Day 3 was a big day! We walked to the closest metro station which was about a 10 minute walk away and took the metro to another island called Lantau Island. On this island we were going to go see the Big Buddha! This is/was the largest outdoor statue of a Buddha and can even be seen from Macau on a very clear day. Too bad we've had none of those since we left Shanghai. Anyways, once we got off the metro, some people sprinted through some fountains and then we made our way up the escalator to our next mode of transportation which would be cable cars! We had to wait in line for a while and while in line we were approached by some people who proceeded to tell us about a tour package they had. Vince helped us decide that taking up their offer was a good idea because it wasn't much more expensive for what they were offering. So, we paid, got some stickers put on us (the woman put my sticker straight on my arm instead of my t-shirt which i wasn't happy about) and conveniently moved up to the front of the line. We could choose between a normal cable car or a glass floor cable car for our 20 minute ride. Of course we picked the glass floors. Our group of 13 split into 2 cable cars and for the 20 minutes we just took in the beautiful surroundings. We could see the mountains, the ocean, the trees... it was gorgeous and picking cable cars with glass floors was definitely a great idea.
We got to the top where we rushed to meet our tour guide for the day - Andy. Andy was a funny guy. He whisked us into a van and we headed towards the old Tai-o fishing village. It was a really small and poor village where it would flood often. So, all the houses were built on stilts. This village sold some very interesting spices including very smelly anchovies and a smelly fruit called durian both of which Andy banned us from bringing back to the van. We also saw some very expensive dried fish stomach for sale. 43,000 RMB for dried fish stomach anyone? None of us were interested so we moved on to a temple where Andy informed us of some of the rituals observed. After that we were left for a while to take pictures and explore before we headed back to the van.
Next, we headed to the Po Lin Monastery. We were instructed to be very respectful and quiet in there. Also, we were forbidden from taking pictures of people praying because that meant we took their soul. The monastery had a few statues of the Buddha, not much. We were quickly done walking through there. Andy told us we could either go our own way and the see the Big Buddha and the go the Wisdom path or meet him at a certain time to go back. We decided to be on our own and said goodbye to Andy.
Before heading out to explore we decided to grab some lunch. Since, the monks in the monastery were pure vegetarians they decided to open a vegetarian restaurant by the monastery. We decided to eat there. The meal wasn't bad. After the meal, we climbed the 250 steps up to the Big Buddha. It was actually very beautiful and very big. There were 3 floors of exhibits and one original relic that was obtained from the Buddha when he died that was preserved in the museum. We hung around up there for a while taking pictures and taking in the scenery and enjoying the breeze. Going down the 250 steps was much faster than climbing them.
Next, we headed towards the Wisdom path which was in the shape of an 8 to symbolize infinity. There were trees split into half all along the path with sayings in Chinese written on them. Alvin tried explaining one of them to me. They sounded very wisdomous indeed. I did feel wiser after walking along the 8, however since I couldn't understand what was written on the pillars the wisdom I gained wore out by the end of the day. There was a hiking path close by and we walked on that and spent some time around there fooling around. We found a wild really cute puppy there and it was decided that it was one of our friends Bill's dog. So, obviously we named him Bill. We were sad that we couldn't take Bill back with us. Also, he hadn't quite mastered the art of going downhill or climbing up stairs yet.
We headed back towards our glass floor cable car and on the way back played the quiet game in our cable car. This game is guaranteed to make your 20 min cable car ride really fun especially if you have on person who is afraid of heights, one person who is very ticklish and one person who doesn't know how to play the quiet game. On the way back to the metro station we ran through the fountains again and got laughed at as usual. Just to clarify, we weren't the only ones running through the fountains there were some school kids as well. So, this wasn't us being loud and obnoxious.
We took the metro to the Avenue of Stars which is similar to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. We didn't recognize most of the celebrities names however we did recognize Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet Li :)
Vince wishes he was Jet Li
The Avenue of Stars is also where you can see beautiful Hong Kong Downtown and where the light show is. We walked around for an hour or so and waited for the light show. Light show started at 8, we came to the front by 7.40 ish to get good spots from which to see the light show. I think we were pretty successful in getting a good spot. The light show was good, not spectacular. I guess my expectations were higher, however the view more than made up for it.
After the light show, we headed back to Times Square to get dinner. We headed to a restaurant called Crystal Jade where Alex had made reservations for us. The food was pretty good. After dinner, keeping up with tradition, we found a bar to catch the soccer game. I think this was the USA game against Slovenia(?) when we thought USA made that 3rd goal we all jumped up and started cheering. However, it wasn't meant to be and we got laughed at yet again. That was all we did on Day 3 and my last full day in Hong Kong.
Day 4: Some people had flights in the morning and so we said good bye to them. The rest of us headed to Stanley Market which was on the side of the Hong Kong Island that we hadn't been to yet. The drive there was sooo beautiful. We drove by the water and it was so gorgeous. It was a clear day too and it was really hot. We shopped at Stanley market for a few hours and then headed to the water front. Some of the kids climbed on the rocks and got to the middle of the water. Alex and I, had to leave soon but we wanted to explore the central district before we had to leave. So we said good bye to the rest of the group and headed to the financial district which was basically the buildings we saw from the Avenue of Stars. We walked around for a while and got our favorite snack from Hong Kong for the last time which was peanut butter and condensed milk inside a waffle...yummmm. We walked back to our hotel and since it was such a hot day, we were soaked with sweat and very thankful for the hotels air conditioning.
We said our goodbyes to Hong Kong with a heavy heart and headed to the airport and back to Shanghai.
Stanley
Central District
Alex and her Waffle
Hong Kong is so beautiful and I really enjoyed myself there. It was only made better by the people I went with. Special thanks to Alex and Vince for helping me plan and figure stuff out.
My only regret was that we didn't actually celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival in Hong Kong. But, I will miss Hong Kong and I wish that I can go back some day :)
Nayana
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