Longest Day EVER

As today was our final day here, we planned to take a trip to Lantau Island, what sounded like a peaceful idyllic retreat from the city where we could visit the "Big Buddha" - what is reported in the guide books to be the only seated, bronze, outdoor buddha. Special characteristics clearly. Geri and I left this morning at what we thought was a decent hour, around 9.30am, to head out there as it is about 1/2 hour on the subway. So we exit, stand in line which doesn't look TOO bad, and after about a 1/2 hour of waiting, we find a sign next to us that reads "Estimated Waiting Time: 90 minutes". Keep in mind I'm still recovering from my sickness and have already turned a shade of yellow and almost fainted while standing for that long. But we figured that they would probably be overestimating the time and we'd already been waiting for long enough so we could tough it out. Would make sense, right? Well no. THREE hours later we get on board the cable car up to the mountain where the buddha is. That's I think the length of Schindlers List. In other words, TOO LONG. Especially when surrounded by 100s of people. On the positive side, while in this line, we learned many lessons of the Chinese: 1. Lines do not matter. They should not even be called lines at all, because as soon as it starts to move forward at any pace, everyone tries to shove by you. Even grandmas. And the amazing thing is that no one gets mad about it, so who were Geri and I to put up a fuss? 2. Give birth to children so you have a human force to push your way through lines. This we found to be true anywhere, on subways, the street, etc. If you have a child with you and you push them through first to get a seat on the subway, no one can really get mad at them and push them back. 3. The estimated length of waiting time is always underestimated!

Luckily, Geri and I met a new friend and we learned to laugh our way through it and had some memorable funny moments to our day, including a Buddhist vegetarian meal (another 1/2 hour wait for that) that included a rotten corn on the cob which we pawned off on our new friend (who has since left us. hmmm.) So in the end, it was a hilarious day. Who would have thought? Goes to show that things can be worth the wait.

So we're off tomorrow on a very long train ride to Vietnam so I should be reporting back in the next few days.