Tuesday, October 4 – Hong Kong

Hong Kong.  Totally on our own in Hong Kong today so we needed to get oriented! At breakfast our waiter enquired about our plans. We told him that if the cable cars were running, we’d like to see the Giant Buddha, so he offered to find out. When he confirmed that they were running, he gave us ver clear directions, so off we went on the subway – smooth as silk. It’s a great system, easy to understand and navigate. It took close to an hour, but we got there. Then we plunged into confusion – do we have to buy tickets at the entrance to the line-up or can we join it with not tickets?? What are all these weird other options like Crystal Carriage, Fishing Villages? Yikes! Do we need cash for yet another ticket? And do we have enough HK$. An hour or so in line with no answers, eventually at the next ticket booth we had to exchange the tickets we’d bought for other ones and found that for what we wanted to do that was all we needed. Phew! It was a short wait for the cable car (much longer for those who took the “Crystal Option” (i.e. glass floor in gondola) and then magnificent views for about 30 minutes as we made our way to the peak on Lantau Island. For the last 8 minutes or so we could see the Buddha looming.
It’s quite beautiful, and huge. We walked through the village – which bore some resemblance to a midway – and looked up at the Buddha from the foot of the path (which we didn’t climb) then toured the temple adjacent to it. By then it was time for a late lunch so we got a submarine sandwich (yes a regular “Subway”) and some gelato.
Then we caught a bus back to the subway station – a precipitous ride. We took the subway to Central Hong Kong and then walked to the big escalator, which we rode up a many levels to Soho. By then we needed to stop for a drink before we walked on overhead walkways back to the Star ferry terminal, onto a boat and back to Kowloon.
We walked to our hotel (Marco Polo Gateway) through the vast Harbour City shopping centre. We ran into a couple from Leads England whom we’d met yesterday on our tour. They’d been to old HK and found it a big contrast to where we were standing in Harbour City then a bit of down time.
We had a drink and snacks in the Club Lounge of the hotel (nice to be pampered), then strolled to the waterfront to watch the symphony of lights. It’s interesting, but not spectacular. Fun to be out with the crowds, though. We wandered around the streets and through the complex, looking for somewhere to get a very light snack, and finally settled on a little café. Then back to our room for our last night. A Really good day!

Photos 4 Oct