I met up with my new Irish friend Connor, who is here on a business trip, and we headed out to Lantau Island, to see the big Buddha statue on one of the mountain tops, the mighty Tian Tan Buddha.

Also simply called the Big Buddha, is a large bronze statue of a Buddha Amoghasiddhi, on Lantau Island, close to the Po Lin Monastery.

It’s a popular tourist attraction, and we headed up the mountain with the gondola, and enjoyed some great views over the island and the new Hong Kong airport.

It’s a nice excursion, and we walk  dup the stairs to admire the massive statue that is towering over the site…

I was a bit disappointed though to learn that it was a new construction, completed in 1993. Somehow I simply had assumed it would be an ancient statue, like the massive Buddha in Nara…

Still, it was a great day, we got some sun, relatively fresh air and some exercise, walking up those stairs.