We Kowtow in Lantau (Days 10 and 11)

On Tuesday, July 8, fully intending to get caught up on our hotel-sink laundry effort, I signed the kids up for a two-hour Chinese Art class in the Kids At Art studio in our hotel. (That effort would be thwarted as I spent most of that time trying to contact Wells Fargo in an effort to allow us withdraw even more funds even more frequently.) However, with a promise to return with full payment, I left the kids to enjoy the full focus of the attentive staff. 

I asked the teachers to use Mandarin as much as possible as they guided Xander, Vaughn and Quinn through new techniques with ink and paint. The kids created several paintings each with the intent of presenting their favorites to Betsy for her upcoming birthday.

That afternoon I continued to shirk my laundry duties, opting instead to sit and write by the pool as the kids frolicked in the cool water. When Betsy joined us after work, I commented on how very friendly the pool service staff was as they brought us our sandwiches, lemonade and beer. When we got the bill for HK$1,457 (US$188), we realized why. Holy hot pot, there went our dinner plans!

Pictured: $57 worth of beverages

Still the pool was the most beautiful one we’ve seen so far; overlooking the harbor and with a waterfall at one end. Plus we were treated like kings so we decided it was worth it and retired to the hotel room for the evening and curled up with some ramen and Chinese television.

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July 9 was busy and memorable Wednesday as we left the hotel early for a day-long tour of Lantau Island before departing for Shanghai that night.

Lantau Island is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and the largest among the approximately 256 outlying islands within the territory. The tour began with a 40-minute ferry ride from Hong Kong to Lantau through the busy harbor filled with cargo ships heading off to or returning from long voyages. Luckily for us on a day where temperatures climbed over 100 degrees, we hopped from the air-conditioned boat to an air-conditioned bus that offered salvation after each broiling tour stop on the island. A sign posted at the front of the bus offered this sobering advice:

I've always been suspicious of my right thumb and now I'm on high alert.

Many of the 120,000 inhabitants of Lantau have jobs in Hong Kong (2 million total) and must make the daily ferry trip to work. They ride their bicycles from home and leave them parked together on the dock. 

But not a bike lock in sight.

Our guide says there is very little crime on Lantau because most people can trace their family lineage back for centuries and very few people migrate to the island so basically no one can get away with anything. There are, however, several prisons (apparently for criminals from elsewhere) including a juvenile detention center that offered a nice incentive for good behavior for the day.

The first stop on the tour was a refreshing visit to the pristine Cheung Sha beach. We were pleased to see a barrier ringing the shore after hearing about the six fatal shark attacks around the island over the last 15 years and happily waded into to the warm surf.

The bus then took us to the unique Tai O fishing village, a former haven for smugglers and pirates that is now a popular tourist destination. We enjoyed a short boat ride that gave us a close-up look at some the remarkable, yet dilapidated, pang uks; fisherman's homes that are built on stilts to better endure flooding. 

Fishing long provided the primary means of income in the village but overfishing has forced the inhabitants to rely on tourist spending. We passed stall after stall of very ripe, sun-dried, salted  examples of meager fish, shrimp and mollusks that neither we nor anyone else on our tour dared to bring back on the bus.

There's something fishy going on around here.

We visited a temple where we had our first experience burning incense as a symbolic offering. In Chinese Taoist and Buddhist temples, worshippers light and burn incense which they wave our raise above the head as they bow to the statues or plaques of a deity or ancestor. One makes says a prayer of hope or thanks and then places the stick or sticks in a receptacle in front of the idol.

Next, our bus climbed the winding road up the mountain to the Ngong Ping plateau for a visit to the majestic Tain Tian Buddha Statue and the nearby Po Lin Monastery, where we were served a delicious vegetarian meal.

The monastery was built in 1907 and plans for the Big Buddha were made over sixty years ago with the project finally coming to fruition in 1990. The 202 separate pieces of bronze were gradually shipped to the island and then trucked up the hill before they were assembled in 1993 to form the 112-foot, 250-ton statue. The serene and dignified Buddha rests on a bed of lotus flowers with his left hand in his lap, signifying the giving of the moral treasures known as dhana, and his right hand is raised, representing the removal of affliction.

