Port 16 Hong Kong, China

Wènhòu! Greetings!

On 7 April, 2024, we glide up the channel toward the dock at Hong Kong. It is foggy and visibility is limited to about 1 mile.

We enter a harbor, but there is little to tell me where we really are.

We pass a shanty fishing village (center of photo) as well as a stilt village (left end of photo) at the edge of the harbor and in the shadows of high-rise towers!

I pull up a map on my phone to see if I can tell where we are. On the map I see a runway pointing right at us!  Have you heard of Kai Tak Airport? But there is no aircraft traffic.

A long building appears on the edge of that runway.  It becomes evident that building is the cruise terminal and it sits on what was once the runway for Hong Kong’s airport! A little more searching on the map shows me the airport indeed did move! When the airport moved away from town to make flying safer the airport land was repurposed. People I chatted with about this confirmed it was a hairy ride into Hong Kong when this runway was used! Kai Tak Airport was in the top 10 most dangerous airports in the world!

As we move toward the cruise terminal I can see it has a park on top! I make a note to visit it.

Joy’s tour group is returning from Xi’an today and will rejoin the ship this evening. In the meantime, I have an excursion to see the city of Quangzhou!

Wait! An announcement – my tour was just canceled.

So I get to spend a quiet day on the ship!  I enjoy watching a helicopter buzz the ship!

Fast forward…

Joy and the Beijing tour group returns! We have dinner and enjoy the night lights of Hong Kong! Still a bit foggy, or is that smoggy?

Now it’s 8 April, 2024, day 2 in Hong Kong!

Today is a turnover day – some folks are leaving the ship and a lot more are coming aboard today!

Joy and I have an excursion to see “Lantau Island & Monastery”!

As we drive through town we see something we’ve seen before. But I’m still shocked to see a state-of-the-art skyscraper being built using bamboo scaffolding!

Similar to the fishing village at the edge of the harbor, it is interesting to see the old and new – a traditional building backed by tall apartment complexes.

This amusing sculpture comes into view – it is Jijang, the Turtle Monk. According to the script in the red wall below him, when his parents died he entered the monastery and took the name Tao. At the monastery he behaved as a turtle (whatever that really means), and so became known as the Turtle Monk!

Our bus arrives at a small island called the Lantau Link. This island is the connector for a couple of other series of islands to Hong Kong and Lantau Island. There are six bridges to the Lantau Link. Three of them are suspension bridges, and we get to see two of them from the Lantau Link Visitor Center.  One of the two beautiful bridges is this one, the Ting Kau Bridge, built in 1997.

The second bridge we see is the Tsing Ma Bridge built in 1996. We’ll be crossing this soon! That’s Lantau Island on the other end.

The third suspension bridge is the Stonecutters Bridge. We are on the wrong side of the Lantau Link to see that one.

Only specially-licensed buses are allowed to drive in certain areas on Lantau Island, so we are informed we will be changing buses soon!  We cross the Tsing Ma Bridge and enter Lantau Island! As we reach the end of the bridge I catch this view of a poor fishing village. There’s a lot going on here, and very little of it looks good!

We disembark the bus at the fishing village Tai O. This interesting manhole cover depicting a fishing village on a river catches our attention. Would you believe the label on it says “Hut”?

At this table we discover the secret in how these hats stay on your head!

This is a perfect sign!

We are shown a special box at the entrance to the village. It is sponsored by the YWCA.

It can hold two wheelchairs for anyone to use as long as they return the chair to the box! Apparently someone already has a wheelchair out today!

We wander through the narrow paths of Tai O, past many shops. Then we encounter…

… a school!  All of the children decorate their drums and hang them on the fence!

The stores near the school are much nicer than those we passed earlier.

We cross Tai O’s one and only draw bridge…

…and arrive in a small town square with a wonderful mural and a 3-D ground painting of boats in the water! Believe it or not, you can see this in the satellite images in Google Maps! Check out this link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/sJnq6xofTiCR5gFN9

To the left is a marvelous little temple!

This is the Tai O Kwan Tai Temple. It is a Taoist temple.

The carvings at the top are incredibly beautiful! The detail is exquisite!

Inside, the temple is full of ornate figures, possibly depicting the immortals the Chinese revere.

This is a detail shot of the lion on the front of the temple. I love this little guy! (Back up three photos – he’s on the right!)

