Our internships ended in the first week of August. With work over, some of the others elected to go traveling elsewhere in China, but I wanted one more week in Hong Kong before I had to tear myself away. It would be, I thought, my last true chance to be touristy -- to do all the things the guidebooks raved about that I hadn't yet done, to simply explore the city with no other obligations or time constraints. Meara had similar sentiments, and once she'd finished her stint with the Orbis plane in Macau, we vowed to visit two hopelessly touristy destinations: Po Lin Monastery and Tiger Balm Gardens.

The former, a Buddhist monastery located on Lantau, is the home of what purports to be the "largest outdoor bronze Buddha statue" in the world. As Meara and I discovered, after a bumpy, sweaty, sticky bus ride up the mountain shared with about 20 other blatant tourists, it is indeed a very big Buddha.

The statue itself perches on its own small peak, hovering benevolently over the rest of the monastery buildings and temples below. We climbed up the steps to the top, battling with other visitors for photo ops all the way. When we first arrived, it had just rained, and the area was shrouded with low-hanging clouds, making for an appropriately mystic atmosphere.

A short while later, after we had descended to the temple grounds, the rain returned, and in fact developed into quite a downpour. We retreated to the vegetarian dining hall for shelter, and had there one of the more forgettable meals of the summer. When we emerged, however, the sun had as well, and the sight of light striking on the gilded roof of the main temple, with the Buddha watching from the mountain above us, made the trip, however touristy, worthwhile.