Lantau Peak, Big Buddha, and Disneyland

Camden loves the shower here. The shower head comes off so you can hold it, so he likes to hold it and do it himself. He was really excited when daddy helped wrap him up in his own little towel (a hand towel)! Anyway, I thought I'd put that on here then tell you about our adventure on Saturday.

We got up at 5:30 am, hurried out, and took a taxi down to the ferry pier. We got on the 6:10 am ferry (the first one of the day!) that went to Mui Woi, Lantau Island. The ferry took about 45 minutes and Camden slept the whole way. When we got to Lantau Island, we took a bus up to where we would begin our hike to Lantau Peak.

This picture was my first excuse to stop and take a break, I think we had only been hiking for a few minutes!

The whole trail was made up of these stone steps. We went up along the ridge line of the mountains, so you could look over either side most of the way. There were no switch backs, just strait up! After we crested a few of the hills/mountains, Calvin said, we're almost there, it's at the top of this one! Well, when we got to the top, there was another mountain and more stairs! This happened at least two more times before we were actually "almost there." It was probably a good thing though that I thought I was "almost there" for about half of the hike, or I would have turned around! Calvin was so awesome carrying Camden all the way!

Look at those steps all the way up that mountain! We were up in the clouds for a lot of the time, which was really nice. The breeze and the coolness helped a lot! I can't imagine what it would have been like if we had gone later in the day. It was still very humid, but at least it wasn't too hot. Because of the mist and clouds, I couldn't get a good picture of the entire trail. You'll just have to believe me when I tell you, it was far and tough!!

And finally, we made it to the top!! It was about 3 kilometers. Not extremely far, but so steep most of the way.

I was so grateful to be at the top! Then, we started the trek down to Big Buddha. It was really neat when we were walking down, we could hear the monks chanting. Going down from the peak was about 1 1/2 kilometers. It was even more steep than coming up! It was a relief to be going down, but after a while, my legs were so sore from going down all those steps. Once we made it to flat ground again, I was really happy.

These are the steep steps coming down from the peak, looking back up from where we had come down.

Some of the clouds cleared a bit and we could see down to the monastery and the Big Buddha.

We stopped for a minute to take much-needed rest on this bench.

We could see Big Buddha better as we came down the mountain.

This is a view in the opposite direction; you can see a reservoir and the ocean.

More steps and the mountain in the clouds.

A better view of the mountain we came down.

We finally got all the way down and entered the monastery area. There was this rooster (?) to greet us. I don't really know much about it, except that it looked pretty cool.

There was also this thing called the Wisdom Path. Each of those pillars had writing on them that signified something for the Buddhist monks.

We saw this crazy caterpillar when we were walking to Big Buddha.

Here it is! Big Buddha. It is huge! By the time we got there, I was not exactly interested in walking up all the steps all the way to the top of that hill, so we enjoyed the view from below.

We then walked through this little village of shops and restaurants and purchased tickets to take a cable car down. The cable cars have only been running for about 3 years and this "village" was built because of the increase in tourism in the area. The cable cars have made this area much more accessible and attractive to tourists.

From the cable cars, you could see the Hong Kong airport. It is on an entirely man-made island. You can tell from this picture that it is just a flat area (very different from the islands!) and you can see how it can be man-made. When I was actually there, I couldn't tell.

After the cable cars, we went over to the MTR (subway) station and ate at McDonalds for lunch. It was great. We took the time to change out of our sweaty clothes (Camden had to wear his pjs from earlier, we didn't expect to need to change him too, but, sitting on Calvin's shoulders got him pretty wet, haha).

There is a special MTR line that takes you to Disneyland. As soon as you walk over to that part of the station, the magical disney music begins. Then the train pulled up and the windows were mickey mouse ears and the inside was all disney-style, it was great!

Welcome to Hong Kong Disneyland! I love Disneyland, so this was really fun.

Hong Kong Disneyland is much smaller than the regular Disneyland. There were not a lot of rides, the only big ride was Space Mountain. Everything else, Camden could do. First we went on the jungle cruise. Then we went over and watched this 30 minute Lion King performance with songs from the broadway musical. That was really neat. Then we were walking to the next area and Camden was so beat, he fell asleep. Calvin had splurged and rented a stroller. He had been carrying Camden and a bag around long enough! I am glad we did that.

While Camden slept, we went over to Space Mountain and each took a turn going in the single rider line, where you could pretty much just walk on. Then we just walked around Dinseyland, which didn't take long, just to see what was there. They had 3 areas, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. When Camden woke up, we went on some more of the rides. We did the Toy Story, shoot Emperor Zurg ride, Winnie the Pooh, Carousel, Autotopia, & It's a Small World.

By the time we were done with those rides, we were all pretty worn out from the day. We stopped and got a little souviner for me and a Mickey Mouse sugary marshmallow thing on a stick for Camden. We then walked back to the MTR station, took that back closer to home, looked for this restaurant Calvin had talked about from his mission, found out that it cost $178 HKD for dinner (compared to the $50 Calvin had paid for lunch) and decided to eat somewhere else, then headed back home, showered, and fell into bed, exhausted! What a great day!