Hong Kong #4: Big Buddha, Temple Street, Festi Lumi

Another popular tourist spot in Hong Kong is the Big Buddha. Constructed only recently (1993), the Buddha sits ensconced on a lotus. Surrounding him are six bronze statues offering flowers, incense etc representing various virtues. It is called the “Offering of the Six Devas”. Getting to the statue involves either a bus ride to Lantau Island or a cable car. We took the cable car – it is faster and more scenic. Plus, the one we took had a glass floor, so we could see the water and greenery below on the trip.

 

I have now seen a few such massive Buddha statues now – at Wuxi (China), two in Ladakh, and now the Big Buddha. All of them have steps leading up to the statue, though there were few steps in Ladakh. This one has 268 steps. The Po Lin monastery is nearby, quiet and serene. 


For a popular tourist destination, the entire place is surprisingly quiet and uncrowded. Nice place to go to for the statue, the view, the quiet.

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We didn’t have any clear plans for the evening after returning to the hotel. My 14 yo daughter found this place called Temple Street on the Net. It sounded like her kind of place – street side shops that sell assorted stuff (goods, snacks etc), and everything is up for bargaining. All payments in cash only. Why not, we thought, and got there by bus. At first, it looked like a poor choice. But then as we went further down the street, things began to look up. Bright. Colorfully lit up. Bustling with vendors and customers. Shop and cart names like Tikka Taco Panda (fusion food!), Indian chaats, Chinese snacks (I don’t mean just noodles). The street side eateries had a lot of variety, and the food was spicy and tasty. Since foreigners frequent the place, the food stalls have forks and spoons, besides chopsticks. I always love it when I can get spicy food outside India (Singapore and Malaysia earlier, now Hong Kong).


The place was a great find by my daughter – all that time she spends on the phone/Net isn’t entirely a waste, I thought.

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What next? We had time, so we decided to go to the Festi Lumi, an “immersive light show”. It is electrical lighting that is dazzling and organized into objects and themes. It too was awesome, with themes ranging from snow to cats and dogs to Arabia to the kids’ favourite, dinosaurs. They say a picture video is worth a million words, so here is a YouTube video:

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We had planned to be in Hong Kong for the New Year fireworks. Sadly, the fireworks got cancelled as a mark of respect for those who died in the building fire I mentioned in the first blog of this series.

 

The last day, after checking out of the hotel, with time to kill, we had a heavy brunch at a local restaurant with delicious looking items with a very Chinese English name – He She Eat. Simple, self-explanatory, no grammar. The food was even better than it looked.

 

The long wait at the airport was alleviated by the awesomeness of the airport. Large, spacious, lots of shops, nothing like the fish markets that all European airports are. And from there, we took the flight back home to bring the Hong Kong holiday to an end.

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