LANTAU ISLAND 大屿山
This is the official Lantau Island post, because the cables car are in operation today! We woke up at 9am today and had gong zai min (Nissan noodle) at Gold Sand Cafe because my bf was craving for it. Gong zai min is the instant noodle dish which is famous in HK. The one at Gold Sand is not the nicest that we have eaten, but good enough as a hot comforting breakfast. 奶茶time again!
Again, we took the MTR to Tung Chung Station. Yay, for being on the same yellow line as Olympic station. As per the last visit, there was also a very long queue to buy the tickets. We waited patiently for probably about an hour, got our tickets at the counter, and then head to a shorter queue to board our cable car. We bought the 2 way round trip crystal cabin ticket which is HKD 255 per adult. The base of the cable car is transparent! Scary as hell the first time, and now the second time, was still rather scary. You will get a wrist band to be worn before boarding so that they can identify you as a crystal cabin passenger.
We were with a family of 3 and 2 girlfriends. The mother in the family appeared rather afraid of the height too, so we were together in this haha. Eventually, we become immune to it because the ride is about 30 minutes or so. But any jerk or movement caused by the wind or the gears was still unnerving. We saw cows along the way up where the cable car was nearer to the grounds. They look so carefree roaming about just eating grass and lazing around. We were seated back-faced in the direction we were moving towards for both of the rides and the view was less beautiful.
Everything looked the same as we alighted from the cable car and started exploring. There were some food places at the start. I believed they upgraded their restrooms and it looked much cleaner, and the air conditioning was so cooling as well. We passed by all the souvenir shops and found the food store which sells noodles, bean curd and black sesame paste. I remember that one cat scared me out of the shop because it was allowed to roam around within the shop. Thankfully, it was far away this time round. We bought the large sausage and curry fish ball from the pushcart right outside the food store shophouse. While the sausage is delicious, the curry fishballs did not absorb adequate curry flavor and taste like normal fishballs. I saw that the lady boss threw the curry fishballs into the curry for 30 seconds or so only :(. They only have paper bags and you can see the mess when the oil seeps through. The sesame paste and bean curb is from the shop front and they taste very homemade, although a little expensive for that small portion.
The sun was so bright that we can barely open our eyes for a decent photo. We headed to the side of where the stairs up to the big Buddha starts. At the counter, the tickets to the vegetarian meal at Po Lin Monastery were sold. I have searched for reviews to get a little idea of the type of meals they have. They have the standard, deluxe and snack meal ticket. Standard and deluxe were in the restaurant like setting whereby you get to eat earlier and have a personal table for the deluxe option. We didn't try the standard option so we cannot be sure what is the difference in dishes. What we noticed during our meal was that a bigger group have about 2 additional types of dish. Anyway, the portion of the VIP deluxe meal is really large and more than enough for two of us. It is about SGD 20 plus per person and the food quality is just satisfactory. The lemon beancurd and spring roll is quite oily. I think what we really liked best is the mushroom starch soup, but it could still be better. Maybe the snack option would have been a better choice, vegetarian bee hoon, kuey and beancurd sort of stuff.
We were tempted to count the number of steps up the stairs before we reach the top but I believe we would have lost track at some point. In my opinion, it is not very high up. If your fitness level is average, it should not be much of a problem. Some panting perhaps, and some sweat. The view up there is beautiful! But again, the sun was too bright and we did not capture any display-picture-worthy photo of us together with the background.
There are cows at Lantau Island too! They have tags on their ears so I think these animals are identified and protected there. It was time for shopping! I just enjoy looking around at those nice souvenirs, clothes, toys and display items. I found the metal Titanic puzzle in a bigger size at a similar price as the smaller one in SG, and also bought a Buddha date display item. The promotion that day was a free cute poker card deck if we spend above HKD 500. We also got ourselves a free hardcopy 4R photo. After payment, we went to take our pictures within the shop, doing the poses instructed to us based on the background they will photoshop us into. First, we were "enjoying fireworks", and then we were "kungfu masters". Our last shot was an outdoor shoot where we stood along the street. It was a fun short photoshoot and they were trying to push their photo package. We just decided to get the free one (outdoor) since I look fat in all of them :x.
We were also given one of those wooden plates from the shop, to be written and hung on the wall of wishes outside. While my bf was filming at another side, I was writing my wish. He did not even give me any constructive ideas of what to write, he just did not care about me. Somehow I already knew what I wanted to write :P. I hung it up and pretended like I did not want him to see. I was a little embarrassed when he was looking at it, but the moment after he finished reading and looked at me, that look in his eyes... I have told him the day before, that the next time we would come to HK Disneyland is probably going to be with our kids :). We started queuing for the cable car to go back at 5.30pm as the last cable car would leave at 6pm. But we have checked with the staff, as long as you can get to the queue before they close it at 6pm, you are safe. The queue was long for this.
We walked awhile at Citygate Mall, which is located beside Tung Chung MTR Station. We did not spend much here the last time, and similarly, it was quite boring for the shops are mainly factory outlets of branded stuff I don't really need. Except, this time, I bought a pink waterproof Timberland boots at a cheaper price (HKD 1043). That would be for our next trip! We did not have dinner there but decided to search for Maxim Palace Chinese Restaurant Dim Sum instead. Since we would already be meeting his friend, Zhang Fan, for dim sum dinner the next day, we can't possibly have it for breakfast or lunch too. I believe we alighted at Hong Kong station and walked a short distance. It was surprising near the MTR. There were people going in to the building for a musical performance and I thought we were at the wrong place.
Unfortunately, our silly brains did not remember that generally dim sums are served from morning till early afternoon only. So there were no more dim sum served for dinner, but a Chinese oriental dinner instead. At another level within the same building, Maxim has another food outlet. Called the Maxim's Cafe, they serve mixed western dishes at a more affordable price. The borsch soup is so yummy and the bun is served warm. The curry is thick and spicy at a comfortable level for me. It comes in a set so we have yuan yang and milk tea at the end of our meal too. Each set at about SGD 20 seems a reasonable price for the whole bundle deal.
I enjoyed the moments of the romantic walk under the dark sky after dinner so much. There was no time restriction and no destination. Just a leisure walk and some selfie time <3. The night view was amazing even though we were surrounded by buildings. Though the photos are blurry and it appears misty, the buildings were brightly lit, standing tall and beautiful.
Re-walking the path, recreating memories.
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