rif and I went to the Po Lin Monastery where the Tian Tan Buddha statue (also known as the Big Buddha) is when we were in Hong Kong. Of all the places we planned to visit, this was not high on my list because I’m generally not big on temples or place of worship for that matter. To me, it’s just another place of worship.
To get to the Big Buddha, we took the MTR to Tung Chung Station and exit at Exit B. Alas, the Ngong Ping Cable Car wasn’t in service, so we had to take the New Lantao Bus 23 from the town centre. The queue was long but moving, and it took us about 45 minutes before we could board the bus and another 45 minutes to get to the monastery.
The Tian Tan Buddha statue sits 34 metres high and faces up north to look over the Chinese people. This Buddha took 12 years to complete, and to get to the statue, one has to climb 268 steps. Since the weather was quite chilly, I found this a lot easier than climbing Batu Caves.
Po Lin Monastery – dubbed the “Buddhist World in the South” – is one of Hong Kong’s most important Buddhist sanctums. The restaurant — Ngong Ping Garden Restaurant — serves vegetarian food but we didn’t try any. Instead, we took the bus back to CityGate Outlets later on for lunch and some window-shopping. 🙂
For more information, check out the official website here.
- Like my Facebook page here.
Tian Tan Buddha
Ngong Ping,
Lantau Island, Outlying Islands
Tel: +852 2985 5248
GPS Coordinates: N 22 15.244 E 113 54.302
2 comments
Didn’t manage to go to Po Lin Monastery as the weather was too scorching on my last visit, only loitering around Ngong Ping 360 🙁
Yikes. When did you go to Hong Kong? When I went end of March, the weather was good. A bit chilly and nice to walk around.