Po Lin Monastery

We were lucky enough to have a public holiday on Wednesday of this week. It was the Cheung Yeung festival, where natives go hiking and visit family graves. We decided to go to Lantau Island to visit the Po Lin Monastery and see the Tian Tan Big Buddha. It's one of the largest Chan (Zen) temples in Hong Kong, not to mention a major tourist attraction, and sits in the mountains at the base of Lantau Peak. After taking public transit as far as we could, we went the rest of the way via cable car. I hadn't been in a cable car since Garmisch, and it was Evangeline's first time! Of course, it would have been better if it had been clear, but I'm sure we'll be back.

Leaving civilization behind

Into the hills

Cable cars are fun!

First glimpse of the big Buddha

The cable car drops you off in a creepy, fake "village" of shops and restaurants. When we got on the car at the origin, someone took our picture, so we expected that they would be pushing the picture on us when we got off. What we weren't prepared for was to have a girl pounce on us as soon as we walked off, holding not only an 8x10 print but a keychain and a snowglobe with our likenesses on them! It's just amazing that they do that for every single group of people who get on the cable cars. Talk about a waste of resources and manpower!

Finally leaving the tourist trap behind and getting close to the monastery

The Buddha is cast in bronze and is 34 meters high

Statue of a general, one for every two hours of the day

Buddha looking over a statue's shoulder

268 steps to the top, and Evangeline went up most of them herself

Up close and personal

Smaller statues giving offerings to the Big Buddha

Joseph and Evangeline behind the Buddha

Both Hong Kong and China flags at the bottom

The longer we were there, the more crowded it got

Entrance to the Po Lin Monastery

The altar in the main hall, with three Buddhas representing the past, present and future

The hall is empty except for the altar

Amazing statue from the hall below - those are hands spread out like wings

After checking out the monastery, we had lunch at the dining hall, which was vegetarian, of course. Evangeline impressed everyone around her by putting away a truly enormous amount of food.

The dining hall in action

Then we took the cable car home, enjoying some more scenery on the way.

The hiking path to the monastery and a little waterfall

One thing we didn't enjoy was how much garbage there was in the water. And there were some guys in waders in the bay,obviously gathering some sort of seafood. I can't imagine wanting to go eat local fish after seeing how nasty the water is. Unfortunately you can't see any of the trash in this picture that we snapped from the cable car, but it wasn't a pretty sight.

No thanks!

It was a great expedition and a wonderful use of our holiday. Probably the next time we go out to Lantau, we'll take one of the ferries to a different part of the island.