Cable Car Ride to the Giant Buddha Statue

Tian Tan Buddha

Today we visited another place on my wish list--the giant Buddha statue Tian Tan at the Po Lin Monastary on Lantau Island. The statue is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha and was erected in 1989. To get to the statue we took the MTR again (our last free day to do so) and rode the Ngong Ping 360 cable car. The cable car ride lasted 25 minutes each way. We had fantastic views of the airport, the mountains and Tung Chung Bay which we crossed. The weather has turned cooler in Hong Kong and we found ourselves getting a bit chilly on the ride but up at the top there was less wind and we were quite warm.

Nong Ping Village

The cable car ends at the Ngong Ping Village, a group of shops and tourist attractions, which we bypassed. After the village there is an area which is obviously being re-developed and following this we came to the stairway with over 200 steps leading up to the base of the statue. Jade decided to use her stopwatch to time how long it took us to get to the top. Jarrah made it in about 3 minutes. I stopped a couple of times on the way up and made it in 5. We all used our cameras to take quite a few photos. The kids are sharing the 'old' digital camera. They each have their own memory cards so that they can take ownership of their own photos. Paul took a few panoramic shots with the new video camera which he's getting the hang of.

After spending some time at the statue we walked back to the village and sat at a table to have the picnic lunch we'd brought--cheese and ham rolls. We are going to try not to eat two big meals a day because I think that's too much for us and also we can save some money if one of our meals is light. You have seen that I've written about us eating our own food for breakfast in our room. That's because our hotel in Hong Kong doesn't include breakfast with the cost of the room. That won't be the case in other cities. For now, though, it is nice to be able to stay in for breakfast.

Another observation about Hong Kong--Mandarin is becoming more and more prevalent here. Many if not most people seem to speak it. Announcements, such as those on the MTR and at Disneyland, use Mandarin as well as Cantonese and English. It is probably a requirement that anything 'official' uses Mandarin. On our second day here I tried to communicate with the housekeeping lady about the kids' foldaway bed. She didn't understand me when I used English so I then asked her in Mandarin if she spoke Mandarin and she enthustiastically replied that she did so I was able to get my message across to her that way, although there was some gesturing on my part due to vocabulary gaps. After 9 years of studying Chinese it's funny that I've never had to talk about household things like sheets and towels so I had no idea what the words for those things were!

We arrived back at the hotel at about 3 and Jade totally conked out. I think we've all been driving ourselves pretty hard.

Tonight we went out and had a look at some of the seasonal lights on the buildings nearby. It was very difficult to photograph them so they weren't blurry. Tomorrow we're off to the Stanley Market with the hope of finding winter jackets to use later in the trip.