Location: Lantau Island, Hong Kong

This is what we were going to hike up. I still couldn’t really believe it. But I was ready. It was the final part of our 2019 family trip, and as soon as we finished, we would head to the airport and sit on a plane for a 25 hour flight back to Canada.

There was a kilometer long flat path leading toward the base of the mountain trail. I hiked it slowly, iPhone8 in hand as always, paying attention to the little things around me.

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Just before the beginning of the Lantau Peak trail, we took a short trip through a place called Wisdom Path.

It was a very interesting trail. The walkway was lined with tall wooden monuments that were inscribed with chinese characters. They were probably wise quotes, but honestly, I have no idea what the symbols said.

I made one interesting discovery along the trail. A bright flash of blue caught my eyes. There were two beautiful butterflies, fighting for a place on a single leaf when they had an entire plant to share.

Then the hike up the mountain began.

There were stairs. A lot of stairs. An endless staircase that twisted around the mountain. Maybe once every 200 meters there was a flat patch. But those flat patches were only 2 steps long.

Not far up the path, my mom spotted a sudden movement in a bush.

“A lizard!” She shouted, and I was on it in seconds.

I climbed onto a bumpy rock, shoved past a pair of young trees, and brought my iPhone8 down toward the animal.

It was another changeable lizard. They are a very cool reptile, having the ability to change their yellow-green colour to a combination of red and black.

I hopped off the rocks and continued to climb the stairs. It was hot, as it always seemed to be in Hong Kong, but it was a good thing we came prepared with lots of water.

There were several breaks in the trees along the way, giving amazing views to the land abroad.

While looking through one of the openings, I saw the Big Buddha in the distance. And from my position, high in the mountain, it looked very small.

Our water supplies were nearly empty as we neared the top. We began to question if it was a good idea to continue on with such little water and in such heat while climbing so many stairs. We were really tired. The stairs never seemed to end, and we kept wondering how many more there were to go.

Every time we made it to a turn in the trail, we hoped we were on the final staircase. But it never was. Every time, we were greeted with another extremely long set of stairs.

We almost stopped and turned around. But I am so glad that we didn’t.

When we finally made it to the peak, the views were spectacular, and the pride I felt was amazing. I couldn’t believe that we had managed to climb a mountain!

I smiled as I took in the views, but then it disappeared as I realized something…

We had to walk all the way back down.

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