Life in Japan: Getting High in Hong Kong

disclaimer: no drugs were abused in the making of this post

Our first adventure in the Hong Kong special administrative district was far removed from the usual hustle and bustle of the city proper. We took the amazingly simple to navigate Hong Kong subway system to Lantau island, the island just west of Honk Kong. We were headed for Ngong Ping Village and the Po Lin Monastery. What's the best way to get from the train station to the secluded monastery, you ask. Why by Skyrail of course. Otherwise known as a cable car.

So we waited in line to board a car with a woman and her mother who studiously ignored the no eating or drinking signs, a little girl who spent most of the time pasted to the window and a women with two young teenagers who spoke to each other in a disconcerting blend of Cantonese and English.

We climbed higher and higher until the entire Hong Kong airport lay like a particularly unattractive bath mat at our feet. The brochure called this "a spectacular view of Hong Kong International Airport." But I tend to agree with Douglas Adams who once said wrote, "It is no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an Airport' appear."

We saw fishermen with their boats, but soon left them behind as we climbed foothills much more swiftly than the men on the hiking trails below us.

Finally, it came into view, the thing we had come to see. At 110 feet it is the tallest seated outdoor Buddha statue in the world. He dwarfed our Kamakura great Buddha which is less than fifty feet tall. He dwarfed even the hill on which he sat.

Once again on the ground we stopped for lunch a little noodle shop with stand up tables. Don't let the little noodle shop and the brochures claiming that Ngong Ping is a Chinese style village fool you. There were four gift shops, several souvenir stands and a Starbucks under those clay tile roofs.

As we walked past the construction at the main entrance I wondered how the monks felt about all this. Did it bother them that their monastery had become a tourist attraction? Would the Buddha himself shake his head at the sight of a 250 metric ton statue of himself surrounded by six 10 foot tall statues of Devas offering gifts?

We climbed the 268 steps to stand on the platform just below the statue.

Inside the base of the statue was a museum, which we explored. And outside was a view like no other.

We took pictures, of the Buddha, of the Devas, of each other.

Back down the 286 steps we visited the monastery. There were a couple of small vegetarian cafes on the monastery grounds with signs that said, Please no meat or alcohol.