World's Largest Sitting Buddha

Today we ventured to Hong Kong, a short 35 minute flight from Guangzhou.  We flew with another family that is taking the same route as us home. We woke up a little early, 5am to get going and be at the airport in time.  We had some trouble with luggage here.  We checked in just fine were a few pounds overweight with one bag, but no penalty.  Then some dude at another counter helping the other family with us decides my carry on, a standard carry on bag that had already been tagged as approved by our agent said no it needed to be checked and made a big deal about it.  He even tried to take our back packs saying they were too big. But we slid away silently, only to have to run away from him again when he showed up at our gate!  But we got there.  Sort of a pain since technically it was an international flight and we had to go through immigration and customs and all that crapola.  Took longer to do that than the flight did!  The flight was so short they gave us water and a snack cake before we even left the ground in Guangzhou! 

 

So we get to our hotel which is attached to the airport.  Very fancy, and modern.  Its the Regal Airport.  Our room is large and we have a king size bed I'm looking at longingly as I write this!  I ran down to the grill for some take out lunch and right away noticed they had a hockey game on the big screen!  Cool! Never thought I'd see that here!  Then in less than 30 seconds they went to commercial and it featured NHL stars and the first one shown, Rick Nash of Columbus! The next commercial was for the big ten network and was advertising an upcoming game between Ohio State and Penn State.  I figured I am in the right place!  So we had lunch got Lainey a nap and then met the other family who is at a different hotel for an excursion!  We met at the train station at a very fancy mall called City Gate.  Very busy and very modern american type of mall.  All high end stores like Burberry, Coach, and Kate Spade.  We took a cable car ride to Lantau Peak, the second highest mountain in Hong Kong.  At the top sits the Tian Tan Buddah, which was the world's largest outdoor sitting Buddha until 2007.  We saw the cable cars from the airport when we landed and just kind of stumbled our way there and found out about the Buddha later!  The cable car ride was great, giving great views of the bay and mountains.  There were clouds slowly rolling over the top of a nearby peak, very beautiful.  A great way to bookend the trip.  We had great blue skies in Beijing at the beginning.  When we came over the last mountain the Buddha came into view, and we were stunned!  On a clear day you can see it for miles.  Its 110 feet tall and sits at the top of 268 steps.  It was very impressive.  We all just kind of looked at each other and said wow, this is something we didn't expect at all, and were glad we didn't just pack it in and sit in the hotels.  There were a number of large cattle with rather big horns just wandering around with the pedestrians!  If I remember right they are sacred to the Buddhist faith?  The village of Ngong Ping sits at the top of the cable car.  Its a complete tourist trap, with starbucks and 7-eleven and all kinds of little gift shops.  Quite picturesque I must say.  We then took the cable car back down and had dinner at the McDonald's at the mall.  Went to the grocery store there and then ventured back here to the hotel for a bath for Lainey.  Christina and I came to the same opinion in the mall, the people are the same here.  They walk right in front of you without a care in the world, cut you off, stop, oyu name it and don't think a second thought.  Never an excuse me, pardon me, nothing.  Just comes across as so rude.  I know they are used to it and that's just the crowded culture here, I just really bite my tongue and try to go with the flow.   It all ends tomorrow when we board the big jet for the 14 hour flight home!