Following Canada's Equestrian Team

I was able to do some more touristy stuff yesterday. Myself, Jenn Miller (dressage vet), Grit High (Eventing’s chair of high performance) and Mike Gallagher (team leader) made the trip via MTR to see the Big Buddha.

The Buddha is on Lantau island near the airport and is the world’s tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha. The statue is located near Po Lin Monastery and symbolizes the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion.

I feel like I’m getting to be an expert with the MTR system here. Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty easy to use. The biggest concern is knowing which MTR card to use (Urban=yellow and New Territories=green). So as we approach the turnstiles, you’ll hear a shout from the first person to go through “Yellow!”. More often that not what immediately preceded this shout was using the wrong card and hitting the turnstiles full force with your hips – ouch! Eventing farrier Chris Volk was so confident that he was using the right card that he nearly did a flip over the turnstiles 🙂

Once you get there, you have a choice of either taking the cable cars or taking a bus. I knew I had no choice but to do the cable cars. Last year when I was in Rio Al gave me major grief for chickening out on seeing Sugar Loaf because I was too afraid to take the cable car. That was a 30 second ride……this one was over 15 mins! But I sucked it up and did it. It wasn’t too bad except for one stretch where you were up incredibly high….with the clouds around you….and the wind picking up so that the car was doing a gentle sway back and forth.  But you have to do one thing a day that scares you, right? If that’s true, then I racked up about a month’s worth in that one cable car ride.

the view from the start....at this point I was seriously questioning my judgement

getting ready to hop onto the car

my happy calm exterior belies the butterflies that were having a party in my stomach at this point

Mike trying to spot the airplane which had our Eventing horse passengers on their way back home

made it! the stores at the top of the hill.

a whole lotta stairs

a breathing break for me cleverly disguised as a photo op

I think this was another cleverly disguised photo op 🙂

....and another

the view from atop

the trip back down

Dr. Jenn

Mike striking a Buddha pose.....

the unbelievably immaculate subway cars

still trying to figure out why you need to use your MTR card to leave the subway system

at the last station!

a fun photo from Dr. Jenn