Lantau Island

Up and to breakfast at 8:00. Cameron had a hard time swallowing again. I'm definitely going to have to have this checked out when we get home. Maybe sooner if it gets worse. It seems to be only when he thinks about it though.  We then jumped in a cab and went to Lantau Island. Todd called the cab driver Emphysema Joe.  He had a weird cough.  As we were driving the cabbie started talking (which we couldn't understand) and pointing at Todd's camera.  He wanted him to take pictures. 

Cool bridge.

Sad when there has to be a no spitting sign.  Luckily, we didn't
see much spitting in Hong Kong.

Lantau Island is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and is one of the best-loved outlying islands. We rode the Ngong Ping cable car to the top. Todd paid extra to have a glass bottom car. It was so foggy that we couldn't see anything part of the time so that was pretty funny. But at least it meant no one could ride with us either way since it also meant private car. The 5.7 km ride took about 20 minutes. We got a good view of the airport. We learned on our tour that the airport grounds represents 1% of Hong Kong. So 100 airports make up Hong Kong. It didn't mean much when Ronald told us but once I could see all of the airport then I could visualize how big Hong Kong was. Kind of cool.

Cameron's foot and my foot with a view of below.

At this point there wasn't much to see but fog.

Looking down below again.

At the top there was a bunch of shops. At first we couldn't even see the Big Buddha and it was chilly and drizzly. We wandered in and out of the shops and made our way to the Big Buddha. We saw a sign that said "no dogs allowed". The funny part of this was there was at least 12 wild dogs roaming around. Todd wanted to try and teach the dogs how to read. They all looked like they were fed but some of their coats looked terrible. Poor dogs.

At the top.

Big Buddha, where are you?

Strange kitty.

The general representing the rooster...Todd and I's
zodiac sign.

The general representing the horse...Cameron's
zodiac sign.

The general representing the dragon...Reece and
Owen's zodiac sign.

The weather had gotten much better. At least we could see Buddha and it had gotten warmer.  There were 250 steps we had to climb to get to the top of Big Buddha. No problem for the Wallace Family. At the top we walked all the way around it and around the inside. We were deciding if we wanted to pay extra to go the extra 23 steps to the top when a lady walked by us, shook her head no, and said it wasn't worth it. Thank you lady. That was nice of her. Saved us some money too.

That is a big Buddha.

Cameron found the Buddha.

Here we go up 250 steps.

Hello Buddha.

I don't think that is the bathroom Cameron. 

About to head back down.

That is a big high five.

Back down the 250 steps. Back on the cable car. Still foggy in spots. And in some spots it was so windy the noise was crazy inside the car and a little chilly. Back at the bottom the line now was HUGE. Todd said if we would have shown up now he would have never waited in the line. Thank goodness we do things early.

Back on the cable car. 

One foot, two foot, three foot, four...

Enjoying a snack.

One of the towers.

Lounging watching the ground go by.

We walked over to the Outlet Mall. We found a map and there were no stores we needed to go to. Again, thank goodness I'm not a shopper. We grabbed some Subway for lunch and ate it in the mall. We then caught a cab to Kowloon.

There we had the cabbie drop us off at Temple Street. It is best known for its night street food but we knew we weren't going to get there at night. We walked up and down the streets. Very Chinese type streets and shopping. I got a coat for $40 Hong Kong dollars...about $6. Love it. I like wandering around streets like these. So much to see and take in.

One of the awesome streets.

Todd wanted street food. We stopped at Aberdeens Fish balls Restaurant. Almost the same name as where we had lunch yesterday but it was nothing like it. We sat at a little table on the side walk. Todd went in the tiny restaurant and ordered Fish balls. When it came it was in a soup. Not quite what he wanted but him and Cameron still ate it and thought it was good. Lots of people walked by and stared at us and the food.

Todd saw this sign and new he had to eat there.

Todd ordering fish balls.

Eating on the sidewalk...cool.

Todd's so happy with his choice.

We continued walking around. Lots more shops and stalls with almost anything you can imagine. We came upon another restaurant on a corner.  It had all kinds of food. Todd ordered hot dogs wrapped in bacon, lobster balls, and jowdza. We walked through more markets waiting for the food to cool. We stopped and ate. Todd said everything was pretty good. I only had the hot dogs and they were good. Cameron had hot dogs and lobster balls. He said they were good. A little bit of a hard time swallowing but at least he ate.

Some of the food at the corner restaurant.

We continued walking until we got to the mall down by the harbor. We hit the Harley Store first. Lots of Harley stuff. We thought about getting my Dad a bathrobe. Go ahead and try to picture that without laughing. Next stop was Toys R Us. We wandered around there quite awhile. It was nice to see a touch of home. Cameron ended up with a Nerf gun. He can't seem to get enough of these. He was very happy. Todd bought a 3d puzzle of Hong Kong and I bought some games in cans. They were cool.

Back to the ferry to take it back to Hong Kong Island. To the room and relaxed for a little bit. We went to the lounge for snacks and drinks. Cameron had the best hot chocolate ever. He read his new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. At 6:30 we ran back to the room and then went to dinner. We hit The Hop House again (we ate lunch there yesterday). Ordered food to share and Cameron read while waiting for the food. He just can't put the book down. We saw him smiling while reading a few times. He said it was funny.

Cameron's snack plate.  He was waiting for hot chocolate.

He even read in the elevator.

After dinner we rushed back to the room so we could watch the spectacular light show again. This time we were seeing it from the Hong Kong side. At 8:15 we all had the same review...not spectacular.

Cameron showered and continued reading. He finished the book. He was pretty happy and really enjoyed the book. I worked on writing down what we did for the blog because otherwise I would forget. Off to bed. Fun day in Hong Kong.

Behind the couch reading again.