Big Buddha: Walk with Skip-the-Line NP360 Cable Car
This two-hour excursion takes you to Ngong Ping’s Buddhist monastery and related attractions. Appreciate the architecture, and become enlightened by listening to Buddhist stories and learning more about yourself. Start your tour at the Ngong Ping Cable Car at 13:00 and enjoy the vista of rolling greens, boundless blue sky and the vast ocean from the cable car cabin of Asia’s longest bi-cable ropeway. Kick off your journey to enlightenment with a bird’s eye view of the breathtaking panorama from all 360 degrees. Then, travel to the pedestal of the Big Buddha aboard a comfortable coach. Visit the world renowned outdoor seated bronze Buddha statue at 13:50 and admire it's calmness. Measuring 30 square meters, the solemn face of the bronze Buddha statue was cast in a single piece. Visitors can appreciate the Buddha’s relic, the most sacred item of Buddhism, and worship the Buddha in the exhibition hall inside of the pedestal. Go to Wisdom Path, an arrangement of 38 giant wood columns measuring 8-10 meters tall and 1 meter wide to showcase calligraphic works by a master of Chinese studies Professor Jao Tsung-I. These wood columns are arranged in a “∞” pattern and the words are from a famous Buddhist classic called the Heart Sutra. The Wisdom Path symbolizes the profoundness and wisdom of Buddhist teaching. After this continue at the Grand Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas, a five storey complex covering an area of more than 6,000 square metres. It comprises of the Main Shrine Hall of Buddha, a scripture library, an abbot’s chamber, a mediation hall, a permanent altar, an exhibition hall for Buddhist artefacts and a multi-functional hall. It is an important educational base for traditional culture, and a complex that combines Buddhist teaching, religious mediation, history, culture and tourism. Return to the Po Lin Monastery at 16:00 and enjoy refreshments and time to tour on your own. The excursion concludes with a return trip to Tung Chung on the cable car.