Girls' Outing 2

While the boys had to stay inside during school today (not allowed to go outside for PE, etc) because of the high API (air pollution index), we opted to flee the city and head toward an outlying island, Lantau Island.  This is where the HK airport and Disney Land reside, but we were there for the short half day visit, which meant we got to visit one place. I think I've said this before; I am able to do one errand per day, no more.  Today, I really wanted to girls to ride the gondola on Lantau and this is what it required:

Bus from the neighborhood down to Stanley (5 min) at 11:30

Bus from Stanley to Central (45 min)

Walk to to Central Pier (15 min)

Ferry to Lantau (35 minutes because we accidentally took the fast ferry, but I really wanted to take the 50 minute ordinary ferry so we could acutally see where we were going - lesson learned)

Bus 2 to Ngong Ping (40 min)

Walk around little village and up the 268 steps to the big buddha and back down to have a snack and buy our gondola tickets

Gondola to MTR - subway - (25 min)

MTR back to Kowloon and then on to Hong Kong Island (1 hour)

Taxi home because I just couldn't bring myself to get on the bus to Stanley (15 min)

While we were waiting for our 5 minute neighborhood bus home, a mom who lives near us stopped and picked us up.  It was 6:15.  She asked us where we had been and I told her. Her reaction was funny.  "Whew!"  So I asked her, "Do you notice that you can get one thing per day done here, but when we lived in NC (she moved from North Carolina a couple of years ago) we could get 20 things done per day?"  She replied, "Yeah, and still feel somewhat normal when you got home, instead of totally exhausted from trying to get around HK."  

 The buses are always freezing.

We passed the Apple store while walking to the pier.  That's an amazing space. Claire went to this store last week for a field trip and she pointed out the area to us where she visited.

The fast ferry.  This is just not the way to travel to Lantau. The boys and I took the "ordinary" ferry which is open air and just a lovely ride.

I have no idea why Claire loves to make theses faces in almost every photo, but it sure captures her big personality.

Nogong Ping

The "crystal cabin" gondola from Ngong Ping to the MTR station. I'm not sure why I can't remember to take a picture of the actual gondola. The glass bottom is really cool.

By the time we made it to the MTR station, the girls were just wacky and I just let them be wacky!