More Hong Kong

Yesterday Malcolm bought a t-shirt that said Lost in Hong Kong on it.  That basically summed up our day!  First we couldn't find the breakfast room in the hotel, then we couldn't get back to our room, we kept ending up at the 4th floor by mistake - the reception area. We can blame it on jet-lag!  When we were at Victoria Peak we couldn't find our way out of the building the tram comes into, we went up and down escalators for ages - same when we tried to leave after our walk.  The train network (subway) took some getting used to as well.  After a long day we headed back to our hotel, took the wrong exit from the station and walked in the wrong direction!!! Today we were much better - have just got the rail network sussed prior to leaving tomorrow.  :-)

Today we took the train to Lantau Island.  Here we got off at the right stop, found the right bus for the Big Buddha and even got half price tickets because we are old.

Adjacent to the Big Buddha was the Po Lin Monastery with temples and areas where people were burning incense - some sticks were a metre high and fat!  Great views from up at the buddha - looking out to the other islands.  There was a way of getting here by cable car(for rich tourists)and at the terminus near the buddha there was a tourist village selling tourist stuff where we got smoothies (and ice-cream headaches for the second day in a row).

Tourist village

Near our hotel is a street of shops selling dried 'stuff' of all sorts (turtle shells, octopus, lizards, fungi, seeds and other unrecognisable objects).  The smell was pungent and musty as we walked by.

Some sort of dried flying lizards

This is what Chinese people always try to bring into NZ on 'border security' :-)

Last night we went over to the Kowloon side to watch the free evening light show.  The buildings put on a light show to music, some have laser searchlights.  Also boats go past with their lights on and some junks light up their sails like this one, though the others were red.