The Big Buddha

One of the days in Hong Kong, I managed to finish my work in time to head over to the Tian Tan Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery.

My original hope had been to hike from Tung Chung up to Ngong Ping, but after doing a bunch of online reading, I realized I was woefully underprepared to take on that challenge.  It was more like a full day commitment, not something I could start in on at 3:30 PM unless I wanted to be on a challenging hike in the dark in a foreign land by myself (not so much).

A portion of the hike.  The Internet did not lie -- it would have been a big commitment.

So, I rode the Ngong Ping 360 cable car.  Thanks to GK, I knew to splurge on the Crystal Palace car so I wouldn't have to wait for hours to get back down (which is the true benefit of the expensive ticket), but this meant I also had a glass-bottomed ride.

Bright blue shoes --> many compliments from Chinese and Hong Kong strangers.

You can see the big Buddha far far away in this shot

Once in Ngong Ping, I visited the Po Lin Monastery and was very happy that hadn't been my only reason for the visit.  As it, like many things in Hong Kong, was under construction.

From there, I headed out for the jauntily named "Ngong Ping Fun Walk."  Which was a wonderful hike.  It was a 2.5K loop with about 300 feet of gain that I had entirely to myself until I reached the so-called Wisdom Path.  Despite its engaging name, and hundreds of tourists in Ngong Ping, I appeared to be the only person who wanted to go on the fun walk.  They were missing out.  It was fun.

Gate to Lantau Peak Trail at the entrance to the Wisdom Path

Wisdom Path

I don't think I'd ever seen a Tea Tree before...

At the end of the loop, I could see the Big Buddha through the trees.

Just below the view above was this one:

To close out my day, I hiked up the 240 steps to the base of the Big Buddha.

He was very big.

I added a few more stairs by visiting all the different levels, made an offering, and hoofed it back down and through Ngong Ping where, as promised, I was able to skip the normal car line and go straight to the front to wait for my Crystal Palace gondola to take me back in time for dinner with E.

Hong Kong Was a Trip: The Beginning

We arrived via plane and took the airport express train 5 minutes to the Asia World Expo, which was connected to the conference hotel.

The tiny part of Hong Kong known known as Asia World Expo is hermetically sealed from the rest of the city and sits on the same chunk of landfill that the airport is on, which has been annexed onto one of the outer islands known as Lantau. Poor E spent most of his week on this chunk of landfill as he was attending and presenting at a conference.

I fared slightly better. Most days I would wake up, go to the gym, shower, work for several hours, and then head out for some sightseeing.

The first day, I headed out with a goal of walking to the Bird Market.  My goal for the trip was at least a 5K a day.  I could do it walking, hiking, or running at the gym, but I wanted to hit the mark each day.  I did fairly well, and went much further on many days. However, this plan to walk from the Kowloon MTR station all the way to the Bird Market, was crazy, as I was later informed (and as I learned along the way). But, you never know you are a fool until you know, right?

So, here’s the thing about Hong Kong – all walkways end in malls. If you look up walking directions, they will likely be in some form of “Walk on the raised walkway to the ITR mall, then follow signs to the Grand Mall of Audaciousness, from there, go towards the mall that contains the next MTR station, exit on the east side and take the raised walkway towards Citic Center, exit on the ground floor and your destination will be on the right."

Oh, and there’s one other thing about Hong Kong – much of it is not designed to be walked at all. Many of the thoroughfares are only accessible to cars, motorcycles, and trucks.

And one other thing – there is construction everywhere.

Small construction projects with bamboo scaffolding are on every city block.  But there are also giant huge squares of construction for skyscrapers (no doubt with malls) that are too big to comprehend the scale until you find yourself walking around them.

With all of these obstacles, the reality of my mapped walk was twice as long, and included awed gaping by me at massive construction projects as well as several unexpected lost hours in malls.

When I was on the street or raised sidewalks and able to walk outdoors on Kowloon, I sincerely enjoyed the scenery:

In hindsight, my plan was a great way to spend the day getting to know the city. But, it was a terrible way to get to the Bird Market, and when I finally arrived, I was very disappointed to find it closed -- just an empty alley with a forlorn bird mural.

The Bird Garden was still open, but there weren't many people around and I wasn't feeling too safe going in there all alone in the dark, so I skipped it as well.

As I tried to shake off my frustration, I mistakenly paid for a MTR ticket at East Mong Kok station when I needed plain-old Mong Kok station.  The only way out was to put my ticket into the exit machine and eat the loss.  If you read the map below, my error will be clear (I was getting tired and hungry).
 

Finally, after a visit to yet another mall, I got on an MTR line that connected with another line that could get me to Kowloon station. E was at a party at the W hotel  (which, conveniently was attached to the mall for the station), so I figured I’d grab some dinner (in the mall, of course) and see if we could meet up for the train back to the Asia World Expo/hotel.

I picked the Chinese restaurant that looked the most interesting to me and enjoyed the best spicy beef noodle soup I’ve ever had.

Seriously.  I will be dreaming of this soup for a long time.  It was absolutely perfectly tasty and hot with great beef and wonderfully dense chewy noodles.  When I was done, I was too exhausted to wait for E's party to get out, so I went back to the landfill of Asia World Expo alone on the train, legs tired, lips burning, and extremely content.

Shanghaied For a Weekend

We went to Shanghai for a weekend before the workish portion of our China/HK trip.

