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Published: June 30th 2006
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Big Buddha, Ngong Ping
A big hello from Big Buddha! Skyscrapers, temples, sunshine, shopping and nightlife, Hong Kong has it all! It's also the birthplace of our buddy Wai, "The Worthing Bear". This city of approximately 7 million people is a huge contrast to China. It has a big city feel to it not unlike London or New York. The people are exceptionally friendly, the accomodation is excellent and the choice of food is staggering!
After a 12 hour journey from Xiamen, we crossed the border into Hong Kong and promptly began driving on the other side of the road. The influence from the British is still everywhere to be seen in Hong Kong, from clear signposting, orderly queuing and British registration plates.
Our first stop was Lantau, an island off the coast, one hours journey by ferry. We missed the last bus and got there quite late so had to take a taxi to Ngong Ping, about 12 km from the ferry port. Our hostel, the SG Davis, was pretty basic and up the top of a hill. Since it was night time, we couldn't really see much so we were looking forward to the views in the daytime. We were not dissapointed the next morning, as towering
above us sat the Big Buddha, bestowing his blessing from his perch atop a nearby hill. The 220 tonne Big Buddha claims to be the largest outdoor seated Buddha in the world! Whether this claim is true or not, he's pretty stunning and you can see him from miles around. He looks out over the nearby Po Lin (Precious Lotus) monastery. The monastery is lovely to walk around, has no entrance fee and has lots of spots to sit and have a good think!
While staying on the island, we also visited the picturesque fishing village of Tai O, famous for its dried shrimp paste and stilt houses. We also set off at 4.30am from the hostel to climb Lantau Peak to view the sunrise. After a gruelling uphill climb in the heat (at 5am it was still baking!) we finally reached the 923m summit. It was fairly cloudy and misty so we had resigned ourselves to not seeing much. But just as we rounded the top from the western to the eastern side, the clouds parted and the sunrise was in perfect view for us. It only lasted for about 5 minutes but it was really worth the
effort to see the bay bathed in morning sunlight. It started raining then so we made a hasty retreat down the mountain for a cool shower!
Since the hostel on the island was fairly basic and there were no shops nearby to purchase grub we decided to head over to Hong Kong island for a few days. We found a lovely guesthouse in Causeway Bay and explored the city sights for a few days. Last Saturday we moved over to Kowloon on the mainland, to a small guesthouse (the Ah Shan) in Mong Kok. This was another great find, as the staff are amazingly friendly and it has loads of extras such as free internet, A/C, a fridge and clean drinking water (fairly handy when you are sweating away a few litres a day!!).
There's so much to see and do in Hong Kong that we couldn't cover it all but we managed to take in quite a bit. We got a super fast lift to the 42nd floor of the Central Plaza to enjoy a panoramic (and free) view of the harbour. We boarded the peak tram to the top of Victoria Peak which also offered fantastic
views of the harbour and surrounding city. We took a trip to Ocean Park and spent a day on rollercoasters, rides and viewing hundreds of species of fish, jellies and shark in the worlds largest aquarium. We dropped into the Hong Kong Museum of Art, wandered through the city markets and also managed to watch a few World Cup matches!
Overally, Hong Kong has been one of the highlights of our trip so far and certainly one of our best experiences in China. So, after 6 weeks of travelling around China, it's time to bid the country of 1.3 billion people goodbye. Since we spent so long here (well... in comparison to the other countries we have visited so far) we decided to jot down some of the high and lows of our time here.
So China, here's your best bits!
- Wearing your pyjamas on the street during the day. Why get dressed if you don't have to!
- Beijing's public toilet "star rating" system. I'm not peeing if it's less that a 4 star public loo!
- Flying kites
- Early morning Tai chi
- The ability to serve almost anything grilled on a stick.
Handy pointy food after a night in the pub!
- Piling about 10 tonnes onto the back of a bike, is there no limit to the load that Chinese bicycles can carry?
- Censorship and propaganda, bad news is no news in China. We all love the "One China" policy (ahem, don't we?)
- Chinglish! The best (or worst) translations I've ever seen. What the hell does "bottom sink type square" mean?
- Giant Pandas - Cute, lazy, sleepy and sadly, endangered.
- Day long chess games played out under the shade of a tree
And here's the not so good bits (well.... in our opinion anyway!)
- Spitting - There's 9 million spitters in Beijing, AND THAT'S A FACT Miss Melua!
- Staring - Did your mother never tell you it's rude to stare, take sneaky pictures of foreigners on your mobile phones and laugh and point at our big noses? It's 2006 lads!
- Split pants - Pampers should get in here and tap into the largest market for nappies in the world and put an end to baby street pooing. Sharpish!
- Bargaining for your lunch on an empty stomach. There are some times when
Patrick at the hostel in Lantau
SG Davis Hostel. Watch out for those hungry mosquitoes in the shower. bargaining is way too much hassle. Just gimme the bowl of noodles dammit!
- Slurping - this is borderline hot too! It's fun when you do it yourself but not so much fun when 65 million others are slurping away in unison on an overnight train to Xi'an.
- Jade musuems. Why is jade so interesting? What is there to learn about it? It's green and everyone has a jade bracelet. End of story.
- X-treme hawking. Following me up to the 28th turret on the Great Wall of China to attempt to make me buy a 2 kilo picture book on the history of China? Respect.
Any additions to this seasons hots and nots welcome!
So long China, and onto the land of the rising sun.. stay tuned.
ps Happy Birthday Wai!
pps Belated Edit: Happy Birthday Woolly and Wang Chuk
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John
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Hong Kong Fuey
Am loving the picture of Patrick cooling down, is that actually a full sized beach towel on his head? Good china: The novelty of using chopsticks Bad china: No forks! oh and the slave labour and killing of 100,000's of their own people Sounds like you guys are having a great time but it must be killing you not being able to do all that great shopping Catherine!