Po Lin Monastery

 

The plan for the day was to go out to Lantau island and take the Ngong Ping 360. Love the slogan: It's blue. It's green. It's love naturally. We needed to get some HK money first. The man in the luggage claim of the subway was nice enough to get up from his counter, show us where to go, and tell us which exchage had the most favorable rates. We're used to the US style of customer service, which is usually a blank stare followed by "uhhh, I don't know, its not my department".  After a lot of going back and forth, and breakfast, we didn't get to the cable car to the monastery until after 12:30.

The suburban outlying areas, it must be the middle of nowhere because they had an outlet mall:





Hmmm... how odd. All the people are coming down the ramp, away from the cars. And none of the cablecars seem to be moving. And if you look real close, it sort of looks like people are in the cars, but that can't be right? An announcemnt comes on and says there is a slight delay and they apologize for the inconvenience. So we wait in line. And wait, and then wait some more. The nice cablecar lady tells us it will be up again in 5 minutes. So we wait some more. Ok, 30 minutes later, we figure screw this and get in line for the bus. Which was a very good move. We find out later on the news that the cars broke 15 minutes before we got there, stranding people for hours in mid-air. The whole thing was closed all day and the next day. Yeah it'll be going again annnnyyyyy minute now.

By the time we got on the bus, the line behind us was quite long as people in line for the cablecar gave up and started to take the bus instead. On the way up to the monastery firetrucks and ambulances were speeding by us heading for the station to rescue all the stranded people.

The big buddha:





delicious vegetarian snack made by monks. Fried taro root, noodles, dates, and green tea cake:





good advice.

Random Hong Kong note: Officially the iphone isn't released here, but every single electronics store had them for sale. And I saw more Nokia N95's in just the economy section of the plane, than I've seen in the US ever.