Touring Lantau Island

Today was the first of two free days that we arranged in Hong Kong prior to travel into Mainland China. We spent most of our day traversing Lantau Island, home of the Hong Kong International Airport and Hong Kong Disneyland. But before we left for the tour, Ann Marie had to have some coffee....and guess where we found some? Yes, even in China you cannot escape Mr. Ray Kroc and his creation!

Our first stop of the day was at the Po Lin Monastery and Big Buddha on Lantau. Po Lin is one of Hong Kong's major Buddhist temples and Lantau's most popular attraction. The Buddha is the worlds largest seated, outdoor, bronze Buddha and is magnificent! We took a cab from the hotel to Pi Lin and the ride up was breathtaking, more for the scenery but second for the fact that roads are tight, buses are big and there is a huge road project underway on Lantau. After arriving at Po Lin we climbed to the top of the hill where the Buddha statue rests and observed some of the last remaining relics from the 84,000 pieces that were created when Buddha was cremated in 543 BCE. After the climb we retreated to the monastery and had a vegetarian lunch and viewed many of the holy areas in the compound.


After Po Lin we took another cab to Tia O, and old fishing village on the northwest coast of Lantau. We walked through the village markets and viewed many of the Chinese delicacies from the sea. Much of the catch is dried but there were many live fish, shrimp and eels for sale in the market.

Leaving Tia O we headed to Tung Chung but by this time everyone was getting pretty worn out by the travel so we returned to the hotel around 5:00 pm. A small dinner tonight and then straight to bed! We are touring downtown Hong Kong tomorrow so we want to be rested! Look for more posts tomorrow on Hong Kong, then Sunday morning we are off to Guangzhou for the real reason we can to China! Till then.....

Mike & Ann Marie