Peak Tram and Beach

Our last day! Difficult to believe...

Off we go to visit the Peak with a plan to be back around lunch time (more like 15:00) to go to the beach and to have fish and chips and my beach bar.

THE PEAK

Someone is very pleased to be on the tram

Arrival at the Peak Station

Tram terminus going back down

Inside the tram - going up you face forwards, going down you face  backwards

A retired tram at the top

View from the top

View from the top

With your tram ticket the normal marketing ploy of buy this and get this for this much. We bought the tram ticket, skipped the sky terrace part of the offer but bought the Madame Tussaud's part of the deal. What a blast we had in there - Caleb was a bit freaked out  by all these people just standing there - guess it is a bit if you not entirely sure why they look so real but do not talk back.

RUBBING SHOULDERS WITH THE FAMOUS

Angelina and Brad and their 7th child, I mean Ingrid!

Meryl Streep

Madame herself

Lady Di

My best royal look

And then the court jesters came out

Congratulations Barak

A small big man Gandhi

Mozart

Rembrandt added a bit of colour to his painting...

William Shakespeare

Pablo Picasso

Mao

Mr. Jobs

Albert Einstein

Caleb was glad to meet someone he knew about - he did try and talk to him and Spiderman very rudely ignored him

Astro Boy

Marilyn Monroe

Johnny Depp

Alfred Hitchcock and Humphrey Bogart

Pierce Brosnan

Audrey Hepburn

David Beckham and his thousand mile stare - little does he know someone is about to pinch his butt

Round of golf with Tiger - when you put the ball the crowd cheers

Mohammed Ali - interactive game at 3 levels where you need to so how many lights you can touch as they flash

The Beatles

MJ

Elvis and Freddie

Stevie Wonder and Lenny Kravitz's handprints

Once we got back to our beach, turns out the beach bar yet again has been booked for a private function! So that was that then. We swam in the warm water until the sun started to set. 

Then all that was left was to go and finish packing up, get a taxi and to leave for the airport.

Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

We ventured into the New territories, apparently more than a third of the Hong Kong population stays there and this is where Hong Kong borders with China. Bought a tourist day pass as the whole trip was made up of riding the rails - with three different MTR trains, total traveling time maybe only 45 mins in total.

This has been by far one of the easiest trips we have done in terms of transport. 

Now the monastery in question is no longer active and is basically run by members of the community. Admission is free and I think they mostly rely on donations, not even sure if the government contributes. Members of the public do use it for prayer/ dedication. 

The 10 000 is actually closer to 13 000 and basically it relates to the buddhas which are stacked on shelves in the main hall of the hillside sanctuary located in the town of Sha Tin. No two buddhas are the same, they are all different.

Sha Tin is also the location of the second most popular horse racing track in Hong Kong. This track was re-developed for the 2008 Olympics and hosted the dressage and show jumping events.
Anyway, the racetrack is closed to the public unless its racing season.


Going back to the buddhas, there are just over 400 steps to get to the monastery. So that involved Ingrid and caleb on the steps on the one side and me and the push chair on the other side, sweating our way up the stairs. With the humidity nearly at 150% (that is how humid it feels), it is not for the faint hearted nor for looking pretty.

It is worth it in the end, especially cooling down with a cold drink in the vegetarian canteen, which serves all sorts of snacks and meals with a good dose of a friendly host.

The beginning of the road

Place of dedication/ prayer on the way up

In the distance the blue and white dots - Ingrid and Caleb taking a breather

Nearing the end

Almost at the top

The entrance

Just inside

View from the top

Temple Plaza

All the little buddhas

Look closely they are all different

The trek down was a bit like running downhill comrades on the legs - after that we went into Ikea to see how it works - quite a cool shop if you live here for all your household things. Example a single bed with a safety rail - HK$ 550, a whole new kitchen for about HK$ 5 000.
 After that we went to have coffee with fake grass on the outside on top of the roof of a building. Caleb thought this was great as he could crawl around on it with his cars for 40 mins.

So tomorrow is our last day - best the Peak be clear.