Sumptuous Flavours: Lantau Island - Ngong Ping 360, Hong Kong

Lantau Island - Ngong Ping 360, Hong Kong

(15th March 2009 )

On our third day in Hong Kong, we decided to tour Lantau Island. At the ticket booth we opted and paid for the package deal which included the entrance ticket, to and fro cable car ride, set lunch for four at a designated Chinese restaurant and some shows and presentation at Ngong Ping Village.

The journey by cable car was really long indeed and I, being acrophobic, felt very uneasy being enclosed within the tiny cable car and suspended in mid-air for such a long time. It could have been one hour or even thirty minutes but to me it felt like an eternity before the cable car slowed down. It was such a great relief to me when it finally came to a standstill, heralding the beginning of our tour of Lantau Island.

We could see part of the sprawling Hong Kong International Airport from inside the cable car

The Po Lin monastery, seen from the air

At the Ngong Ping Piazza and Po Lin Monastery ...............

This is the public square where tourists stopped for rest and relaxation, where the washrooms are situated, where souvenir shops were doing brisk business, a few restaurants and a handful of street vendors selling an assortment of candied fruits spiked on a stick coated with what looked like crystallised honey or maltose

This one looked really sleepy and bored...........

Up on the Po Lin Monastery :

At the very top after climbing 268 steps is the statue of the Big Buddha or known as the Tian Tan Buddha in Chinese. It's well worth the effort to climb up to see the smiling and serene countenance of the statue of the Big Buddha.