Hong Kong - Day 33 (3rd day in Hong Kong)

Today we decided to visit the Giant Buddha located on Lantau Island.  We had an early breakfast and then grabbed the metro out to the island.  The metro in Hong Kong is very easy to navigate.  Everything is in English and the different lines are marked in such a way that it is almost impossible to get lost.  Each subway line's station platforms have signs saying which number stop you are on the line.  If you want to go to a higher number stop, take the train on the left.  If you want a lower number stop, take the train on the right.  Very easy!

It is a long walk when you change subway lines, but at each exit is a number saying you are leaving via exit number such and such and this exit leads to the following major sites above ground.  Also, on the ground are large numbers saying subway number "A" is this way, and you just follow the numbers on the ground.

To get to Lantau Island we had to take the subway under our hotel to the last stop over on Hong Kong Island.  We then had to change lines and catch the line that takes you our past Hong Kong Disneyland and the airport.  After about 40 minutes, we arrived at the chairlifts that take you about to the Giant Buddha.

We bought our tickets for the chairlift, entrance fees and the buses on Lantau and then had about a half hour wait until the chairlifts opened.  Once they opened, we were on the lifts quickly.  The chairlifts get very, very high at one point but I was able to handle the height.  I imagine if someone was in the cab and wanted to walk around it thus rocking it a bit, I might have had a different opinion.

Well, the Giant Buddha is indeed giant.  It is supposedly that largest "seated" Buddha in the world.  We did not climb up the immense number of steep steps as we had heard that there is not much to see up there except for the view.  Since we had already had a spectacular view on the chairlift, we didn't see a need to exhaust ourselves.

Next to the Giant Buddha is the Po Lin Monastery.  We walked around a bit but didn't stop to have the vegetarian lunch the Monks provided.  The temple was beautiful inside and we were glad we had decided to come out all this way to see it.

We then took a local bus from the Giant Buddha to Tai O fishing village to see the houses on stilts.  The village gives an example of how fishing villages looked many years ago.  Very few of these kind of villages still exist.  Supposedly, there was going to be great seafood restaurants.

Well, the houses didn't disappoint but the seafood restaurants looked really bad, so we passed on those.  We spent an hour walking the lanes then grabbed a bus back to the pier.  I had thought it would be a quick bus ride but I hadn't realized it would take almost an hour to get there.  We saw a lot of the island and made many stops to pick up locals including monks.

Some fish sunning themselves!

We finally reached the pier and went to buy our ferry tickets.  We passed the below area and at first we thought it was someones collection of bicycles but realized they probably belonged to locals who had gone to Hong Kong to work or play for the day.

The ferry ride took another hour, so we were happy to see Central Pier come in to view which meant we were near home. 

We disembarked from the ferry and caught the local Star Ferry to our hotel.  Jeff looked wistful on ending his time with public transportation.