Giant Buddha

Sitting on the glass floor

Love that clean air

Under the Bodhi tree

Today we made the trek to the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island. It's a 112 foot tall bronze buddha, one of the largest in the world, that was erected in 1993 near the Po Lin Monastery. It's a major draw for worshipping Buddhists and also for tourists. We along with 3 million other people decided today would be a nice day for a visit.

We took the train, again cheap, fast and efficient to the base of the mountain where we boarded a glass bottomed gondola for the top (after waiting in line for over an hour). We had the choice of a regular gondola or glass bottomed. Thank god we sprung for the slightly more expensive glass bottom gondola, that choice saved us about a 2 hour wait on the way down. Liam especially loved looking down, he was completely enthralled.

Once we arrived at the top we made our way through the tourist throng and kitschy shops to the base of the 268 stairs we had to climb to the top. Elle shockingly made it to the top without one complaint.

At the base of the mountain we stumbled across an enormous grocery store in the basement of an outlet mall (you were right mom), and stocked up on some fruits and vegetables, to avoid scurvy, and other needed items. It was a major discovery for us, we are thrilled with our purchases. Hong Kong malls are another post altogether. Unless you've been here you have no idea... there are hundreds, they are huge and they are taking over the city.

One more day in Hong Kong, and my lungs feel even heavier than they did before I read the last posted article. And now we are headed for the notoriously polluted Beijing that is currently suffering a horrific sandstorm. We have only half-jokingly spoke of flying straight to Hawaii for the next 5 weeks. But, as I told Justin, I don't think I'm ever coming back to China, so I might as well see it while I'm here. Fiji's looking pretty good these days.