The structure beneath houses three separate exhibition halls of worship and six smaller bronze statues surround the Buddha praising and making the various symbolic offerings required to enter into nirvana. 

Our tour of Lantau ended with a ride aboard the Ngong Ping Skyrail, a 25-minute cable car that offered stunning views as we descended from Hgong Ping plateau to Tung Chung New Town near the airport, from which we would depart a few hours later. 

We shared our ride with a South African/Australian expat and her daughters, aged 10 and 8, who gained our admiration as they described their earlier four-hour ascent by foot to the Big Buddha in the day's intense heat and humidity.

Our flight that evening from Hong Kong to Shanghai took just over two hours, transporting five sleepy travelers to the third stop on our journey for new round of adventures, cuisine, friends and hilarious mis-translations.

We Visit Heaven (Day 2)

With more humidity and a high approaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday, we set out early by foot for the Temple of Heaven via Wangfujing Plaza, making sure to note the various shops and eateries we might visit later.  

Very promising bizarre foods just around the corner. We'll be back.

The Temple of Heaven, or Altar of Heaven (Tiāntán), is a complex of religious buildings situated in the southeastern part of central Beijing. 

The temple was visited by the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties for annual ceremonies of prayer and fasting for good harvest. It was built in the early 1400s under the rule of the Yongle Emperor, the same one responsible for the Forbidden City. The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is described as "a masterpiece of architecture and landscape design” that laid the groundwork for centuries of Far East architecture and planning. 

Much like Jingshan park, the beautifully maintained Temple of Heaven gardens are a popular place for locals to exercise and relax or participate in ethnic singing and dancing. 

Betsy found her "dream pergola."

Tourists and locals alike visit the temple halls which still house sacred altars or new displays about the history of the grounds. The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is the most prominent of these. The magnificent triple-gabled, completely wooden and nail-free circular building (in panoramic shot, above) was exactingly rebuilt in 1889 after a fire caused by lightning destroyed it.

Detail of rainwater spouts on the terraced steps of the Hall of Prayer.

Once again we enjoyed meeting people who were excited to see us. One funny moment came when we sat down for a rest in one of the display halls and found ourselves drawing as much attention as the exhibits in the room. Families would mosey by, pause to consider and discuss us, then move on.

The line marking the 2008 Olympic marathon route through the temple remains.

We were happy to get a taxi back to the hotel and made a beeline for the pool to cool off before jet lag got the better of us and we crashed. We were out for eleven hours but of course up again at 3 a.m. We are fortunate the World Cup games start here in the middle of the night because the games are a nice early-morning diversion.

Some travel notes:

In an effort to avoid unwanted microbes, we not only purchase bottled water constantly but we then drink that through bottles we brought with us that have filters inside. We’re even brushing our teeth with it...so far, so good.

We are doing almost daily bathtub laundry and hanging our clothes all over our hotel room to dry. With the heat, we’re going through it about as fast as we can clean it. Not only haven’t we seen a laundromat but our confidence in successfully utilizing a washer and dryer with Chinese instructions is very low. It was hard enough in Europe!

We are able to communicate quite effectively with people we meet. The kids understand much of what they hear but find that the people speak very fast. Xander, having completed 4th grade, is our go-to translator. All the kids have been congratulated for their excellent pronunciation and all have been able to ask and answer questions to help us out or make new friends. On occasions when we are unable to connect because our Chinese or our conversant’s English is too weak, someone is usually close by to help out.

Compared to our experience in Europe, the streets are actually a little cleaner, there is slightly less smoking, people are generally more friendly and everything is so much cheaper. One has to bargain just about everywhere, especially in tourist areas but the price always comes down and things are quite cheap. Breakfast of wonton-noodle soup and dumplings for five, for example, at one local eatery cost us only the equivalent of US$5. We may never leave!

Finally, the winner for best Chinglish of the day goes to this sign a few blocks away from the temple:  

For modest people with aches and pains, this is the way to go.