We landed after the mag lev was closed on Saturday night and paid an exorbitant fee to "rent a car" (with driver) to our hotel. I was struck with the reality of expensive travel and how it compares to my younger dreams of luxury travel.  The so-called privilege of paying too much for an immediate car to your destination rather than waiting in the public taxi line or taking a bus doesn't feel like a privilege when the reason you're doing it is that you were too busy to do any research about transport and now it's late enough,  you're tired enough, and the thought of trying to navigate the unknown travel with your broken Mandarin is actually a little bit scary.  In my younger years, I would have been prepared to do what was necessary to save money.  Now, I just really needed to get to my hotel and go to sleep, and without any knowledge of how to do that, I was obviously just a sucker to be preyed upon.

The hotel was my favorite of the trip (E preferred the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, but I was grumpy enough about the lack of jogging track that it is dead to me).  Our room had awesome views of the Bund, although the first day views were a bit sad and dreary due to smog and fog.

We woke super early due to jet lag and walked the Bund amongst the families.  It was relaxing and relatively quiet, not remotely as crowded or chaotic as I'd remembered Beijing being back in 1994.  On our walk back, we saw our first memorable Chinglish sign:

We walked to the People's Square and People's Park via Nanjing Road, and E was quick to point out that the most prominent features and clearly the most popular based on the crowds, were the Gap store opposite the Apple store.

After sightseeing for a while, we selected an authentic-looking sit-down restaurant.  I mean, how could you resist this menu advertisement?

Our personal dishes came in an autoclaved shrink-wrapped pile, which was new to me, but I suppose it did inspire some confidence (along with the A food-safety rating on the wall).  The food was delicious, the experience was interesting, and the people watching was superb.  It was a super-small crowded collection of tables, and often people would come in and share tables with strangers (we were given our own 2-top, no doubt the "foreigners' table").

After lunch we headed up to the bar in the Jin Mao Tower (middle tower in the picture below, the Grand Hyatt Bar on the 87th floor).  Unfortunately, due to the air quality issues, the views were not that great -- frankly, we were a bit depressed.

But, we headed to Xiantiandi for Din Tai Fung for dinner and everything was better (mmmm... xiaolongbao).  Din Tai Fung was one of my favorite parts of living in Bellevue and I was excited to be in Asia where I could get it in every city we were visiting.  I still do not understand why there isn't a branch in the bay area.  It would clean up.  Someone, please, do this.

It rained overnight and we woke the next morning to clear skies.  In fact, there were gorgeous kites flying high above the Bund, and a group of folks in all white or all black doing tai chi at the base of the Bund in front of the People's Heroes Monument (you can see both if you zoom in on the photo below).

E and I love tall buildings.  All big and impressive infrastructure, actually.  I mean, we once snuck across the Brazil border to go visit a hydroelectric dam. So, given that the views were better it shouldn't be a surprise to learn that we went back to the towers in Pudong, and this time headed up to the 91st floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center Tower and enjoyed the views while gorging on an amazing buffet breakfast at the Park Hyatt Hotel's restaurant (note that we are looking down upon the tower we were in the day before -- pretty cool).

From there, we walked along the raised walkways until we found the entrance to the sightseeing tunnel under the Bund (near the base of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower).

The sightseeing tunnel was perhaps the most awesomely kitschy thing we did this trip.  Individualized cars go through the tunnel that is lit with neon and flashing lights with accompanying music, all with the goal of implying a trip to outerspace and back.  Definitely more interesting than the previous day's taxi cab back to the other side of the river.

From the exit of the sightseeing tunnel, we walked our way to an outpost of the famous Yang's Fry Dumplings. They were good, but it was best that we'd had breakfast first. I think I could have easily made myself sick if I tried to fill upon on these alone...

And then, sadly, our time in Shanghai was over.  Off to Hong Kong...

The 400m "Jogging Track" That Wasn't

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a huge Hyatt fan.  I generally structure my business and recreational travel around Hyatt hotels and very much enjoy the Hyatt Rewards program -- I'm kind of like an unpaid evangelist as I've convinced many of my friends to sign up.

However, I was *shocked* to see what passes for a 400m jogging track at your Hong Kong Grand Hyatt property.  You bill a 400m jogging track as one of the amenities on your website for this property, but truly, I encourage you to try to access it and evaluate whether that is the correct name for it.  I would assert that it is not.

In support of my assertion, I would point out that the staff doesn't know what you are talking about when you ask about the "jogging track" (and rightly so).  They point you to the fitness center -- at which point, if you insist that there is a "jogging track" you are guided to a stone/tiled path around the pool and 11th story outdoor shared facilities with elevation changes and right angles that goes through areas where other hotel patrons could be and should be enjoying the facilities.  Essentially, it would be idiotic to jog or run on this path.

I was severely disappointed.  I'd strongly recommend taking this amenity off the website as the only people who care about it, are likely people like me, who think you mean a true 400m track, or something fairly close to it.  People like me are likely to be excited at the prospect of what they think a 400m jogging track should be, and, well, it's just not that.  This is fine.  You have a lovely fitness center at the property.  Just don't over-promise and all will be well. 

Sincerely,
[BT]

Update:  The Grand Hyatt Hong Kong staff got back to me via three (3!) different staff members, thanked me for my feedback, explained that they completely understood why I was disappointed and that they had measured the path and found it to be exactly 400m, but hadn't considered that calling it a 400m jogging *track* would result in such confusion.  They assured me that they would consider updating the language and thanked me again.  THAT, my friends, is awesome customer service.  I feel much better knowing that someone like me may be saved the disappointment I experienced.