Lantau Island, Big Buddha, and Tai O fishing village, Hong Kong (part 3/3)

Out of all my excursions in Hong Kong, this was one of my favorite experiences except for one issue which I’m willing to overlook. I’m not a big fan of tour buses, but every now and then, it’s worth it. This was where Dominika and I split and decided to do our own thing, and meet up later. She didn’t like bus tours because of the type of crowds it attracted, and decided to go to Tai O on her own. It turned out that she was wrong and this tour had people of all ages and most of them were a lot of fun to hang out with. I befriended a twenty something year old named Jill, who was in Hong Kong for work, and who became my Facebook friend. The above pix is of the view of the Tung Chung Bay.

A van picked me up at my hotel, and later transferred a bunch of us to a big bus which traveled to downtown Tung Chung.

From there, the Ngong Ping cable car carried the passengers to Lantau Island. A few notes: When you go on a tour, you bypass long lines, cut to the front, and go straight into the Cable car. The group gets split because each car only allows a small group. So there is no problem of people squeezing together like sardines. And, I think, the tour is the only way they allow you to dine inside the Po Lin monastery.

  

The cable car arrived at the Ngong Ping Village.

North Lantau Country Park

Tian Tan Buddha aka Big Buddha – is a land mark, took twelve years to plan and build, and is the largest sitting outdoor Buddha. The right hand represents the compassion of the Buddha to save people from sufferings. The left hand that rests on the lap gives blessings and happiness. Our tour guide with the camera in the photo was pretty funny, and said the reason Buddha’s hands are like that is he’s saying stop with one hand and give me money with the other hand.

 

There are six celestial Bodhisattva statues. Similar to saints, they represent those who have reached enlightenment, but have delayed becoming Buddha and dedicated themselves to helping others.

There is an exhibition of the life of Buddha in the circular looking structure.

Views of mountains of Lantau Island

Po Lin Monastery – a Buddhist monastery founded in 1906 by three monks.

Lunch at Po Lin Monastery. They only serve vegan food which was music to my ears, but not so wonderful for all the people on the tour who were carnivores and starving. There was this extra-large ceramic looking Lazy-Susan in the center that guests could turn to choose the food they wanted. I wanted to take a photo, but they inhaled everything, were still hungry, and complained about the bland food. I thought the food was perfect.

Once we left The Big Buddha, we headed towards the Tai O fishing village. A bit of warning: do not go here at peak tourist hours or else you will experience something that many have never ever experienced.

So, I was calmly following my guide and the people on the tour when suddenly a massive, and I mean a maaaassssiiiivvvve number of Asians chatting in Chinese joined us. First off, the alley toward the bay is narrow, and perhaps fits five strangers comfortably in one row. Now, imagine hundreds of people smooshed, and when I say smooshed, your head is literally touching someone else’s head from both sides. It’s almost like several hundreds of people not walking, but shifting forward as a unit. Like if you were holding a hundred crayons in your hands and gliding it on a table is the best I can describe it. You cannot move, turn or bend. Even so, I was so tempted to push people, turn around and leave. This was the worst part of the tour. Later when I spoke with Dominika, she told me that she had a similar experience and took a four-hour nap after this excursion. I have to say that on the way back from the bay, maybe around 4:30/5 p.m., it was not so bad because the crowd had dispersed and I could actually visit some of the mom-and-pop shops.

On to the bay…another unexpected thing which was a bit odd at first, but I adapted. We were put on a tiny motorboat with way too many people to a point where they told everyone where to sit to balance the small space.

This motor boat was old, made a loud gurgling noise, and sat as though it was flush with the turbulent water. That is why my above mini video is shaking up and down and side to side. But this trip was so worth it. Watching dilapidated stilt homes took me back in time to the old China.

These friendly people were waving as I was taking their picture.

The Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge (HZMB), which links Mainland China to Hong Kong to Portuguese Macau, is the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. Before, the only way to visit Macau was by hydrofoil. The new bridge, consists of three bridges and an undersea tunnel. Macau residents and Hongkongers were not happy about it, because they thought that mainland China was exerting its power over the autonomous Portuguese Macau, and the former British Hong Kong. What’s interesting is when you look at the bridge from another angle, it looks as though it’s heading straight into the water.

I did a lot more things than the part one, two, and three series in this blog. These were just some of the highlights. My schedule was jam packed, and in fact, the night before my departure back to Japan, I was supposed to meet up with Dominika and Jill at the Mong Kok Ladies Market, but had to cancel. I had no energy left in me, and just crashed. For such a tiny Island, there is a ton of stuff to do in Hong Kong. I probably just touched the surface. Overly curious by nature, I love traveling and going deep into various cultures. I have learned over the years that I need to slow down, and to sometimes say no to that child within me who wants to run wild and do everything.

 

Hong Kong (part 1/3)

Hong Kong is a bit of a blur for me because just as I was learning about the Japanese culture and getting my bearings as to where everything was located, I had to fly over to Hong Kong. I did this because Hong Kong was only a 5-hour flight from Tokyo and I wasn’t sure when I would go to that side of the world again. Hong Kong is quite different from Japan. And no, I don’t have a photographic memory 😉; wish I did! I had to do research to recall some of the places I had visited.

