East Meets Jess: It was like out of a scary movie

I went to check out my man, Buddha, this weekend and it was quite the experience. In one word I think I would say, eerie. First of all, this is the biggest outdoor bronze Buddha in the world so it's quite a sight to see. It's located on Lan Tau island so you have to take this loooong cable car ride up to the island - you're practically in the clouds by the time you reach the island but it's really cool. the ride up there reminds me of those cable car rides that they have at the amusement parks (Canobie Lake anyone?)

So it all started on the cable car ride.

Hair was going a little crazy in the "naturally ventilated" ride as it was articulately described in the brochure.

We also opted for the glass bottom car on the ride up, but turns out it wasn't a huge deal. We did see some pretty forests and cool paths though...

Also, randomly saw a person walking along the path and let me tell you, that's a long path to walk. Can you see the little guy? This was with full zoom!

Then a huge fog started moving in. Before we knew it, the view went from scenic mountain tops and beautiful blue waters to all white! Everything disappeared in the fog and we couldn't see where this cable car was going. It was seriously, right out of a scary movie. Check out how intense this fog got in a matter of seconds!

And if you don't believe it was this dramatic, just check out these photos I took.

Daniel and Toon enjoying the view:

Daniel and Toon 30 seconds later (pretending to enjoy the view!):

Creepy stuff. At this point, there was no turning back so we tried to enjoy the ride...while tightly gripping onto each other.

Once we got to the top, we checked out the lay of the land and decided, lunch first! We had our noodles and rice dishes, and after that, we were ready to go back. haha, jk! So then we started off on our adventure. First up, was the wishing tree....ie. the fake wishing tree. The trunk looked kind of real up close but the leaves were clearly plastic. I got a kick out of hearing so many people walk up to the tree and say "Ah! um-hie-tsung-ga?" I think you can probably guess that means, "What? That's not real?" People! Don't be fooled (even though I might have been as well for like 1/2 a sec) hehe.

After that, we goofed around in the "village" as they had so eloquently described in the pamphlet only to find out, it's just a shopping complex with a village theme. It was the funniest thing, the stores were built with an old village style but then they had big ol signs like Starbucks hanging on the outside. At least we got some authentic custome shots. hehe

And to be fair, I did make them do this. Such good sports. hehe.

Next, we headed to the Po Lin Monastery afterwards. As you can see, everything had an eerie fog overcast. Before we knew it, we could barely see anything more than 10 feet in front of us. And to add to this eerie feeling, there was some sort of buddhist monk chanting on record that was playing over and over again.

The good thing is, once we got inside the monastery we saw lots of cool statues.

The 3 largest statues are of Buddha - representing his past, present, and future.

Then there were also several smaller statues throughout the monastery.

This is a plant structure that's outside the monastery. I took quite a liking to it.

Then we headed over to see the Big Buddha or the Tian Tan Buddha, which symbolizes the relationship between man and nature, people and religion. You have to climb over 250 steps just to get up to the statue but the best photos are down below b/c once you get to the top, you can't really get a good view. It was very calming once you get to the top. Everyone is quiet and observing the statue. I felt very zen. :)

Here's a view of the steps and at the top, you normally can see the Buddha.

Here's a closer shot of the Buddha. It's sitting on a lotus throne.

And then there were 6 statues at the top surrounding the Buddha known as "The Offering of the Six Devas". They represent charity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom, all of wich are necessary to enter into nirvana. cool right?

This was the best photo I could get of me with the Buddha

And when we didn't think it could get any more eerie, we took a walk down "Wisdom Path" and saw this. How odd. We saw scarecrows in a desserted outdoor patio.