Day 6

Yay! Sunshine at last! Today we went to see the Buddha at Po Lin Monastery. It took us forever to get there- we decided to go by cable car via a newly built village called Ngong Ping. Unfortunately everyone else decided to go this way too! We queued for an hour to get on the cable cars, Jo and Theresa came later in the day and they queued for 2 and a half hours! The view from the cars was amazing though! And, amazingly Dad didn't panic one bit even though we could have been smashed to bits if the cable cars fell. Haha. I didn't tell him before we went on but the reason they closed before was because a car fell down- luckily with nobody inside!

It was a beautiful day- very sunny- but verrrry cold. I think they said it was about 3 degrees!! We got loads of good pictures. Which are up on flickr now. After we climbed to and from the Buddha we stopped for lunch. Nothing exciting today, just pasta from Euro Go Go. We also walked around some of the gift shops too, but they didn't have anything original.

I left Mum, Dad and Katy at the MTR station and decided to get a taxi back to the ferry pier. For some reason nobody understood where I wanted to go, even though Jo and me have done this several times. I finally got in a taxi and the driver said he knew where the ferry pier was. He starts driving and then gets me to speak to someone on the phone- he obviously didn't know where he was going so wanted someone to interpret- so I told them "Ferry to Tuen Mun. Ferry pier please" and they said OK and told that to the taxi driver. I'm sitting there perfectly happy when I notice he takes the wrong exit at the roundabout. Maybe he's going a different way? I wasn't concerned until he gets onto the motorway- the ferry pier is literally down the road not down the motorway. The meter is running of course and it's up to $45... I panic a bit now so I phone my friend Sam ("I don't know where he's going!! Help me!") and get him to speak to the taxi driver (in Cantonese). So now he knows where he is going. Apparently he thought I wanted to go to the ferry to Wan Chai! He turns around and I finally get to the ferry pier and he only goes and charges me $75 for what should have been a $20 journey and it wasn't even my fault! Grrr!!!

That evening I have dinner with Sam at a really cheap and cheerful place called "Relax For A While." I had very tasty roast pork and rice. Yum! I like having dinner with more local people cause they know all the good, cheap restaurants and stuff. And they can order and understand the waiters hehe. I took my parents to the same place yesterday and they liked it too! I did a bit of window shopping with Sam, then went home to bed. The End hehe.

Buddha

So this is the Buddha. It is pretty big. It's on Lantau Island so we caught a ferry from Tuen Mun and then caught a bus to Ngong Ping. The bus journey is a little bumpy and so sloooow. Most of the way there is only one lane for traffic, so we were constantly stopping. When we eventually got there (an hour later) we headed straight for the monastery. As you can see above there are a lot of steps up to the Buddha. While we were at the bottom this Chinese man starts jabbering at me and Jo in Chinese. He thrusts his camera at Jo and grabs my hand. I was err...slightly startled to say the least. Then he gives the camera to me and goes and stands next to Jo. Instead of holding Jo's hand he leans his head in towards her, resting on her shoulder. Haha- served Jo right for laughing at me :p So now some random Chinese guy has pictures of us! We made the climb to the top whilst trying to get as many pictures as we could. It was such a nice day but because it was late afternoon the Sun was behind the Buddha meaning we couldn't really get any clear pictures of it. Most of mine look like silhouettes.

The view from the top is spectacular:

There are cablecars from Tung Chung (the town where the Ferry docks) but they've been closed for quite a few months. There was quite a bit of trouble with them apparently but it would have been great to be able to get to Ngong Ping on them- the views really are amazing!

I don't really know what to tell you about the Buddha. It's big and it's bronze. It sits on top of a building that is filled with offerings. On the walls there are memorial tiles. There are a few gift shops inside too selling little Buddha statues, gem bracelets, keyrings and postcards. There's a part which you have to pay to get in so I don't know what is in there. Maybe if I were Buddhist I'd be slightly more interested in it.

In Tung Chung there is a nice shopping mall with a cinema, restaurants and loads of outlet shops. There's a hotel too which probably has very nice views. I think it is the main town centre. Yesterday we went to the big Taste supermarket they have there. Taste is a shop which imports a load of stuff so we bought Marmite, Walkers crisps, Bisto gravy and cheese. Cheese is so expensive! Some of it was $100/lb. We bought a small block of New Zealand cheddar which is OK I guess...I miss good British mature chedder though. How about for Christmas someone?! We used some of the cheese today, along with the gravy, for our cheesy mash and veg dinner. Ultimate student meal haha!

One more week until the 180 retreat! I'm just a little bit excited hehe. I hope this week goes quicker.

Lantau

Today we made a trip to Lantau and, as you can see, went to the Po Lin Monastery to see the Tian Tan Buddha. Was good. There's lots of pictures up at my Flickr account. Go see!