My last ( I promise) Hong Kong story

 This week spring has finely sprung on my corner of Essex.  The frogs have spawned, flowers are flowering and I even managed to sit in the garden for a while this afternoon.  I have been trying to catch up on all the seed sowing and planting that needs to be done.  For weeks it has been TOO cold to plant anything, now it all needs to go in at once.

I did just want to tell my last story of Hong Kong, my last day there (which seems so long ago now).
My sister decided that we needed to see the Big Buddha, I was not sure what to expect.  We drove to town and took the Star Ferry across the see to the Island of Lantau. 

This was the ferry man, he was dressed like a sailor, and had obviously done this once or twice before.
 A choice of coach or taxi?  We picked the wrong choice and had the most hair raising drive across the island in a taxi.

 We stepped out of the taxi onto dry land(!) and could see the Big Buddha in the distance on top of the hill.  

Lots of gift shops to navigate before walking through this arch and up to the steps. 

Doesn't look too bad, just a few steps up, my sister wisely waited at the bottom with the pram, and sent me, Dan and the baby up!  With instructions for a photo of the baby at the top!  We approached the ticket office and thought that entrance tickets had to be purchased and that they included an ice cream (we didn't really want one) and climbed up all these steps

At the top!  Phew!

Time for my ice cream? 

We went to the ice cream stall and were told that we had to get our tickets stamped by the lady inside the building, in we went, tickets stamped, clicker clicked and ticked off on the clipboard.  We had a brief look around and then went back to the ice cream stall and..........

An ice cream and a drink!  Turns out we didn't actually have to buy a ticket, it was just for the ice cream!!

We then looked around the Monastery, where everyone was buying incense sticks and burning them, the air was thick!  We then took the cable car back down to the main land, a very long journey, took at least half an hour

It was an amazing day out, so many different types of transport and views.