Hong Kong! (I)

My dad had a business trip in Hong Kong this week, and since my mom and I haven't been to HK since I was five, we decided to tag along and see the sights. I was really excited - HK is supposed to be a fantastic city for shopping and eating, which, needless to say, are two of my favourite things. The trip was actually really enjoyable - we visited some of the popular tourist spots, did some shopping, ate...a lot. One highlight was our trip to Lantau Island...

Visit to the Tian Tan Buddha in Lantau Island
The Tian Tan Buddha is this amazing giant bronze statue that sits on top of a mountain. I've seen a lot of large Buddha statues, and this is by far and away the most gorgeous of them all.To get to the Buddha, we had to climb 268 steps. Luckily they were just going straight up, instead of winding all over the mountain :) Apparently, the entire statue was planned out very carefully. The statue was based off of two famous Buddha statues (unfortunately I don't remember them right now) - and a plaster cast was designed and built to a smaller scale beforehand. Originally, the statue was to be set in steel, but after some trial runs, they decided to go with bronze and ended up casting 23 pieces, which were later transported up the mountain and assembled.

the trek up.
resting...
at the base of the lotus.
on the way up.
view from the top!

Right next door to the Tian Tan Buddha is the Po Lin Monastery, where we got a hearty vegetarian lunch. We had worked up quite an appetite from the climb up and our tour inside the exhibition halls.

at the visitor's canteen.
for just the two of us we had all this, plus a huge tureen of soup, and a pot of rice. gluttony.
after we were satiated, we walked around Po Lin Monastery.
you can see the statue wherever you go pretty much.

I have to admit though, the way to the statue and the monastery was kind of torturous. First, we took the MTR (HK subway) 40 minutes out to Tung Chung Station on Lantau Island. Then we waited over 20 minutes for a bus, which took around an hour and a half to traverse some really windy and narrow mountain roads to get to our stop. Half the bus looked ready to be sick at the end of the journey (myself included...yikes!) despite all the gorgeous scenery we got to admire on the way up. To avoid a second wave of nausea, my mom and I decided to take the much shorter, and much more scenic, cable car route.

the village from which the cable car leaves from.

floating above the mountains :)

in the car!
view of the city as we come in - and i didn't edit the colors or anything!

second last leg back to the subway station - which is closer to the airport than i thought!!