More Mixed sight seeing results

This sunday I went to do some sight seeing. First on the list was the largest outdoor, seated, bronze buddha. Interesting that so much pride is taken in something that has to be so qualified. This isn't the largest buddha, it isn't the largest outdoor buddha, it isn't even the largest outdoor bronze buddha, its the largest outdoor, bronze seated buddha. I took the gondola up to the top and the only thing that made this worth the 1 1/2 hour wait. Was the view of the airport, desgined by Sir Norman Foster. If anyone has ever wondered why I like working on airports, search youtube for a 5 part discovery channel piece on the Hong Kong Airport seen here and you'll know why I think it's cool.

The gondola lead to some cool views of this Buddha, and lots of the surrounding island. I have to come back and check out more of this island (Lantau). This is where most of the good hiking is. This is where all the beaches are, and some are really remote, and you have to hike to them. Which will be nice because all of the others I have seen have really been polluted by the thousands of people that go to them every weekend.

So more of the Buddha, well it's pretty cool looking but it is very comercialized. I guess there has been a Buddist monestary here for a long time but this thing is baisically Buddist Disney land, there are charactures of Monkey (a famous Chinese folk hero) walking around. There is a Subway and a 7-11 up there. I felt like it was kind of shame that this buddha was being so commercialized. There were a lot of people praying all around the site which was kind of humbling. But the last straw for me was at the very end of walking around I was reading some info about the tale of this specific Buddha what his story was, and I read that the statue was built in 1993! I don't know why but this fact ruined the whole thing for me.

I also toured the monestary, it was nice. I bought some incense and lit it for my family as is traditional. I have some pics of that but I have to get them from the girls from work I went with. I bought some for them to burn and thought I was doing a good deed. But as I was taking a picture for the girls of them lighting the incense I bought for them I backed into some other incense burning and melted a hole in my boardies and burnt my leg I think Buddha bite me for my negative thoughts.