hongkong: day 1 of 6, NGONG PING
Our flight to HongKong was an early one at 7.55am, but by the time the 4 hours flight landed and we took the public transport in search of our accommodation, and got all ready to explore the city, it was already 3 pm. HongKong, populated in a similar dense manner as Singapore, also took quite a while to get around even though the country is not huge.
I was greeted by Mr Gingerbread Man at the airport.
Ngong Ping 360 was on our itinerary for the first day. The crystal cabin, where the floor of the cable car cabin was see through, was definitely not for those with acrophobia.
Once there, it was like a rush for madhouse because the hill top sights would close in an hour and a half’s time.
Tian Tan Buddha, at 26.4m was the greatest Buddha statue in HongKong. Po Lin Monastery, where it was possible to spend the night there and have some Buddhist meals, was under renovation at that point of time.
As the sun lowered itself slowly, we saw snaking queues of people outside the cable car terminal, and we thought everybody must have waited till last minute before descending from Ngong Ping Peak. It turned out that the cable car system had some technical glitch, and was not operating. That was the third breakdown for the cable car in one week. I liken that to our MRT breakdowns as well. I suppose both aren’t prepared that sufficiently in times of sudden emergencies like these.
