Member-only story
Thank you everyone for helping me reach 100 subscribers! May the blessing of Buddha be with you and your loved ones. On this special day, I want to share my favorite Buddha in Hong Kong and use this article to end my last update on Hong Kong and move on to write about other places.
Lantau Island (大嶼山) is located on the south west of Hong Kong and is the biggest island in Hong Kong. In earlier times, due to lack of transportation construction, Lantau Island was quite underdeveloped. Until now, thanks to the establishment of airport and Disneyland, the island has gained its popularity among tourists. If there is one thing I regret a bit at Lantau Island was that my friend and I didn’t hike all the way up to where the Big Buddha (天壇大佛) is, thus I missed out on the forest that has many woods with Buddhist scriptures carved on them (心經簡林), instead we took gondola to reach the peak. However, I was super impressed by this gondola journey. It has to be the longest ride I have ever experienced, the whole ride took around half an hour!
We started our trip from MTR Tung Chung Station (東涌站), where you can see some iconic skyscrapers and mountains of Hong Kong (photo 1–2). From there, we walked to the gondola station and got our tickets (photo 3).
From the half an hour gondola (photo 1) ride we saw Tung Chung Swimming Pool (東涌游泳池) (photo 2), Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (港珠澳大橋), Po Lin Monastery (寶蓮禪寺), and The Big Buddha (天壇大佛) (photo 3–5). Tung Chung Swimming Pool has a very artistic roof. In addition, only when I started writing this article, I found that despite having a nice Mandarin name, the Buddha is simply referred to as “The Big Buddha” for English translation. I am slightly disappointed about this. This place is second to Wong Tai Sin Temple (黃大仙祠) when it comes to religious locations, I would expect better name than this. Also, as I was walking on the stairs toward the Big Buddha, I even saw people kneel down every 5–10 stairs to show devotion.
