Last full day in Hong Kong.

I spent my last full day in Hong Kong doing yet another typically touristy thing, however there was culture involved so I hope that wins me some points. My sister and I took the MTR to Tung Chung and then got onto a cable car up to Ngong Ping, home of the Tian Tian (Giant) Buddha; this is something that a lot of people tend to do on their last day in Hong Kong due to it's close proximity to Hong Kong International Airport.

I have decided that I probably have a tiny fear of heights, not anything that's going to make me freak out but I'm not exactly enthusiastic about being high up and being able to see how far away the ground is. The cable car ride up to Ngong Ping was slightly more settling than the Ocean Park cable car as the cars were much larger and because the ride was 25 minutes, I was able to relax a bit. I don't think I would have had the same opinion if we had opted for the 'Crystal Cabin', a car with a glass bottom, why anyone would happily fork out more for that experience is bewildering to me, much to my sister's disappointment.

Due to also wanting to make the trip to the Tai O stilt village but not really having any knowledge of how to go about it, we opted to go on a coach tour which guided us down to the village as well as giving us a bit of history about the Po Lin monastery and the Tian Tian Buddha once we got back. I would love to go back to Tai O again, just to take more in, it's a really interesting-looking place even if there isn't much in the way of things to do there; there was also a tour operator offering a dolphin seeing tour for $HK20, which I would love to do. The sense of community in Tai O is really felt, as we were being touristy with our group on a bridge, a man came waltzing along with his shirt up wanting to talk to his 'Dai lo' (big brother) and all the women working in the market were chatting away, it's just a very beautiful, undisrupted place, hard to find in somewhere as built-up as Hong Kong.

Everything about the area and what we did today, despite being a 'must-see as a tourist', lacked that touristy-feel which was great because we were in such close proximity to people's homes as well as being on sacred ground. There were a few snap-happy people, myself included, but the atmosphere wasn't as busy and interfering as it has been in other places. The most enjoyable thing about today was the weather, up in the mountains it is much cooler and because of the rain it was even cooler, it was probably still around 28ºC but that's still cool for here and this time of year. The weather was also on our side when it came to visuals, once we walked up to the Buddha we were literally in the clouds!

I'm so proud of myself for making it to the top of the 268 stairs to see the Buddha close up, I think I would have been disappointed in the back of my mind if I hadn't, it's pretty daunting but definitely worth it and not as hard as it seems. Going back down was much worse for me and my legs slightly turned to jelly because I could see how far up we were and how far we still needed to go. (Wuss).
I'm beginning to look forward to going home now and wonder how I'm going to round off my holiday with the free time I have tomorrow. Here are some photos from today.

Just incase you'd forgotten that they really do have Starbucks everywhere.

The prospect of going back to the real world of slobbing-out searching for work all day is not exactly instilling excitement in me, but I've had a well-deserved break and am in the right mind-set to approach it again, kind of hoping that I won't have to return to the Job Centre though.