A dime bag for my thoughts...: J2: Lantau Island

One of our first stops was Lantau Island. Pardon my ignorance, but I didn't know Hong Kong as a whole had various land masses that encompass Hong Kong other than Hong Kong itself and Kowloon. Even when I did find out, I didn't know it was a huge part of Hong Kong as it houses the Airport, Disneyland HK, and our first actual taste of Chinese culture, the Giant Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery.

We took a roughly half hour long train ride to the cable cars - or gondola - leading to the Tian Tan Buddha. A gigantic bronze statue of the Buddha, which was revealed to the public in 1993, attracting foreign tourists and is a deeply religious praying monument for Buddhists all across Asia. Yes, a history lesson for the both of us. But I went there to take pictures. I didn't know I had to climb 200 steps to get there. For the Buddhists that I've seen climb this thing, stopped every second step to bow down on their knees and pray. Not that I though that was funny, but by the time I went up, took pics, grab a drink, take more pics and climb down the stairs, some people were only 3/4 of the way up.

My cousin is scared of heights. As are many other people. There were 2 types of gondolas you could ride up the mountain, the normal cabin or the Crystal Cabin. The Crystal Cabin was the more expensive of the two. He thought it was a comfort thing:

Cousin: "Let's take the round trip Crystal Cabin, it's probably better."
Me: "Alright, what's the difference?"
Cousin: "I don't know, I'll ask."
Cousin: [ticket counter] "What's the difference between Crystal and normal?"
Ticket Lady: [broken English] "The Crystal Cabin has a glass floor"
Cousin: "We'll take that."

We got our tickets and lined up. At this point I didn't know he was afraid of heights until we saw what it looked like. I don't know if he said 'yes' because he didn't understand what the lady was saying or why we got these tickets when he said "I don't know why I got these...I'm scared of heights".

Holding on for dear life. Hahaha. Just kidding.

Hong Kong and it's surrounding areas at this time of year is very foggy and misty outside, it was hard to capture a good shot of the statue without it being masked with fog and haze. Sorry for the shitty pics.