We reboard the bus and head to the mountains! Well, we don’t go far – we head to the bottom of a cable car called the Ngong Pin Skyrail. But we don’t board the Skyrail – here’s where we exchange buses. We leave the bus we have been on all morning, and climb on a bus that is allowed to take us to the next destination – the Giant buddha! Now we head into the mountains!

The bus drops us off at this gate, the entrance to the Tian Tan Giant Buddha park.

We pass through the gate and walk up the ascending path. The walk is lined with the twelve Divine Generals. Each represents one of the months of the zodiac, and 2 of the hours of each day!

This is General Ma, representing the month of the Rooster, and 5PM-7PM of the day.

And this is General Makura, representing the month of the rabbit and 5AM-7AM of the day.

After we pass the Generals we stop for lunch, then board the bus again. It takes us up the hill to the base of the Giant Buddha of Tian Tan! Here’s what we see as we leave the bus. The Buddha is surrounded by Lotus petals, 24 in all.

Coming around the front, there are six female figures facing the Buddha, three on this side and three on the other side of the center staircase. These represent the six Devas, representing the Six Perfections of generosity, meditation, morality, patience, wisdom, and zeal. These characteristics are deemed requisite to achieve Enlightenment.

From the front the Tian Tan Buddha can be seen with a serene face, stylized hair, elongated earlobes, and the Hindu symbol for Peace on his chest. (Note, this is the reverse of the Nazi swastika, which in turn has the reverse connotation of Hate.) The Hindu symbol long preceded the Nazi symbol. The Buddha is 23 meters (75 feet) tall!

We can see the Po Lin Monastery from the Buddha’s platform. We’ll visit this next.

We head down the stairs toward the Monastery. It’s a long way down to the village below!

Many people are lighting incense sticks and saying prayers. Some of the incense rods are as large as baseball bats!

We approach the entrance to the Monastery.

Inside, we are greeted by three golden Buddhas. The elaborate carvings are fantastic!

Outside, I am enthralled by the columns wrapped with dragons! Each of the eight columns is unique, and equally detailed! The artistry is fascinating!

We move on to explore the rest of the village. Here is the store that sells the incense sticks for the worshippers to offer during their prayers. You can see how large some of these are! They look like fireworks to me, but they are just incense!

Inside one of the shops I captured this piece of art. It is a world carved from a single piece of jade! There are dozens of figures, thousands of tree branches, multiple buildings, and untold animals hidden in the carvings! Stunning work! A true master craftsman artist had to devote years to this one piece!

Before we leave we turn for one last selfie with the Giant Buddha in the distance! (This is evidence Joy did return from Beijing!)

We finally have to leave for the bus. This canopy gives us a festive send-off!

We head to the Ngong Ping Skyrail Cable Car building at the end of the Tian Tan Giant Buddha village. We get a scenic ride down the mountain!

We bid farewell to the Giant Buddha!

Everything gets swallowed up in the mist…

Hong Kong International Airport (not Kai Tak!) appears briefly through the fog.

We actually have to get off, then get back on the cable car at one of the stations as the cables make a sharp turn to the east!

Then we reach the bottom of the Cable Car and the location of our original bus. That bus will take us back to the ship.

As we pass the shipping docks, the massive apartment complexes can be seen. There are too many people to allow single family homes. Everything has to go vertical!

We arrive at the cruise terminal. At this point we jump back on another bus, the shuttle bus to downtown Hong Kong, just to see what it looks like. We planned to get off and walk for a half hour and catch the last shuttle back to the ship, but downtown was so disappointing, we didn’t get off. So we just ride the shuttle back to the cruise terminal. Now I want to run upstairs to see the park on top, but we are out of time. All aboard time has come.

I mentioned this is a turnover day. So the Captain, on the left, hosts a Captain’s Welcome cocktail party!  Cella Baker is the Loyalty Ambassador and Cruise Sales Consultant. She’s short enough that she feels she has to stand on a step to be in this lineup! We love her! The woman at the far left is Ana Nastase, the Restaurant Manager. She was our Maître ‘d of the Main dining Room on our 2022 Not-Quite-a-World Cruise. We were so happy to see Cella and Ana on this cruise! They have become good friends!

We watch the lights of Hong Kong as we sail out.

The density of housing is staggering!  The harbor ferry can be seen passing us.

We bid farewell to Hong Kong! Zàijiàn!

Our next port of call was supposed to be Xiamen, China, but that was canceled. So now our next port will be Ha Long Bay, Hanoi, Vietnam!