Walk of the Stars, Big Buddha, Stilt Houses and Pink Dolphins

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Walk of the Stars, Big Buddha, Stilt Houses and Pink Dolphins



We decided on a guided tour today because we could cover so much more territory and wanted to go to Lantau Island. We got up early, headed to the metro, swiped our Octopus card and hopped on the MTR headed to Fortress Hill station where we needed to find the City Garden Hotel by 7:45. We exited at Forest Hill amid all the folks heading to their offices, followed signs, took a wrong turn, found the raised pedestrian walkway, asked a direction or two and found the hotel.



A Grayline shuttle bus picked us up and took us to Kowloon where we joined a large bus full of people. Then, off to the Walk of the Stars along Victoria Harbor on Kowloon Island. This is very much like the Hollywood Walk of Stars with handprints in concrete of Chinese Movie Stars… we only knew a few including Jet Li and Bruce Lee. The sun was shining and the warm wind blowing as we walked along the waterfront looking at the stars names.



No tour would be complete without a stop at a store for shopping - 😉 and this one was no different. Our stop was at the exclusive TSL jewelry manufacturing company. The outside of the building looks terrible and in a manufacturing neighborhood for sure. However, once we stepped inside we were in a very beautiful upscale world. The company started in 1960 and they now have 60 stores in several Asian countries, but this is their headquarters here in Kowloon. We watched employees grading diamonds, sorting them, making jewelry casts and molds and saw several of the processes used to produce high quality, fine jewelry. Next we were ushered into a fabulous showroom with refreshments and lovely things to buy ;-) Everything from $36 platinum charms with your Chinese Zodiac animal to multimillion dollar diamond and jade necklaces and earrings. Cope was encouraging me to buy something for myself so the one item I wanted from the beginning of our trip, as a souvenir of our Asia experience, was a Chinese Zodiac Charm so what better place to get it.



After Leaving Kowloon we headed to Lantau Island. For Disney buffs this is where the smallest Disneyland in the world is, at Sunny Bay. But we weren’t headed there; we were going on a 2.5 mile cable car ride from sea level over two mountains in a glass bottom “crystal” cable car.



The views out to Hong Kong Airport, the Pearl River Basin and finally the South China Sea were spectacular. Cope really enjoyed the engineering and structural design and construction it took for this cable car to be built. Incredibly, we could see through the bottom of the cable car at trees, trees and more trees but if you looked closely, interwoven through the trees was a path that hikers can use to make the trek over the mountains from the sea to the final destination-the Big Buddha! We have no idea how long it would take to make the trek but you would need to be in GOOD shape ;-) We saw probably 2-3 dozen hikers on our way up and down.



As we got closer to our destination off to our right was an awesome sight as the gigantic Buddha came into view off in the distance. The Buddha is on the top of a mountain, facing east, and requires 260 steps to climb up to, unless, of course, you have a tour bus as we did!!! There is a complete village, with stores, the Lin Pu Monastery, restaurants, and an active Temple where Buddhist monks, along with lay people, were worshiping and working. In the monastery we had a fantastic vegetarian lunch provided as part of the tour-great food, and very healthy eating. No meats of any kind are allowed on the Temple grounds. Among many, many items, there were spring rolls, rice, won ton, and delicious cream of mushroom soup, vegetables and some delicious sugary dumplings for dessert.



The Big Buddha houses the memories of ancestors. There are thousands of 4 X 6 black and white photos of people’s ancestors. We were really glad we’d taken the tour as “normal tourists” (LOL) do not get to enter the Buddha. This Buddha is awe-inspiring and can be clearly seem for many, many miles across the Pearl River delta as the river joins the South China Sea.



This was a wonderful day in itself, but it turned out the best was yet to come. In the bus we headed down the mountain to the mouth of the Pearl River to the Tia O and went to a 200 year old fishing village here on Lantau-life is just as it has been for many generations, but with some modern fishing improvements. The families here have been catching fish and drying them for 2000 years. Their homes are on stilts in the delta. They sell the fish after drying. We walked by the fish vendors, some small souvenir shops which help support the local economy.



We boarded small boats, maybe 15 people, and toured the “water” streets with crumpled old, old houses and those which were a little nicer and newer. There were people sitting out at a couple of cafes. The homes are built on stilts right over the water just as they have been for hundreds of years.



The Captain headed the boat out into the delta and as he pushed the throttle forward we zoomed over the water toward the hundreds of anchored tanker ships. He cut back the engine and we just started idling around… although we thought this was nice, we couldn’t figure out why we were just sort of bobbing around ;-) then…all of a sudden… we saw the guide pointing out on the water-everyone started looking, we stared across the water but saw nothing… then someone said “dolphin” so we scanned some more, it took us a few minutes but lo and behold, we saw 3 PINK dolphins swimming along. PINK. Amazing! We didn’t even know there were pink ones. Officially they are called Chinese White Dolphins. What a sight to see pink dolphins!!! This was definitely the highlight of the day! When we got back to the hotel, the staff said we were very lucky to have seen them as many of their guest’s take special boats to see the dolphins, but aren’t lucky enough to see them.



Tomorrow: October 31, Last day in Hong Kong

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Photos

Year of the Dog
Charm

Ngong Ping 360
Crystal Cable Car

Tia O
Fishing Village on the Pearl River Delta

The Big Buddah
Above Ngong Ping Village

Pink Dolphin
picture credit: From the internet