Tian Tan Buddha and Po Lin Monastery.

The day after our trip around Hong King we took a journey on the MTR to Nong Ping and then the cable car to the Great Buddha and Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island. Now I am not a great lover of heights (as my friends will tell you) but I decided I wasn't going to let this opportunity pass me by. With gritted teeth I boarded the cable car along with Jeff, Gareth, Erica, Ken, Eric and Leo. All went well until they told me the trip was 45 minutes long and went over the sea and the mountains. Amazingly after the first ten minutes or so I though, what the heck and started enjoying myself!! As you can see it looks pretty precarious.



The views from the cable car were superb and one of the sights I'll always remember is the appearance of the Buddha through the mist!!



As we got closer it became more clear.



When we arrived at the other side we were met by a friend of the family, Tony, who was to be our guide that day. What a lovely man he was, so helpful and knowledgable. There were two ways to reach the monastery, either by car or by climbing the 268 steps. With my troublesome knee I decided to take the car, the rest took the steps!!



It is only when you get really close up to the buddha you can appreciate the size. The statue is the world's largest Buddha statue, by using bronze, it's 34 metres tall and weighs 250 tonnes.



I have lots more photos of the monastery and The Path of Wisdom but as Blogger is playing up tonight (its already frozen on me once) I am going to call it a night and perhaps put a few more pics up tomorrow night.