Our Journey and arrival in Hong Kong

Snow being a possibility on the day of our departure we decided to make an early start only to find that the roads were clear of both traffic and snow resulting in us having about five hours to spare. Time passed quickly however, helped by a glass of something bubbly and interesting conversation with two couples both of whom were going to South Africa.

Well here we are on our first complete day in Hong Kong having arrived late yesterday afternoon to a city in the mist. My first impression on landing was one of surprise as I had been of the opinion that the airport was in the middle of the city and surrounded by high rise buildings, however, we were informed today that was once the case and to land and take off had been pretty hairy but all this changed in 1992 when a new airport was built on the island of Lantau.

Today we have been on a tour to Tsing Ma Lantau Monastry over the Taing Ma Bridge which is very similar to the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco (the longest suspension bridge in the world). Having been to Cheung Sha Beach in the south of Lantau we then went to a tiny fishing village called Tai-O where the market stalls which lined the road were festooned with numerous varieties of dried fish for eating and other dried and questionable things that are used in Chinese medicine. As all the stalls seemed to stock the same items it made us wonder how they acutally made a living but were assured that they sell their freshly caught fish to restaurants and at the weeked people from the mainland come to buy there because it is much cheaper.


Then came lunch and for this went to a monastry where we had a vegetarian meal. The monks are Buddists and as such do not eat fish or meat and drink no alcohol. Even so the meal was great, it's amazing how many different things you can do with vegetables. From the grounds of the monastry we were able to see the largest Buddah in Asia perched on the top of the mountain at the top of 269 steps. It is relatively new as it was only erected in 1998 and is made completely of bronze and weighs 250 tons.

Having had lunch my nightmare began. The 'highlight' of the tour was a ride on the Ngong Ping 360 cable car, a ride that lasts about 25 minutes goes down, up and around corners so every time someone said we're nearly there around the bend, or over the next hill there was more. Boy was I glad to get back on terra firma.