Ngong Ping 360 Cable Cảr to the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery

My daughter and I traveled to Hong Kong over Thanksgiving. See my previous blog posts about this trip: Hong Kong Highlights, Review: China Airlines Business Class Ontario to Taipei to Hong Kong, Review: United Airlines Business Class Hong Kong to San Francisco, Hyatt Regency Hong Kong Tsim Sha Tsui

If you only have time to do one thing in Hong Kong, I recommend taking the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car to the Big Buddha and Po Lin Monastery. This was my favorite day of our trip!

Getting There/Tickets

My local friends picked us up from our hotel and drove us to Citygate Outlets, which is attached to the Ngong Ping 360 cable car station. The mall has lots of shops and restaurants, and we enjoyed Dim Sum together before boarding the cable car.

If you’re coming from the airport on a layover, you can take a city bus from the airport to Tung Chung. The cable car station is only a 5-10 minute drive from the airport.

I pre-purchased tickets online from Klook.com for around $42 per person for the Crystal Cabin (glass floor cable car). We could then skip the in-person ticket line and wait in a shorter line to board the cable car.

The Experience

The tickets for the Crystal Cabin were more expensive than the standard cabin, but totally worth it!

It almost looked like we were floating through the air:

Although it was a cloudy day, we still enjoyed the views.

After the 25-minute ride, we arrived at the village. We stopped to take photos at several places along the way to the Big Buddha:

I thought this was a statue of a cow, but I was surprised when it started moving! Just a cow hanging out.

The Big Buddha!

There are 268 steps to the top of the Big Buddha. Thankfully, there were some landings where we could rest before tackling more levels.

Almost there!

There are three internal exhibit floors inside the Big Buddha. There are also other statues at the top:

And the view behind the Big Buddha is gorgeous:

Next, we headed to nearby Po Lin Monastery:

We saw some monks inside. It’s such a beautiful place!

The architecture is stunning:

It was easy to lose track of time, and we spent several hours walking around the village. We realized that it was almost closing time and we had to get in line for the cable car ride back. Since it was close to closing, the line for the cable car was 90 minutes long! Thankfully, the Crystal Cabin line was a bit shorter.

Overall Thoughts

We had a great day riding the cable car and exploring Ngong Ping village. I definitely recommend this to anyone visiting Hong Kong. Splurge on the Crystal Cabin, and buy your tickets in advance.