I went there awhile back and was planning to write about it, but never got around to it. So, why now? Well, because China now owns Hong Kong and things are going to be much different. When I was there, people expressed their concerns about how things were going to change for the worse. Today, I don’t think they can discuss things as openly as they did back then. According to the Guardian, NGOs and bookshops are closing, media organizations are leaving and democracy activists are on trial.

Upon my late afternoon arrival, I looked out the window of my hotel room and noticed that all the buildings looked like gigantic long crayons. It was an eerie feeling to see so much forced to fit in a tiny space. I used to want to live there, but after my first day, I changed my mind. I left my hotel that evening, and decided to take a hop on and off tour, except I wasn’t planning to hop off. I just wanted to get the highlights of what I wanted to see. A big mistake!

If you’ve ever been on a hop on and off bus, they usually start at one point, go around a bunch of touristy as well as historical places, and come back to where it started. That was not the case for me. So, at some point the bus stopped, a woman came in and said that I had to change buses. So, I asked her if the other bus would also drop me at the station across from my hotel. She said yes. Well, it didn’t.The driver of the new bus was a mean grumpy guy who did speak English, but didn’t like foreigners. After a while, I realized that I had no idea where I was. So, I told him where I needed to be dropped off. He nodded, and dropped me off alright, but I was nowhere near my hotel as he had indicated. Imagine being in a country where you have zero knowledge of the language, it’s night time, the streets are packed with Hongkongers, Google map is loopy, you have no idea where you are, and no one speaks a word of English. Oh, yeah, don’t believe it for a minute that everyone speaks English in Hong Kong. Anyway, I was finally able to find my way back, but it was not an experience I would like to repeat.

After my first night there, everything went by smoothly and I met a lot of kind people. A few things: their subways are easy to follow and are clean. The buses running on rails look like a scene out of Harry Potter where the bus squeezes through cars. The traffic can be as horrendous as it is in Los Angles.

The food is amazingly good where ever you go, much better than any Chinese food I’ve ever had. I ordered the two veggie dishes and dumpling at a mall restaurant connected to my hotel. I have no idea what kind of vegetables were the long thingies, but they were yum.

I took the Kowloon food tour through Urban Adventures and TripAdvisor. Danny Fung was my knowledgeable tour guide, and we got along quite well. In fact, I ended up taking not only this food tour, but also two history tours. The carnivore in the picture, well…that’s another story. We did not mesh well. Danny took us through many Michelin star street food. But there was no way we could eat all that food. We ended giving most of it to him to take home.

One common thing they eat in Hong Kong is dessert soup. The above pix is of papaya, mango, and sesame ball soup. The sesame rounds were amazing.

After that, We also passed by some interesting buildings where people hanged their clothes outside their apartment to dry. Then we went to an outdoor market that sold everything from fruits and vegetables to specialty dried foods used as medicine.

The next day, I joined Danny’s tour to go to Pak Tsz Lane Park in central Hong Kong, located behind Hollywood Road. Tse Tsan-tai was an Australian Chinese revolutionary and a writer who wanted to get rid of the Qing dynasty. In the late 1800s, he, Yeung Ku-wan, and others, started the Furen Literary Society in Pak Tsz Lane, with the following principle: Ducit Amor Patriae: Love your country with all your heart. The Park was built to honor the Chinese revolution movements, and the Furen Literary Society.

The sculpture of a western man cutting the hair of a Chinese man is a symbol of freedom from Qing dynasty.

Principles of the Furen Literary Society etched in the pavement.

Site of Yeung Ku-wan’s assassination. He was killed by an agent from the Qing government.

Built in the late 1800s, Man Mo Temple is a landmark in Sheung Wan between central and western district of Hong Kong. It’s located on the Hollywood Road which used to be called Man Mo Temple street. Man and Mo are different deities. Man Cheong is the Taoist god of literature. Mo Tai is the god of war and fighting. This area has a melange of traditional and modern architecture that pulls you in and makes you want to stick around.

There are around 1275 trees like the one in the above pix in Hong Kong. These are cultural and historical Masonry Stone wall trees of Hong Kong that grow vertically on stone walls. They date back to pre-world war II and contribute to the island’s ecology. Most are Chinese Banyan or fig trees that help strengthen the old retaining walls, preventing landslides. However, for the past 17 years, some have been collapsing for various reasons such as vibrations from a close by construction or waste water. Residents are working towards protection and preservation of these trees.

Side Note: Taxis despise crossing the harbor between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. So, don’t even try or you will get a major attitude, plenty of yelling, and medusa stares during the entire ride. This happened to me once, and I learned to never ever ever do this again. If you need to go from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon, take the subway or the star ferry. I think the reason is taxis on Hong Kong Island do not know how to get around Kowloon and vice versa. Also, they have to pay the government some extra fees and they would have to come back with an empty taxi, losing a fare because not too many people do this. To calm down my driver, I paid double his fees plus the added toll fee, and apologized. Only then, I could get him to crack a tiny smile.