Day 5 & 6- Big Buddha/Po Lin Monastery & Causeway Bay/The Peak

After our morning mug of cornflakes we made our way to the train station and caught the train to Ngong Ping 360, via a switch of trains at central. The line to catch the cable car was ridiculous, we ended up waiting over an hour just to get tickets! We spent a little extra and got the glass bottom cabins for the cable car, I'm afraid of heights so took a little bit before I could look down for longer than a few seconds.
The view from the cable car is spectacular, you have views of the whole HK airport, the harbour and mountains surrounding!

We arrived in Ngong Ping village and made our way to Big Buddha, I came here a few years ago, but it was so foggy it was impossible to see much, the weather today was perfect! The stairs up there are always a challenge, but all the exercise I have been doing up to this trip really helped, made it up with ease. It's really interesting reading about this place and the history and the view from the top is just as fantastic.
After recapturing our breath and relaxing up there we headed down and moved onto the Po Lin Monastery, explored there for a while and eventually headed back to the cable car via Starbucks.

I was up early the next morning to head out wandering around exploring Mongkok and the streets while it was quiet, nothing really comes to life fully until late morning so it's great to get out and see how people start their days and set up for everything!
I love just wandering with no intended direction and taking photos of places and people.

I walked about for a few hours then headed back to the hotel for some breakfast, photo editing and to freshen up before heading out again. We made our way over to Causeway Bay for some shop browsing and lunch, after all the Asian we decided to have pizza!
After some more browsing and navigating around all the drunk tools over in HK for the Rugby Sevens, we caught the train back to central and made our way to The Peak Tram, the line up this time was no where near as bad as the last time I was there. The tram ride up there is so much fun and provides fantastic views moving up the very steep hill! I think we picked probably one of the worst days view wise, it was so foggy with so, so much low cloud. It did make for some fantastic shots, it was so eerie and spectacular with the clouds floating right past you and around the buildings.
The line for the tram back down ended up taking a long long time, when we eventually arrived we wandered around the business district and found Hong Kong Park. This place is amazing, right in the centre, surrounded by buildings at night, we sat there for ages just watching the low clouds pass over with all the lights on the buildings illuminating everything. I shot a time lapse which I'll share soon enough!

       What a difference 15 mins made!

This shot gives only a slight impression to just foggy it really was!

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Day 3 & 4- Fishing village and relaxing!

Hey-o folks, 

We decided to visit the island of Cheung Chau, a little fishing village about 45 min ferry ride from Central ferry terminal. It's always fun learning to catch buses for the first time, I don't know what I would do without Google! I love catching the old ferries across the harbour, great for a bit of history and fantastic views of the city.

We caught the old ferry across to Central and changed to a fast ferry to take us out to Cheung Chau, out there you really get a real feel for just how smoggy it can get.

Arriving at Cheung Chau you realise it's a completely different world to the hustle and bustle of Hong Kong. We went for a good walk exploring the island, I love that there are no cars, most people get around on push bike with a very few motorised small vehicles. Eventually worked up a massive appetite and picked a place, we ordered a few dishes expecting we would polish them off easily. Great mother of god the plates were packed full, it was SO DAMN GOOD but we couldn't through more than 1/3 of it!
I could have easily spent a few days there relaxing and seeing more of the island, its so peaceful, I love seeing how people live and taking photos of all of it.

We eventually caught the ferry back and bus back to the hotel, freshened up, headed out for some dinner,a browse at Harbour City shopping centre and a walk along the harbour front.

       
The next day was spent exercising at the hotel gym and a swim in the pool. We've been trying to keep our diet relatively healthy, with no bowls in our room eating breakfast with cups is always a treat.

                      I love our room has a Nespresso Machine.


The rest of the day we relaxed, went out for a walk around Mongkok, caught the bus down to Tsim Sha Tsui and went for a walk along the promenade and Avenue of Stars. We found a bar right on the waterfront and decided to sit, have a few drinks and watch the sun set over the harbour.
We decided to catch a cab home...lets just say we had quite a communication barrier between the driver and us, we tried to explain the hotel and show him on the map, but no dice, I ended up just shouting 'MONGKOK MONGKOK', he eventually got me 'ooooooo Mongkok, okay okay okay'. Still unsure if our directions had got through we got even more worried when we ended up on a massive freeway, once again thank jeebus for Google maps, we could track ourselves, we ended up in the right area and he turns down a random street to drop us off, said street ended up being the entrance to our hotel! Maybe he secretly understood us and just wanted to annoy us? Either way he was pretty chuffed with himself and had a good laugh.

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