Hong Kong — Day 2, Light show and Big Buddha

Ok, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish my “real time” posting of our Hong Kong trip. However, thanks to everyone who let me know they appreciated the effort. 🙂
The Hong Kong skyline at promptly 8:00 PM every night is punctuated with a dramatic and beautiful light show. Many of the buildings participate and have a choreographed show that is accompanied by music (broadcast on the radio). We watched from the Avenue of Stars where the music came over a public stereo system and even though there was a bit of a crowd, made the display quite enjoyable (albeit chilly).
Here are a few shots from the show.


This is probably my favorite shot…

After the light show, we took the venerable Star Ferry across the channel to Hong Kong Island. We spent the rest of night exploring the plentiful night life on the island.
Early the next morning, we got up and took the MTR (Mass Transit Rail) to the neighboring island of Lantau. We were going to see the “Big Buddha” as the giant statue outside the Po Lin Buddhist Monastary is reffered to.
It sits over 80 feet high and rests serenely atop a large hill and commands an impressive view of the surrounding country.
If you wish to go up and examine the Buddha, there are 260 steps that lead the way…

As we got to the top, we came face to face with a larger than life bronze Buddha. In fact, this is the world’s largest, outdoor, seated Buddha (of course, I don’t know where a larger indoor, standing Buddha is…)

Here is an array of pictures from around the top. I hope you’ll forgive me for including more pictures than I normally do (and causing this page to load even slower than it normally does), but there were so many important perpsectives that I didn’t want you to lose.















Here we are looking back up at the imposing “Enlightened One.”

After our time there, we went back to the hotel, then out to a very good Indian restaurant for dinner with some British friends we met in Hong Kong.
It was quite a lively discussion at the dinner table. 🙂
Then, back to the hotel for some well deserved rest.
The next day would have many more interesting sights and sounds to experience.
So, until then.
–Jim