Ngong Ping 360

Updates:

* Just introduced last year, the new Ngong Ping 360 Crystal Cabins come equipped with a glass bottom, offering up uncluttured 360-degree  views of the surrounding environment.

People often criticize the urban planners of Hong Kong for being too focused on the big commercial inner-city money-makers; nit-picking at their preferential treatment of big businesses, the promise of more money, and consumerism. While this is certainly true, there is also a lot of urban planning that revolves around tree-planting and the natural environment as well, but this is just not necessarily evenly balanced to the amount of metropolitan developments that are taking place. Nevertheless, there are some objections to the norm taking place in the form of noteworthy projects which integrate nature and consumerism into account. The Ngong Ping 360 is a prime example of this.

As stated on the website, the motto of the Ngong Ping 360 is to “preserve the natural ecological environment and features of the Ngong Ping area and converge the customs and cultures of the LantauIsland”. While these effects are questionable, the cable car really is not to be missed. The other tied-in attractions are located at the ‘NgongPingVillage’ at the top terminus and they include souvenir and food shops, a mercantile ‘Ngong Ping Teahouse,’ a ‘Walking with Buddha’ walk-through simulation and a ‘Monkey’s Tale’ theatre, complete with loud kitschy cartoons.       

The focal point is of course the Ngong Ping cable car but take note; this is not really aimed at the vertiginous, much in the same way that the tie-ins aren’t designed for the pessimistic. When you’re in a dangling cable car soaring over 50-feet above a steep mountain valley below, the experience can be somewhat intimidating, but it is undeniably worth it for the panoramic views alone. Likewise, you can get an almost identical feeling in your nerves when you’re in a theatre being squirted with water and showered in visual simulations about inflated myths and folklore - which is what awaits you in the Ngong Ping ‘village’ at the top. The 5.7km journey runs between Tung Chung Town Centre and Ngong Ping on LantauIsland, where the Tian Tan Buddha looms over a small formulated village, complete with Starbucks and the other said attractions.

The experience of the cable car is worth it, because this is easily the most scenic and convenient method of getting up to Hong Kong’s premiere attraction; the Big Buddha. However, make sure you go early in the morning to avoid crowds, and make sure you bring a big dose of forbearing tolerance.  

The Ngong Ping 360 experience is all about enlightenment, and that’s not just the spiritual kind; the experience offers retail enlightenment, it enlightens one about of the sheer size of the Buddha, and one’s mind is truly enlightened about the merit of sightseeing following the whole affair. Just like Siddhartha, one will surely see the light after their encounter with the Ngong Ping 360.