Lantau Island, China
I know I’ve been slack on my blogging the last couple of days! Here are some updates! Our flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok last night wasn’t long but was at a weird time over midnight. We didn’t get into the hotel until after 1:30 am – so my sleeping has been off and basically, if I sat down long enough to blog, I’d be asleep.
We ended Hong Kong with a day trip to the small highland town of Ngong Ping on Lantau Island – which is still part of Hong Kong, but well outside the bustle of the city. There was a cable car with a 360 degree view that takes you to the top of the mountain where the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha can be found. The town itself was pretty kitschy and though it was unique enough (lots of local artisans) not be a tourist trap – it was definitely less authentic than we had expected.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get many good photos on the cable car up as the weather took a turn for the worse and it started to get very foggy. We took shelter (hoping to wait out the rain) in a small theatre which (for approximately $5 USD) we were able to watch a short cartoon video about Siddhartha Gautama – the man who became Buddha. It was actually a very enlightening (pun, totally, intended) video. One thing we’ve noticed all over Hong Kong is that there is to where to sit. No sidewalk benches. No seats in the metro station. No resting areas at the mall. There weren’t even any seats in the movie theater just a little bar you could lean against while the movie played.
Once you exit the movie, you walk through a quiet meditation room with displays explaining the concepts of buddhism and5, then a gift shop with every kind of Buddha key chain and decor you could think of. We almost bought some things for our Wall of Travel (those of you who have been to our home may be wondering where the Wall of Travel is. Well, it’s in our hearts and under our bed in the guest bedroom, as we have not put it up yet).
Anyway, we did not buy any Buddha decor (and we were thankful for this later in Thailand, as you will read tomorrow). The weather did not improve and, in fact, it got worse just as we got within sight of the Buddha. Also our umbrella broke. And we got into an argument. Josh was mad at me because he had wanted to bring two umbrellas from home and I vetoed that packing choice. I was mad at him because I had wanted to pack our two light rain jackets in the backpack that morning and he had vetoed that backpacking choice.
We bought overpriced ponchos. I wore mine over my backpack. Josh told me I looked like a big white ball and called me Veruca from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I corrected him as it was actually Violet Beauregarde who turned into the big round blueberry and I shook my poncho rain run-off on him.
The poncho hoods impeded our peripheral vision and we went separate ways both thinking the other was following behind. I apologized to an old Chinese man next to the Buddha statue in a temple thinking it was Josh. When he didn’t say sorry back, I tee’d up another round of “accidental” poncho run off and turned around to find Josh was not in the temple with me. I went back outside and after a short search we found each other. Since absence makes the heart grow fonder and I like to think he also said sorry to an old Chinese man – we made up and went about the rest of our rainy day.
The Tian Tan Buddha is the largest sitting Buddha in the world. It was built in 1993 and is 112 feet tall. A 268 step walk up a narrow staircase is the only way to get to the statue. With the rain, we decided to forgo the walk up, as the stairs looked very slippery and the headline “American Woman Slides Down Wet Mountain, Takes Out Hundreds” seemed like a real possibility with my wet shoes and lack of peripheral vision and all.
We were too wet to gain entry into the Monastery and had planned to make a stop at the Tai O Fishing Village nearby, but all those activities were also outdoors and the rain didn’t appear to be easing up at all. Seeing no point in spending the extra money for a cable car ride back down since there was nothing to see through the fog – we took a bus down. The ride was a lot smoother than my last bus trip down a mountain – so there was that at least.
We got the airport a few hours earlier than planned but I wasn’t too mad because there were several different lounges we had access to and I spent some time tea sampling and noodle sampling and sleep sampling in the lounge chairs in the “relaxation/nap room”.
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