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October 17, 2013

Day 22: The Big Buddha and Tai O in Lantau Island

On our last day in Hong Kong, and also the last day of our trip, we stayed where we had been sleeping the last three days, Lantau Island. Following some of Karen´s recommendations, we made ourselves on the way to see the Big Buddha in the Po Lin Monastery on the Ngong Ping highland. We decided to go by bus and, once there, we bought a combined ticket to enter the complex which included the bronze Tian Tan Buddha, the Temple, which was under construction, and a little “snack”. 300 steps and a “No meat and no alcohol” warning were between us and the more than 25m high Buddha.

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If you get to visit the Po Lin Monastery come with an empty stomach. Remember the “snack” included in the ticket? It happened to be a full meal with drinks and some sticky "mooncakes" made from lotus seed paste as a desert. It was like having and very sweet gum inside your mouth that you could hardly swallow without lots of water.

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After the early lunch, and because we missed our bus, we shared a taxi with three other people to get to Tai O. This fishing town is famous for its stilt houses, houses raised over piles on the water surface, the dolphin watching tours and the dry fish you can buy on the street market. It is also called the Venice of Hong Kong... hmmm, really? Instead of taking the dolphin tour, we walked around the town for more than an hour and bought some dried shrimps that I didn’t dare to try after the not so hygienic conditions I had seen.

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When we were back at Karen's place, we packed our stuff and headed with her to the Tung Chung station. There, we spent some time in the Outlet inside the station, we said goodbye to Karen, bought a ticket to the airport and got ready to take our fourth and last Intercontinental flight back to Europe. Bye bye Hong Kong! Thank you Karen!

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