

But basically, at first glance I got the following out of it - which isn't much:

The red ellipse and square in the image simply indicates two occurrences of the IMAX brand. I'd be very surprised to find otherwise. So I didn't learn much there.

So I went back to the original photograph and suddenly an element thereof, that went unnoticed before popped out at me - see below...

Looks familiar? Below the red squared building is again, from another (Street View) angle...

Well, that nailed it. I was 100% sure. But for fun I decided to verify one more element in the photograph - see below...

I wondered if I'd be able to id the skyscraper in the background, or would it be obscured. So I panned around from my Street View location previously indicated and saw this :-)

So that's it. Safely in the bag.