A Side Visit - Lantau Island

 When I had the opportunity to take an extra holiday from Fiji, I grabbed the chance, and a 10 hour flight from Nadi landed us in Hong Kong, but first we decided to experience village life at Tai O.  It was dark and raining when we got out of the taxi for a 5 minute walk to the B&B, we went in the wrong direction and got soaking wet but a bad start means a good finish. A warm cup of tea,  a good sleep and next morning we were in a bus to go see Buddha.Its not an old Buddha but is the biggest outdoor Buddha in the world. Built just before the British left Hong Kong.  First stop was to buy a warm cap and gloves as it was cold and very windy, near freezing. Climbing the 280 steps tested my endurance, but the walk around inside was beautiful, no photos allowed. After a vegetarian lunch at the Monastry nearby we took the cable car, We had great views of the airport and surrounding mountains, I even saw a waterfall, and we were relieved when we hit ground and had our first shopping experience to get more warm clothes,  Later we heard that the service often has to stop because of the wind. Lucky Laurice had sent me my snow boots and warm coat I use in New York winters, even so I got a few extra warm things to supplement the supply I had bought at Save City in Fiji, which sells lots of winter clothes at cheap prices. When I left in Sept for Sunny Fiji I never thought I would need winter clothes.

 We saw some unusual sites in the fishing village, dried fish galore, from puffer fish to sharks.This plate of egg yolks drying in the sunshine didn't entice me to sample the finished product.

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 A few minutes before this photo was taken we had been sitting on the wooden balcony, just above those triangular sticks, eating the most amazing Tiramisu and other sweet delights and drinking very good coffee. I won't mention who went back for second helpings.  We took the boat ride to view the stilt houses, (the blog hasn't left me upload that photo) and also to try to see the pink dolphins in the harbour but none were about, we didn't mind, it was so different to Fiji

Lantau island has very steep hills, amazing winding roads, and this beautiful beach with massive rocks, a short bus ride from our village, It was New Years eve, and parties were about to commence, but we had an average meal and left,  We knew it had been NYE in Fiji 5 hours before, was near to NYE in Sydney and we were all tired, 2013 still arrived without any effort from us. On New Years day we were heading into Hong Kong proper and we didn't want to be tired.  The rest of the family were off to Disney Hong Kong and I had some hours to myself.