Portal:Hong Kong/Selected article/2006/November

Ngong Ping 360 is a tourism project in Lantau Island, New Territories, Hong Kong, consists of the Ngong Ping Skyrail cable car system and Ngong Ping Village. It is owned by the MTR Corporation, built and operated by Skyrail-ITM. The project was previously known as Tung Chung Cable Car Project before branded as such in April 2005.

Ngong Ping Skyrail is a 5.7km long cable car system linking between Tung Chung (where it connects the MTR Tung Chung station) and Ngong Ping (where the Po Lin Monastery and Tian Tan Buddha are located). Between the two terminals at Tung Chung and Ngong Ping, the cable cars run across the southern shore of the Hong Kong International Airport island and the Nei Lak Shan, with eight towers including the stations.

The Skyrail was originally scheduled to open on 24 June 2006. However, due to the incident on June 17, 2006, (see the Incident section for details), Skyrail-ITM announced to postpone the opening day to fix the technical problems. After 2 months of improvement works and repair for the damages made by Typhoon Prapiroon in August 2006, Ngong Ping 360 resumed a trial-run of 7 days from 30 August 2006. It was opened on 18 September 2006. However, there have already been several reports of technical problems, some of them caused by strong winds.

The Ngong Ping Village is built next to the Skyrail Ngong Ping Terminal, occupies a 15,000 square metre site and has been designed to mirror and uphold the cultural and spiritual veracity of the Ngong Ping area. Traditional Chinese architectural designs are a feature of the Ngong Ping Village, which contains an assortment of shopping and dining experiences, on top of a number of key attractions counting Walking With Buddha, the Monkey's Tale Theatre and the Ngong Ping Tea House. (Read more...)