Since I got so far behind in Taiwan by not posting daily I’m going to try to avoid that here. Which means I don’t know when I’ll catch up on Taiwan, but I will sooner or later.
Today I took the trolley to Hong Kong Central station. The trolleys here are a great value. Each trip runs 2.30HK, or about 35 cents US. They run the length of the island and get you to almost any metro (subway) station you could want. I rode the length of the orange line, the Tung Chung line, to reach the Ngong Ping aerial tram. The subway ride ran 22.30HK, or about $3.50 US each way. I know it’s cheaper if you buy their special card, whatever it’s called, but I don’t know that I would use it enough to make it worthwhile.
The trip was quick, quiet and uneventful, even peaceful. I did get a laugh when I reached the spur line that runs out to HK Disneyland. Yep, Disney has it’s own MRT line here. Not just their own line either, they also have their own special train where all the windows in each car are shaped like Mickey’s head and all the cars are painted dark blue with white stars all over them. Cute.
Anyway, next stop the Ngong Ping 360. Turns out the whole thing is run by some big HK tour company that pushes its tour packages all the way up the line from the time you get in line to buy the tram tickets until the time you manage to escape with any of you wallet intact. All the shops above and below are owned by the company and staff by earnest young people dressed in the company’s signature green and gold (tan?) uniform. I think they took their cue from a mixture of Disney and the cruise lines. Everything is a package if they can sell it to you!
Ah, but enough on that. It’s Sunday here today, which means oodles and oodles of people every which way you turn looking to see the sights. So the line for the tram was long. It took about an hour for me to actually be able to board the thing. And I had to decide if I wanted to pay extra to ride in one of the glass-bottomed cars. I passed as I tend to get vertigo when looking straight down from any height over about 30 feet. I shouldn’t have. The price difference was only about $3.00 US and the line was 75% shorter. Which I didn’t find out until I turned the corner after buying my ticket. I could have saved myself a whole lot of waiting if I had just kept my gaze straight out to the side. Isn’t hindsight wonderful?
just getting started
The ride to the top was fabulous. The mountains were beautiful. The ocean was beautiful. The view of the islands was beautiful. The scenery along the tram route was beautiful. I think you get the picture. It was worth a lot of pictures. Oh, there is a trail up the mountain. You can hike up; you and hike down. Either way you would do a whole lot of up and down. And thousands of stairs both ways. I have no idea how many hours it would take, but you had better be in pretty fantastic physical shape if you intend to try it. But it looked lovely as I was floating over it in my comfy tram seat with a gentle breeze wafting through the car.
small section of the trail
The purpose of all this isn’t the picturesque tram ride. That’s just a nice way to get to the top. There are buses that go to the top. I think you can just drive up if you have a vehicle. The reason for the tram and the theme village the tram company built at the top (with lots and lots of gift shops!) is the Po Lin monastery, ancient temple and giant Buddha that are also up there. The religious community is renowned for their possession of an actual artifact of the Buddha. It’s a tiny fragment of bone that was left in the ashes after his cremation. It’s housed in a little crystal shrine inside the giant statue. You can view the crystal gizmo that holds the artifact and there is a photo of the bone fragment posted above it. Looking at the two things I’m guessing that the fragment is about a quarter of an inch long.
just a few steps away
big Buddha
Once you manage to get out of the money-sucking portion of the journey, the mountain top itself is just a really nice place to be. It’s much cooler than the city. You’re above the smog. There are great views in every direction and flowers, birds, butterflies and dragonflies galore. In short, a little slice of heaven sitting just a 15 minute tram ride from the ant-hill apartment highrises of Hong Kong. I hadn’t been there 30 minutes before I was wishing there was a hotel I could transfer to for the night just so that I could walk around up there after all the tourists had gone home for the day. I also wished I had gotten there earlier in the day so that I could have had some time to spend hiking part of that trail that went up the mountain.
There was a wonderful slice cut between two folds of the mountain not far from the upper tram station (maybe 3/4 of a mile) where a small, crystalline stream flowed, tumbling over rocks into a series of small waterfalls and gentle pools that had my name written all over it. But I had to choose. The Buddha statue, monastery and temple, or the hike. It was not a choice I enjoyed making. But doing both would have meant missing the last tram down the mountain. I probably could have still caught a bus down…or not. It might have meant hiking down the mountain in the dark. Not a happy thought to someone who is pretty much night-blind.
I truly enjoyed the things I did see. Including a very old monk who was visiting from Tibet who was tying little woven bracelets around the wrists of people who were visiting the temple as a sort of blessing, something about health and long life. He was attended by two younger monks whose job seemed to be keeping the old master comfortable and happy as he communed with the faithful. I watched them rubbing his legs when he was tired and adjusting his wrap when his shoulders got cold. They were really dedicated to the old guy. They obviously cared for him deeply.
old monk
The temple at the Po Lin monastery is getting an enormous upgrade. There is a building going up behind it that will be about five times the size of the current temple.
The current temple is beautiful and extremely ornate, as they all seem to be. It is surrounded by lots and lots of flowers and on both sides of the “street” leading up to it there are places for the faithful to burn incense. Not the little incense sticks we’re used to seeing. The smallest of the incense sticks these people burn are at least 18 inches long. The big ones can be close to three feet long and about and two inches thick. And nobody lights just one. They light the smaller ones by the dozen. Everything is done in threes also, I don’t know why, but they do have a reason for it. They clap three times before they worship. Temples have three doors. Worshipers bow three times when they bow. It’s all part of the package. I’ll have to look up the “why” of it all sometime.
figures in shrine
temple altar
temple courtyard
new construction
temple
flag courtyard
incense
Anyway, all good things come to an end and I figured my “end” here should come about an hour and a half before the last tram to avoid the rush of people who had to get down the mountain. I should have headed down about an hour before I did, apparently. I spent an hour and 15 minutes in line before I finally got to board a tram down. I went down wedge between some Israeli guy, who spent the whole trip down talking animatedly with his friend sitting across from him (neither one bothered to look at the scenery until they were about 2 minutes from the bottom from what I could see) and a Chinese man on the other side who sat like a statue beside his wife all the down, neither of them speaking a word.
islands
The subway ride back wasn’t nearly so peaceful. The car was crammed full of people and I couldn’t get a seat until about 2/3 of the way back to my station. The trolley was just as crowded. Everyone trying to get back home at the end of their weekend I guess. Since my “weekend”, all 31 days of it, isn’t quite over, I wonder where tomorrow will find me. Guess I’ll wrap this up and do some research on that.
dragon fruit in the market
Goddesses worshiping Buddha
slipstreamserendipity 