Journey of Enlightenment

- and once again I am busy exploring the area, this time with my friend Hermine from Munich. Recently we took the Ngong Ping Skyrail which glides about 25 minutes uphill, starting at Tung Chung Bay giving some spectacular 360 degree panoramic views of the hilly area of the North Lantau Country Park, Chek Lap Kok Airport, the South China Sea and the Ngong Ping Plateau. On a clear day it's breathtaking and the sight of Big Buddha (the biggest sitting Buddha in the world) approaching once you get closer to the terminal is fantastic. A small disappointment to me personally was that once on top, where the village supposedly showcases traditional chinese architectural design, you'll find brandnew souvenir shops, food outlets of all kinds and A STARBUCKS - everybody who knows me also is aware of how addicted I am to great coffee and especially Starbucks, but it's somewhat depressing that these megachains get permission to enter even the last picturesque corners of the world - it kills my sense of fun and adventure if you come across the same things, no matter where you are traveling to - in this case you would have expected some traditional teahouses...ok, enough ranting already and - of course we got a coffee, guilty as charged :-), a hypocrite, I'll admit it willingly!

While sitting around we got to talk to a lovely lady from the UK and somehow became involved in the subject of traveling - she mentioned her first visit to the States and I was astonished to hear, that the first State she traveled to was Kenntucky... which lead to my prompt reply "why on earth would someone pick Kenntucky of all the interesting States one could chose from, for a brief visit to the US, if not for the Kenntucky Derby"? Turned out she and her hubby went to a bluegrass concert and blablabla....the reason I am mentioning this episode at all is - about 15 minutes later while exiting a store, a tourist couple lined up in front of me asking: "Tell us, what do you have against Kenntucky, what's so wrong with Kenntucky?" Obviously they overheard my generally low voice ;-) from the neighbour table while we were sipping our coffee - I was already prepared to take a beating from some fanatic patriots defending their homestate but lucky me, they were from the UK and Brunei and just wanted to chat, what a relief......that's normal in Asia, people just talking to each other, being very extroverted and sharing adventures and stories....

Needles to say that we spent a lovely couple of hours climbing up the stairs to Big Buddha and ending the trip with a visit to the famous Po Lin Monastery where we got to try some free vegetarian cusisine, which was a pretty lousy experience to say the least. By the way, Lantau is bigger than Hong Kong Island, is largely undeveloped (ca. 45.000 residents) and more than 50% was designated as a country park. But it's unique for great hikes, nice beaches and of course Disneyland and the airport.