Marc's favorite saying as of late is "Hong Kong is a high density adventure city. There is more adventures per square foot than anywhere else in the world." I think he may be on to something. Not only is HK an international finance center, fashion capital and architectural marvel, it is also home to gorgeous beaches and mountains. In fact, less than 25% of the land in Hong Kong is developed, while the rest is country parks with some great hiking and biking trails.
Aside from Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, where most of the natives reside, the New Territories encompass the rest of the SAR. The New Territories include rural mainland to the north of Kowloon, as well as the outlying islands other than Hong Kong Island. The 3 main outlying islands are Lantau, Cheung Chau and Lamma, each with its own personality.
We woke up last Saturday morning not knowing what we were going to do that day, until after breakfast Marc said, "Hey, why don't we go see the Big Buddha on Lantau?"
Lantau Island is home to the new Hong Kong International Airport, although to say that it is on the island is stretching the truth a bit as the land on which the airport sits is actually reclaimed land from the South China Sea. It's actually one of history's most insane construction projects. For more, read this:
About 84,000 people live on Lantau where you can get more space to live for your money but have to take a ferry, cab or metro to get to HK island. Lantau is, in a sense, a suburb of Hong Kong. The rest of the island is very mountainous and green, with great trails to go exploring.
To get to Lantau, you can take the metro or ferry and once on the island, you can pick your mode of transportation: cab, bus or the NGong Ping 360 (a recently built cable car that takes you up a mountain in 17 minutes instead of the 50 minute bus ride). We were very excited to do the metro/Ngong Ping combination until we got there and the Ngong Ping wasn't operating. Onward we went anyway.
At the top of one particular mountain lies Po Lin Monastery. Po Lin means peaceful lotus and once you enter the monastery, you can see why. On the grounds, you can see monks walking with their hands clasped and the Locals praying and lighting incense sticks. The ambiance is quiet and calming. Even a stray dog lazily stretches beneath a tree.
The bus ride up there, however, not so peaceful. Let me type you an excerpt from the guidebook: "The bus hurtles around hair-raising curves and up and down through lush countryside-not for the faint of heart." Luckily, I hadn't had lunch, so no dumpling tossing for me although if you go, I suggest my patented fasting technique should you need to take the bus up to the monastery.
Meat and alcohol are strictly prohibited on the monastery grounds, and the most famous place to eat on the island is the vegetarian canteen at the monastery. After reading about it no less than 3 times in my guidebook, I decided we needed to try this. Thankfully I had read about the process or else we might have starved. See, there are 2 tickets, the "basic" meal ticket and the "VIP" meal ticket. If you go VIP, you are served on china and, presumably get better service. However, we wanted to eat with the Locals, so we went "basic." According to Frommers, "the ordinary meal is served in an unadorned dining hall and the procedure is rather unceremonious, with huge dishes of vegetables, rice, and soup brought to communal tables. Grab a plastic bowl and chopsticks and help yourself. Packed with Chinese families, the dining hall here is certainly colorful." What they failed to mention is that #1 - you only get tea, no water or soda and #2 - the bowls you see on the table are all you get. So, when I asked for water, they brought me hot water for the tea.... mmm, not exactly what I meant. And when we were done with our soup, well we had to use the same bowls for the rice and veggies, so we just dumped the rest of the soup we didn't eat into our communal soup bowl. Not the most classy thing I've ever done, but thankfully we weren't escorted out of the dining hall.
We walked through the grounds of the monastery where we saw beautiful lanterns, irises, paintings of dragons and deities, and strange statues:
After we wandered around the monastery, it was time to tackle the Big Buddha. Literally, this is the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha in the world (I'd hate to see the bigger one that is doing the moonwalk in Mongolia), and there are 260 steps leading up to it. Must do some stretching:
Ha ha, ok, so it wasn't that bad, all that walking around has made my legs pretty strong. What was painful was stopping every 5 steps so that Marc could take a picture of his new-found favorite tree (some Chinese tree he'd never seen before) and Lantau Peak in the clouds. Thankfully the new memory chip on my camera can hold over 500 pictures and I can delete most of the pictures he took. Here is a great one that I didn't erase:
Once we got to the top, we found more than just the Big Buddha, there was also something called a "white relic" which has something to do with when Buddha left the earth passing into nirvana (yea, we didn't get it either but I'm sure we are going into the equivalent of Buddha hell). Even better were these lady statues making offerings to the Buddha:
Although it didn't rain on us, it was a pretty cloudy day and being so high, we were literally in the clouds. I guess they don't call it the monastery in the clouds for nothing. All in all, it was a great day and just another adventure in paradise.
Here's a quick video for your viewing enjoyment:
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