Day 22 - A giant Buddha and a goose dinner (Hong Kong)

Today was my last full day on this trip as I leave for the airport tomorrow afternoon.

Originally I had planned on getting up early and heading over to Lantau Island to explore but I changed my mind last minute and opted for a walking tour around the Kowloon area of Hong Kong.

The walking tour wasn’t until 2pm so I slept in today and didn’t head out of the hostel until after noon.

I showed up to the meeting point for the tour only to be told that the guide was sick and she couldn’t do the tour today.

Ummmm…

Huh. Now what?

Guess I’ll go to Lantau Island after all.

It wasn’t too late in the day to head over there as if I left at 2:00 I should be back in town by 7:00 after exploring the island.

Luckily I had everything mapped out on my phone including bus schedules so I was good to go.

After a 45 minute subway ride I was on Lantau Island which is to the east of the city near the airport.

Everything you want to visit on this island is up the mountain so you can either take a cable car to get up there or take the bus.

I decided I would take the cable car up and the bus back down.

There were only a half dozen people waiting to take the cable car up and I actually got a whole car to myself.

For 145hkd ($24) it was a bit pricey but, then again, it was a long 25 minute ride.

By 3:30 I had arrived at Ngong Ping Village.

After hastily rushing through the souvenir infested village, I arrived to where the two main attractions of the island were.

The Tian Tan Buddha statue and the nearby Po Lin Monastery.

After walking around the grounds of the monastery for awhile I headed to the steps leading up to the giant Buddha at the top of the hill.

There were 268 steps between me and the top and amazingly I tackled them pretty quickly reminding me of the time I did the same kind of climb when I visited Kuala Lumpur awhile back.

Next stop – Tai O fishing village.

The only way to get to the village is by taking a 15 minute bus ride that only runs once an hour.

This is where a little advance planning paid off as I showed up just in time to catch the next bus over to the village.

When you disembark from the bus you are immediately hounded by people trying to sell you a boat tour of the village.

Nope, no thank you.

All I want to do is explore and get away from all the touristy stuff.

There were alot of tiny shops selling all sorts of merchandise, fish, and fish byproducts.

I was very tempted to stop in one of the little street food stalls for a nice fish lunch but there is a looming 11 hour flight I have tomorrow and I was thinking eating potentially questionable fish from a tiny street food stall the day before may not be the best course of action.

I had something better in mind for dinner anyway…

After visiting the village I headed on a bus back to the subway station on the other side of the island about 45 minutes away.

By 6:00 I was back on the subway heading back into Hong Kong and by 7:00 I was walking up to the famous Kam’s Roast Goose restaurant.

Even though I had it marked on my map, it became pretty obvious where it was by the line of people outside of it waiting to get in.

Of course with me just being one person I managed to get sat right away as they just put me at an empty seat at a shared table across from the only other foreigner in the tiny restaurant.

I ordered the 1/4 goose along with a side of rice (200hkd, $35) and within minutes my meal was in front of me.