Our final full day in Hong Kong, who knows where the time went? We started early and boarded the metro system for a long old haul out towards the airport on Lantau Island to take the Ngiong Ping 360 gondolas to the middle of Lantau Island, a route previously only possible by bus taking upwards of 2 days. The gondola which we took head high up over the lush forests below, and we could see it all with the help of a glass bottomed gondola...it's our honeymoon so we had to upgrade to the Crystal version!
At the end of the roughly 20 minute ride is the Ngiong Ping village, the Big Buddha statue and the Po Lin monastery. The big Buddha is pretty much as stated, a structure/sculpture that dominates the skyline (well apart from the mountains) and the very hot climb up around 500 steps allowed us to see him close up quite a cool thing to see in real life! Then it was done to the Po Lin monastery for a poke around at the statues and altars, with many locals burning incense as a gift to the gods. We hopefully helped by purchasing the vegetarian lunch, which was very nice and plentiful but too many mushrooms for our liking. we were unable to confirm if the monks cooked it either, although we expect not probably too busy contemplating life and it's meaning!
We then started our long trek back to the City, stopping first at the xxxxx temple, a fascinatingly beautiful and interesting experience with incredible and intricate details on many of the buildings and the walled gardens spectacular. Well they were until we took one stop further on and we saw the xxxxx gardens which were truly fantastic, something really incredible to behold, especially with my green fingers. The centre piece was an ornate golden pagoda. Really full of eastern promise. We then visited the adjacent xxxx nunnery which was also ornate and great to see.
Despite the heat and the walking we took the metro back to Prince Edward and decided after our experience the night before we should take a look at some of the markets. in this area of Mong Kok, we took in the flower bird, fish and ladies markets, the last being for ladies as opposed to being able to buy ladies! However when we went for dinner later, another noodles number, there did look the opportunity to do so in some of the 'dance clubs' opposite.
After the last HK supper we decide to rush down to the waterfront on HK Island to get a position to watch the light show on the ICC accompanied. By music and facts from the App that Amanda managed to download. A bit underwhelming, but very clever how the lights projected a number of different moving images on the side of the building.
A quick visit to see the Lions guarding HSBC HQ and notably the one that was gun shot ridden following the war, and we headed back to Causeway Bay for a final time on the Tram to take in Hong Kong. A quiet walk through Victoria Park opposite the hotel to calm the senses and it was time for bed and packing for Bali.
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