A Quick Trip to Hong Kong

The Regional office for Chris's company is in Hong Kong, so he's there often.  So, since he was going to be there for the week after Golden Week here in Shanghai, I decided to join him on Thursday, October 9, and stay until he returned on Monday, October 13.

This was my third trip to Hong Kong, so I wasn't desperate to see a lot of sights, but was very excited for our weekend plans to go to Disneyland Hong Kong and to visit the Giant Buddha.  I arrived on Thursday afternoon and mostly spent Thursday and Friday streaming videos with fast, unrestricted internet access and relaxing.  We went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse on Friday night, which was definitely a highlight of the trip.  The food was great, we even had a bloomin' onion, and it felt like we were in the U.S., at least for the length of the meal.  

The real fun was saved for Saturday, when we headed out to Disneyland and got there just about the time it opened.  Although it was a little weird to be at the park without the girls, we had a great time.  We're Disney people - heck, we went to Walt Disney World in Florida for our honeymoon and we've been to every Disney except Tokyo, so far.  We've taken the girls to WDW several times and are planning our next trip for Samantha's college graduation in May.  We went to Disneyland in California for Miranda's high school graduation.  We like Disney, even without the kids. 

Knowing that we're going to WDW in May, we also wanted to buy Hong Kong Disneyland-specific pins to trade (read, give away) when we're in Florida next spring.  Chris, in particular, really enjoys having pins from the far away parks to give away at other parks.  We're going to hunt up any we have left from Disneyland Paris before we go to Florida.  So, we bought quite a few new, fun pins during our day.

We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride several times, zapping as many aliens as possible, saw the Lion King show, and enjoyed Winnie the Pooh and It's a Small World without any kids to hide behind.  Then we decided to get in line to have our picture taken with some of the characters. 

In the U.S., this is very much a child-oriented process.  Although there are certainly adults who pose with Mickey, Daisy or Goofy on their own, the overwhelming majority of people in line are families with young kids.  Not so in Hong Kong.  We saw a few kids in line, but it was overwhelmingly adults who were waiting to take pictures of, and have their pictures taken with, the many Disney characters.  

We visited Disneyland Paris during the Halloween season one year and were impressed with the decoration and overall theme of the park for the season.  We visited a Universal park in Spain during Halloween as well and saw lots of Halloween decorations.  Even though we were in Hong Kong the second week of October, there wasn't much evidence of Halloween.  We posed with the characters in an area of the park where they were wearing Halloween costumes and we saw a few decorations, but hardly any.
We didn't stay for the evening parade or light show, so that may have contained more Halloween theme, but overall, this just isn't an Asian holiday.


We did enjoy a new area of the park built since we were last there, which contained Toy Story Land and Mystic Manor.  Most of the rides in Toy Story Land are targeted to young kids, but we were impressed with the cute construction of the whole land, including Tinker Toys and other Toy Story favorites.  And Mystic Manor was a lot of fun - similar to the Haunted Mansion ride at WDW, but it has a better story and was something new we hadn't seen before.  All in all, we had a great day, although our feet were sore and we were pretty exhausted by the time we got back to the hotel.

On Sunday, we took the subway back out to Lantau island to catch a cable car up into the mountains for an incredible view of Hong Kong, the surrounding wilderness and a visit to the world's largest seated outdoor bronze Buddha statue.  Fortunately, we were told by a couple of people to purchase our tickets for the cable car ahead of time, which I had done at our hotel on Friday.  The line to get on the cable car was nothing compared with the incredibly long line of people waiting to purchase tickets before getting in the line to get on the cable cars.  The ride is about 25 minutes to the top of the mountain and the views are wonderful.
 
While Hong Kong is a huge city with high rise buildings, a beautiful harbor, and several islands, it is set in beautiful mountains and has incredible hiking trails, bird-watching, and nature views.  While we were riding up the mountain the cable car, we could see people hiking up and down the trails below us.  Surprisingly enough, we shared the cable car with a young couple from Chicago.  Fortunately, Chris restrained himself after seeing the guy's Cubs shirt, so no punches were thrown.  :)
 
When we got to the end of the cable car ride, we entered Ngong Ping Village.  We were happy to find a cool spot to eat our Subway sandwiches and enjoy the beautiful breeze and temperature in the shade.  Chris was sorely tempted to stay in his comfortable seat in the village, but he finally marshaled himself to make the climb to the Giant Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery.

The village is filled with traditional tourist shops, massage centers, and restaurants.  It leads to the base of the steps to the Buddha and then on to the Monastery.  Along the walk, there are statues of the signs of the Chinese zodiac as well as flags and gardens.  The gateway to the Monastery is a bright what against the blue of the sky and the green of the mountains and we were lucky enough to be there on a beautiful, although slightly hazy, day, where the breeze offset the high, Hong Kong temperatures.
This was a good thing, as we had a long climb ahead of us. 

The Tian Tan Buddha is 112 feet tall and we climbed the 268 steps to get to the Lotus platform upon which the Buddha sits.  While I took my time getting to the top, the view was worth the work.  We had a great view of the cable cars climbing over the mountains, the village, the Monastery, and the rolling hills of the countryside.  Supposedly, the Buddha is able to be seen from Macao, but the day was not really clear enough for us to see very far.


After working our way back down the steps, we stopped for a water break and met an American mom sitting at the bottom with her one-week-old baby while the rest of her family climbed the stairs.  Brave lady.  After we caught our breath, we walked over to tour the Monastery.  We've also visited monasteries and temples in Thailand, and this temple seemed to be more tourist-oriented, with fewer people there for worship.  The buildings, however, were beautiful.  The entire compound is not very old, with the Buddha being built in the early 1990's and the Monastery, while founded in 1906, is housed in a very new-looking building.  They have created one of the most popular tourist sites in Hong Kong.  We had a great trip out to Lantau island for the day and enjoyed our cable car ride back to the bottom of the mountain.  We returned to our hotel, had a restful evening in and flew back to Shanghai the next morning.