Wednesday November 15, 2006

Hong Kong Holiday Day two - Lantau Island

There are many things I remember about Hong Kong that have not changed, the bamboo scaffolding used on all building projects, the endless building work going on you are never far from roadworks or a new building going up. Since the relocation of the airport Kowloon is seeing a lot more building going on and with the old airport closed the height restrictions are being lifted for new buildings. The other thing is the trollies used to move things around the streets carrying all sorts of things. Instrad of lorries stopping at every place these delivery men do the final drop off using these trollies. Our next visit was back to the island of Lantau. We took the MTR to Lai King and then on the Tung Chung line to that town on Lantau. Just before our stop we stopped at the interchange for the Disneyresort. I noticed one of the trains going to the resort with Mickey mouse shaped windows. At Tung Chung we went on the newly opened Ngong Ping 360 skyrail - a gondola journey to Ngong Ping where an artificial village has been built for tourists. You got some amazing views on route, first of the new airport then Lantau itself with its green hills. The village itself was not very interesting but it is sited near the Big Buddah who sits high up on a hill overlooking all.

Inside the building that supports the Big Buddah there are old documents and on the wall a series of ceramic tiles each twenty five millimetres wide which looked like memorials of folks who have died some had pictures on them. Admission to visit this site also includes a vegetarian meal at the monastery at the base of the Buddah. We went and saw this next and in one of the buildings a service was going on which was being relayed by speakers to the entire site. No photos were allowed inside the temples where statues looked down onto you; the base of which were offerings of food etc. Large sticks of incense were buring outside and in the temples were conical spirals of incence sticks burning too. A furnace was having coloured sacks thrown into it another offering perhaps.

We had our meal which was quite edible. We then followed a trail to the Wisdom path which went past a place where people were growing plants and flowers for the monastery. The words of wisdon are on tall planks of wood set into the ground.

The backdrop was of the lovely Lantau peak where you can get excellent views at sunset. On the way back we found an underground walkway which comes out near our hotel. Its main job was to link the MTR underground station to a KCR rail system near us. This meant we could avoid the tailors and dodgy watch salesman whom we met when strolling along the pavements. The tailors were smartly dressed so we could spot them - the copy watch folks were usually in jeans. In Central the pedestrian system is one story above the road and is quite extensive - if poorly signed however. More tomorrow.