Ngong Ping 360 昂坪, Tian Tan Buddha 天壇大佛, & Tai O 大澳

Amar was not the only one visiting these sights for the first time. It was my first time as well! Like I mentioned in my previous post, I only had a week to settle in before starting my full-time position in Hong Kong which leaves me with little to no time to explore what this small metropolitan city has to offer. 

It was so exciting to be able to explore Hong Kong and share this experience with someone special. A lot of the days we spent relaxing and for him, absorbing into the culture. He can finally see for himself the major difference between China and Hong Kong.  

The first few spots we visited was the Big Buddha, also known as the Tian Tan Buddha in Lantau Island, which is easily accessible via the trusty MTR to Tung Chung.  

I think the tourism board in Hong Kong did a fantastic job in terms of directing tourists to the different attractions as it was really easy to follow the signs to where we need to go. Ngong Ping 360 is basically the gondola lift that connects Tung Chung (the area of the MTR station) to Lantau Island, home to the Big Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery. I don't remember what day of the week we went on but boy, was it busy! It was also a very nice day so everybody and their mommas were out. The lines extended all the way to the bottom of the escalators. 

We were finally able to purchase our tickets after nearly an hour wait. There are other ways of getting to Lantau Island via bus or.. hiking through the mountains (you'll see the trail soon enough). But the idea of riding in a cable car was far better than a bus at the time and by the time we realized the line was super long, we were already half way to the ticket booth. I believe it was HKD$150 for a round trip ticket and 10 or 15% off for HK residents. There's the option to ride in a crystal floor cable car or a standard one and being the cheapos that I am, of course we went with standard. But I wouldn't feel safe riding in a crystal floor cable car anyways since I'm terrified of heights. 

Very polluted but still a good view of Hong Kong! The ride was super long actually- around 25 minutes and we were able to spot the Hong Kong Airport. 

The trail below like I mentioned earlier. You can walk....

We made it! Once we arrived, there is a modern village area with different franchises like Honeymoon Dessert and when we walk further, there were little mom and pop booths selling souvenirs and post cards.

Big Buddha spotted!

Tian Tan Buddha/Big Buddha is a large statue of Buddha Amoghasiddhi and it symbolizes the relationship between man and nature, people and religion. It's named Tian Tan Buddha because it's based on a statue at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. It is also one of the five largest Buddha statues in China. (Information brought to you by Wikipedia.) Tourists have to climb 268 steps in order to reach the Buddha and we saw a cute old lady literally kneeling and praying at every step. 

The Buddha is surrounded by six smaller (but still big) bronze statues called "The Offerings of Six Devas" offering flowers, incense, lamp, ointment, fruit, and music to the Buddha and they symbolize charity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The essentials to reaching nirvana.

Although it was pretty humid the day we visited, we stayed for half an hour just admiring the sight and just looking at the Big Buddha is very calming. We headed back down the steps and to the bus terminal to continue our day in Tai O, a fishing village. The bus ride was really bumpy and crowded but we were able to find seats!

It was maybe a 15 minute ride to Tai O. It's quite interesting to see the fishing lifestyle as it's very different from the hustle and bustle of city life even though the fishing lifestyle is dying out. The village has a lot of huts and very old stilt houses. 

The first street food stand when entering Tai O, with a gigantic squid and super huge fish balls!

A peak inside someone's home..

Dried shark?

As we were walking towards the end of the shops of the village, we noticed a line and to our surprise, the line was for eggettes! Of course, we followed the crowd and waited in line for it. It's different than the eggettes in SF or anywhere in the US for all I know.. because they actually use real fire and charcoal to cook the eggettes giving it that extra crispy crunch. Mmmmm.

When we were walking back to take the bus back to the Big Buddha, we noticed all the dried salty fish-- out for drying! With all the flies... So this is why my grandma washes them before cooking.

We could have taken the bus straight back to Tung Chung for the MTR, but since we purchased the round trip ticket, we thought we couldn't waste the return trip. So therefore, we took the bus back to the Big Buddha and then ran to the cable car entrance (lots of people because it was close to sun down, everybody wanted to leave) to wait in line to head home.

Super pretty sight, even though you can barely see anything in the middle of all that pollution. The end to a very productive day Ü