Yesterday, Yao and I decided to head over to Lantau Island to see the giant Buddha and monastery. I’ve really enjoyed taking public transportation in Asia and it starts with the escalators.You think I’m kidding, but they are at least 30% faster than the ones in the U.S. Next, the subway trains are huge. I’m pretty sure you could fit a Mini Cooper in them. Lastly, unlike Bart, they subway is fast, clean and remarkably quiet.
Once you get to Lantau Island you can either take a bus or a cable car to the sites. These cable cars are similar to a skyline ride at a theme park and give you a great view of Tung Chung Bay and the mountainous terrain.
After 268 steps, we reached the 112′ bronze statue. Although the surrounding area looks traditional, the Buddha statue was actually constructed in 1993. After “donating” some money for some Mala beads, we took a look at the monastery and wisdom sticks. Neither of us left any wiser considering we couldn’t decipher the characters on the wooden monuments.
Tian Tan Buddha
We hadn’t eaten all day and decided to grab food at a local restaurant our Airbnb host recommended. We ended up ordering one of my favorite dishes and one that Hong Kong is well-known for, chow fun. I was pretty surprised that it tasted very similar to the chow fun you can get in the Sunset District in San Francisco. We were still hungry and decided to get some dim sum (main picture) around the corner from our room.
Eating chow fun. I’m getting better with chopsticks.
Later in the day we met up with some of Yao’s high school friends from Shangai. One of his friends, Grace, has an apartment in the Mid-Levels on Hong Kong island with a great view of the harbor. Yao had requested we go out for some Western Cantonese cuisine, so his friends brought us to Tai Ping Koon. They are famous for their Swiss sauce chicken wings that ironically, have nothing to do with Swiss food.
View of Hong Kong from Mid Levels
Yao and I ended our night by grabbing some drinks at a bar in LKF (Lan Kwai Fong), which is Hong Kong’s night life area. Unfortunately, it was a Wednesday night so not a lot was going on. As for today, it’s been more food and a flight to Shanghai.
Shelley
You got the “beef bolls”!