Today I went to Lantau Island to visit the world's largest Buddha. Bronze Buddha. Sorry, sitting bronze Buddha. What? Oh, sorry, world's largest outdoor, sitting, bronze Buddha. Anyway, list of caveats aside, the statue was still pretty awesome. I left fairly early in order to beat the crowds, something I feel that I more-or-less achieved given the liiiiiiiines waiting to get onto the cable car when I was coming back.
It was still super crowded of course, but that's Hong Kong. Actually, that's China in general. It's a big space, but it's kind of hard to share anything with a billion or so people comfortably. Funny thing about that is that it's pretty easy to tell the Mainland Chinese from the Honkies when it comes to crowds. I'm currently building a portfolio of photos with the working title of 'lines lines lines!' because it's pretty much mandatory to line for everything in Hong Kong. It's like a national pass time here. Mainland China, not so much. It's more like American Football without the rules, stoppage time or importantly, the armour when trying to get into or exit just about anything over there. So, effectively what happens in long lines is everyone lines up in an orderly fashion, then when you get to about the halfway mark, you start to see pockets of people completely lose their shit. They argue with one another, swing their heads back & forth to see what could be taking so long, & occasionally & with hilarious results, burst out of the line & head off in all sorts of directions to try to get a ticket to whatever it is we're all waiting for while bellowing at the orderlies. That usually ends awesomely.
Digression. Sorry, photos. Yep, so this was my morning. Aside from the fact that it's clearly a gigantic money spinner & there's shops & crap everywhere, Lantau was kind of cool for a tourist trap. Enjoy:
Took the 'Crystal Cabin' on the cable car, which is (obviously) the glass bottomed deluxe model.
First(ish) glimpse of Buddha from the cable car.
Now, this I've got something to say about. Those jerks charged me $180 HK for a pot of freaking tea. It was good tea, don't get me wrong, but I'm a bit cranky at getting stooged in Ngong Ping village. I hate falling for tourist shit, makes me feel like...well, a tourist really. So this village was full of very 'Chinese' stuff like chopsticks with calligraphy on them, tea, fans, etc. Pretty much Sovereign Hill for Buddhist China. Dammit. I hate being that guy...I sucked at this point...
Oh well, Buddha made me feel better. This is actually a fair few stairs. I saw a couple of potential heart attack candidates at the top panting like crazy.
Big Buddha against a clear sky.
There's six statues holding offerings to Buddha. Also bronze.
Gives you some idea of how terrifying the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man really was for the Ghostbusters.
Who dat?
Hi fi'e
Gah! Cable cars!
Shot of the cable car line against HK airport.
Lantau's main city, Tung Chung. Credit where credit's due: These guys do not screw around with National Parks. There isn't a huge many people on this island but they've gone straight for the über high-density residential zoning.
Now, these fisherman are stopped right under the cable cars...the glass bottomed cable cars...come on gents, use the Internet like normal people...
Oh & one last thing. I saw a dude have a fit on the train today. That was kind of freaky. Everyone leapt into action though. Talk about grace under pressure. If that had happened in Melbourne, everyone would've just stared, but not in HK. Old old man was down ferrying people, two dudes were on their phones, a young guy cranked the emergency intercom & handed over the speaking job to the oldest guy present. Efficiency. I hope that kid's okay, his head smacked the deck pretty hard. I'm sure there's someone looking after him though. Seems to be that kind of place.
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