Today our little tour of five people from our group went to Lantau Island where we boarded a cable car (the kind that hang from a cable in the sky, like when you ski, not the kind that are on the ground, like in San Francisco). The cable car was extraordinary – it went for many kilometers and took about ½ hour. It soared above the water, took several turns along the way, and seemed to go at a treacherous angle up and down mountains. The countryside around looked like one of those Chinese paintings with steep mountains, water, and clouds. Along the way, we had an amazing view of the Hong Kong airport, which was constructed on landfill about ten years ago. I remember the old airport – coming in over tenement housing in Kowloon – and this one is quite different. It was fun to watch the planes take off and land from a vantage point above the airport.

The destination of the cable car was the Po Lin Monastery where there is a giant bronze Buddha. The place is quite the tourist attraction with a bunch of shops lining the road along the way to see the Buddha. We first visited the monastery where we saw pilgrims making incense offerings and bowing to the various smaller Buddha statues around. We ate lunch there, in the all-vegetarian café, where everything looked beautiful but each dish tasted more or less the same.

We next climbed the 256 steps up to visit the Buddha (Lenny counted and swore that there were only 254). This Buddha is quite attractive – a serene countenance and a rather gentle look for an enormous bronze piece. He also was surrounded by some other graceful statues making offerings of various delicacies.

We returned by cable car, and bus, to Hong Kong, making this one of those days with a rather high ratio of transportation relative to touring.

Lenny and I had the bus drop us off to see one of Hong Kong’s famous sites, an escalator! No kidding. They have an awesome escalator that goes up the side of the mountain. Actually, it’s a bunch of smaller escalators, one after the other, that during morning rush hour goes down the mountain, and the rest of the day goes up. There are shops and cafes along the side of the escalator, which is covered overhead but open on the sides. In other words, the escalator is actually a form of public transportation, and it was clear that many people commuted to and from work on it. Imagine telling people that you commute to work on an escalator. (Thanks for the suggestion to go see the escalator to John Hollar!)

We then rushed back to the hotel for a couple of spa treatments and will head out to dinner soon.

I realized that Hong Kong feels to me like a life-size version of the kids’ game Chutes & Ladders. The city is constructed alongside mountains on islands, laced throughout with elevated highways, tunnels, bridges, escalators, etc., and you seem as if you are always going in something, over something, or under something.

-- Donna