Lantau, Buddha, and heinous bathrooms

Yesterday I headed to Lantau island to check out the huge Buddha that is on top of the mountain. I took the subway to a gondola that takes you up the mountain. The gondola ride itself is absolutely spectacular- check out the video below:



They have build this sort of village/theme parkish kind of thing on the top of this mountain where the huge Buddha is. They even have this multimedia cartoon movie about the Buddha- its kind of weird but is well done.


There is some spectacular hiking there and I did a short walk to the "path to wisdom" which is a walk to a place where there are these wooden columns with the heart sutra (a Buddhist scripture) carved into them- see picture below. In the little village they had a place where you can get a foot massage- given that I have been walking at least 4-5 miles every day my feet were killing me so I thought it would be a good idea. It was kind of strange. They started it by having me soak my feet in some water that looked like black tea or something. Then this lady rolled up my pants and started to jam her fingers into my knee which was quite unpleasant. She did the massage very rapidly it wasn't very relaxing but at least it was cheap.

I took the gondola back down and headed back to Kowloon and grabbed some food. I had this fantastic duck and pork with rice and veggies- it was killer and also very cheap. I then made a very crucial mistake- I went to the bathroom after eating. The bathroom was absolutely disgusting and filthy- no exaggeration I nearly threw up my food. Many of the bathrooms here have been unpleasant experiences- I can't wait to get to Japan where the bathrooms are clean and the service is a million times better than here.I then headed to the waterfront promenade facing Hong Kong to watch the evening light/laser show that is put on every night. The Kowloon waterfront is really well done with a large promenade and walking area that includes a tribute to Hong Kong movie stars with bronze stars embedded in the ground with names of famous actors and such. The view of Hong Kong at night is absolutely stunning from this area. At 8 PM every single night they put on a light/laser show over the harbor and buildings on both sides have lights that also flash. After watching the show I boarded the Star ferry which takes you between Kowloon and Hong Kong. It is really cheap and provides a great view of both Hong Kong and Kowloon. I then headed to Wan Chai which I hadn’t explored yet. It has lots of bars and restaurants, including lots of host bars which seem like a very strange thing to me. As I understand it they employee attractive females who are supposed to entertain you and drink with you and I think the drinks are really expensive. They are quite popular in Asia and Hawaii. I just don’t get it. Anyway they were super aggressive in trying to get me into these places- literally grabbing me to try to pull me in- I couldn’t get out of there soon enough.