Our plan for today is to conquer Lantau (大屿山) by Sky, Land and Sea. After breakfast, we walked over to the cable car station and bought the
Ngong Ping (昂坪) 360 Day Passes. This pass consists of round trip cable car ride, unlimited bus rides under New Lantao Bus company and Tai-O boat excursion. We decided to follow its suggested itinerary. First we took a 30mins cable car ride from Tung Chung to Ngong Ping. There are 3 types of cabin, namely standard, private and crystal. We took the standard cabin as the crystal cabin, which is glass bottom, looks scary.
As the cable car slowly increased in altitude, Tracy started to get more and more nervous. She had all the while afraid of cable car ride. The higher we went, the stronger the wind was blowing. At one point, the wind was so strong that our cabin kept swinging from side to side. It was pretty scary
When we were near the mountain peak, we saw the cable car slowly went into the clouds one after another. It was really foggy. Once we were in the cloud, all we can see was a whole patch of white outside of our cabin.
Soon after, we reached Ngong Ping cable car terminal. The whole place was quite foggy. After we crossed a bridge from the terminal, we entered Ngong Ping village.
Occupying 1.5 hectares, this is a themed Chinese-style village and encapsulates the cultural integrity of Ngong Ping area. There are a wide range of restaurants featuring scrumptious Eastern and Western cuisines and souvenir shops with exquisite gifts.
At the centre of the village, there sits a Bodhi Tree, known of the Bo Tree. It is the "Tree of Awakening" under which Siddhartha meditated, eventually attaining Enlightenment and becoming Buddha.
Before heading to the Giant Buddha, we took a bus to Tai-O fishing village as suggested by the brochures. It's also a 30mins bus ride down the hill. We were finally out of the misty environment and reached Tai-O village. It's a traditionally fishing village, home to the Tanka people, a community of fisherfolk.
We then took the Tai O Boat excursion to enjoy the charming views of stilt houses built along the banks of Tai O's waterways.
The boat also took us out to the sea to observe the General's Rock (below). We were told that we could catch a glimpse of the Chinese Pink Dolphins if we were lucky. We did not have that luck. :(
After the boat excursion, we continued to explore the village.
There were many shops selling dried stuff such as salted fishes. Some even sells dried starfish and puffle fish.
As it was a hot day, we went into an aircon cafe to have some dessert. Jerlene loves the cold 豆花 while Javier enjoyed the braised chicken wings.
We spent about an hour exploring this village before taking the bus back to Ngong Ping village. Now it's time to walk towards the famous Giant Buddha on Lantau Island.
We were back to the foggy environment and as we arrived at a traditional Chinese arch, it's as though we were at a 仙境 (godly place). Not far from here, we reached the foot of a long flight of steps that leads to the Giant Buddha, which is the world's tallest, outdoor, seated bronze Buddha. It sits serenely atop Ngong Ping plateau amid spectacular mountain scenery.
Tracy and I took our time to walk up the steps slowly with a few rest points but Jerlene and Javier did not seem to feel tired. They could possibly ran up the steps in one go.
When we reached the top, we could only see the silhouette of the Giant Buddha. It was too foggy to have a clear view.
It was very windy up here and after walking one round, we decided to walked down since there wasn't much to see in this misty environment. Then we went to Po Lin Monastery (大雄宝殿), the largest of Hong Kong's Buddhist temple and a major point of pilgrimage for Hong Kong's Buddhists.
In a few days time, it will be the Buddha's birthday. There were many people who came here to bath the little Buddha, which is what Jerlene did below.
After spending sometimes here, we walked back to Ngong Ping village and visited some souvenir shops. We also had ice cream, which was included in our ticket price.
By around 4:30pm, we took the cable car back to Tung Chung terminal. On the way, we had a very clear bird's eye view of the Hong Kong airport.
Overall we had a pretty great time today.
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