Greetings from the Giant Buddha

I only had one goal while I was in Hong Kong, to go and see the Giant Buddha! One of the main reasons why it was my ONE goal was because I didn't have much knowledge about Asia, let alone Hong Kong. But after doing some research before I left Reno, I made the Giant Buddha a goal! Today was the day to accomplish that goal. After a great day on Saturday I was ready to have another one today! And boy was it! To get to the Buddha you have to take the tube (metro,underground,subway) to Lun Chung which is on Lantau Island (about 30 mins outside of Hong Kong) once you get there you have to take a gondola to Ngong Ping Park where the Buddha sits on top of the hill looking into the valley with its back to the water. We didn't get to Lantau island early enough so we had to stand in line for about 90 before we could get onto the gondola. The gondola ride was about 15 mins and overlooked some pretty impressive mountain sides. After about 10 mins of the gondola ride you are able to see Buddha sitting on the mountain. It is absolutely breath taking! Once you arrive you are in a very small Chinese like village. There are stairs that go right up to the Buddha which we climbed and enjoyed the beautiful view. After we hung out with Buddha we walked back down to the village and walked in the Po Lin Monastery. This again was a beautiful site, a lot of golden statues and a lot of people practicing their Buddhist beliefs around me. It was so nice to be up there because it was so quite, clean and peaceful, it was almost hard to turn around and go back into a busy bustling city, BUT we had more things to see so we had to leave.

Once we came down we took the tube to Kowloon (I really wanted to see the view of Hong Kong from Kowloon. We walked through the Temple Street Market where I was able to buy a couple of knock offs (I'm a pro at barginning!) We then proceeded to the Harbour. The view of Hong Kong was impressive but unfourtnately I was so tired that the glory of it all was overtaken by the throbbing on my feet!

I loved loved loved Hong Kong. If you ever get a chance to go, GO! You will not regret it! Not to mention, if you had more than 36hours you can hop on the ferry and be in Macau within 30 mins. Hong Kong has a buzz about it that makes you feel very safe and very organized. The transportation system, the people and the city itself is wonderful!