55-725: Ngong Ping 360 ( Chinese : 昂坪 360 ; Jyutping : ngong5 ping4 three sixty , Cantonese ) is a bicable gondola lift on Lantau Island in Hong Kong. Intended to improve tourism to the area, the aerial lift was previously known as Tung Chung Cable Car Project before acquiring the Ngong Ping 360 brand in April 2005. It consists of the Ngong Ping Cable Car , formerly known as the Ngong Ping 360 Skyrail , and
110-616: A "cable car") 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 ( Tung Chung Terminal ) and Ngong Ping, the lift system runs across the southern shore of the Hong Kong International Airport island and Nei Lak Shan , with eight towers including
165-509: A certain extent in South Korea , remain virtually identical to traditional characters, with variations between the two forms largely stylistic. There has historically been a debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters . Because the simplifications are fairly systematic, it is possible to convert computer-encoded characters between the two sets, with the main issue being ambiguities in simplified representations resulting from
220-455: A feasibility study, the Hong Kong government issued an invitation in 2000 for detailed proposals and tender for a 30-year franchise on a Build-Operate-Transfer basis for the global project of operation, management and maintenance of a cable car system linking Tung Chung and Ngong Ping on Lantau Island. The Tourism Commission declared the objective of the project was to increase the range of attractions to visitors to enhance Hong Kong's position as
275-748: A hilly area near Chek Lap Kok South Road. Despite the fact that there were no injuries caused, an investigation resulted in the operating company and its CEO being charged with criminal negligence related to the incident, although the CEO's case was later delayed, and the charges against him eventually dropped altogether. Skyrail-ITM was removed as operator, fined HK$ 5,000, and the MTR Corporation took over operational responsibility. The line remained out of service until 23 December when it underwent one week of trial run involving 40,000 visitors riding for free. It reopened officially on 31 December 2007. In April 2009,
330-407: A leading tourist destination in the region. Target timing was to identify a successful proponent by the end of 2001 and to commence operation of the cable car system before early 2006. Construction of the cable car project started at the beginning of 2004. The system was originally scheduled to open on 23 January 2006, but on 17 June 2006, during the trial-run with the maximum of 109 gondola cabins on
385-611: A lift with three stops instead of the standard two are the Village Gondola, the Excalibur Gondolas at Whistler Blackcomb and the Skyride at Alton Towers . In other systems the cable is slowed intermittently to allow passengers to disembark and embark the cabins at stations, and to allow people in the cars along the route to take photographs , such as Lebanon 's Téléférique which offers an exceptional view to
440-494: A premium rate. Both sets of cabins circulate on the same cable, with passengers being segregated by queuing systems at both terminals. The Ngong Ping Village, built next to the Ngong Ping Cable Car 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
495-763: A ski resort was at the Wildcat Mountain Ski Area . It was a two-person gondola built in 1957 and serviced skiers until 1999. The lift was later demolished in 2004. The lift and its cabins were manufactured by a former Italian lift company: Carlevaro-Savio. One of the longest gondola rides in the world, Gondelbahn Grindelwald-Männlichen , is in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland and connects Grindelwald with Männlichen . In recent years, gondola lifts are finding increased usage in urban environments. Cable cars used for urban transit include
550-613: A standard set of Chinese character forms used to write Chinese languages . In Taiwan , the set of traditional characters is regulated by the Ministry of Education and standardized in the Standard Form of National Characters . These forms were predominant in written Chinese until the middle of the 20th century, when various countries that use Chinese characters began standardizing simplified sets of characters, often with characters that existed before as well-known variants of
605-423: A trial-run of 7 days from 30 August 2006. The project director at MTR Corp and senior executives of Skyrail were at the soft opening of the facility on 18 September. In keeping with feng shui traditions, Skyrail-ITM sold just 1,688 tickets for the maiden day's run on 18 September at HK$ 88 each, the numbers being considered lucky. Henry Tang officiated at the grand opening of the attraction on 9 November 2006. After
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#1732779982029660-812: Is 産 (also the accepted form in Japan and Korea), while in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan the accepted form is 產 (also the accepted form in Vietnamese chữ Nôm ). The PRC tends to print material intended for people in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese in traditional characters. For example, versions of the People's Daily are printed in traditional characters, and both People's Daily and Xinhua have traditional character versions of their website available, using Big5 encoding. Mainland companies selling products in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan use traditional characters in order to communicate with consumers;
715-426: Is often considered a continuous system since it features a haul rope which continuously moves and circulates around two terminal stations. In contrast, an aerial tramway operates solely with fixed grips and simply shuttles back and forth between two end terminals. The capacity, cost, and functionality of a gondola lift will differ dramatically depending on the combination of cables used for support and haulage and
770-411: Is particularly common in mountainous mining concerns, and directly employed; the weight of loaded down-going containers pulling the returning empties back up the slope. Gravity can also be used indirectly, where running water is available; a waterwheel is powered by gravity acting on water, and is used to power the cable. Conventional systems where a single cable provides both support and propulsion of
825-493: The Chinese Commercial News , World News , and United Daily News all use traditional characters, as do some Hong Kong–based magazines such as Yazhou Zhoukan . The Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified characters. DVDs are usually subtitled using traditional characters, influenced by media from Taiwan as well as by the two countries sharing the same DVD region , 3. With most having immigrated to
880-479: The Kensiu language . Gondola lift A gondola lift is a means of cable transport and type of aerial lift which is supported and propelled by cables from above. It consists of a loop of steel wire rope that is strung between two stations, sometimes over intermediate supporting towers. The cable is driven by a bullwheel in a terminal, which is typically connected to an engine or electric motor . It
935-819: The Lantau North Country Park to another angle station near Nei Lak Shan (Nei Lak Shan Angle Station), before finally descending to the Ngong Ping Terminal . During the 25-minute journey, travellers can see panoramic views over the North Lantau Country Park, the South China Sea , Hong Kong International Airport , the Tung Chung valley, Ngong Ping Plateau and surrounding terrain and waterways. As visitors approach Ngong Ping, they can see The Big Buddha and
990-1041: The Metrocable in Medellín , Colombia and the TransMiCable in Bogotá , Colombia ; Aerovia in Guayaquil , Ecuador ; Portland Aerial Tram in Portland, Oregon , United States ; Roosevelt Island Tramway in New York City, New York, United States; Metrocable in Caracas , Venezuela ; Trolcable in Mérida , Venezuela; Cable Aéreo in Manizales , Colombia; Mi Teleférico in La Paz , Bolivia ; Mexicable in
1045-635: The Ngong Ping Village , a retail and entertainment centre adjacent to the cable car's upper station. Ngong Ping 360 connects Tung Chung , on the north coast of Lantau and itself linked to central Hong Kong by the Tung Chung line , with the Ngong Ping area in the hills above. This is home to the Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha , both already significant tourist attractions in their own right. Before Ngong Ping 360's opening,
1100-400: The Po Lin Monastery . Designed by Aedas , also the architect of the project, the line uses a continuous circulating twin cable aerial ropeway system, technically described as a bicable gondola lift . The Leitner Group was the contractor for the cable car system. Between the Tung Chung and Ngong Ping Terminals, the 5.7 km cableway changes direction twice at the two angle stations, one on
1155-869: The Republic of the Congo , was over 75 kilometers (47 mi) in length. The Kristineberg-Boliden ropeway in Sweden had a length of 96 kilometers (60 mi). In Eritrea , the Italians built the Asmara-Massawa Cableway in 1936, which was 75 kilometers (47 mi) long. The Manizales - Mariquita Cableway (1922) in Colombia was 73 km long. Conveyors can be powered by a wide variety of forms of power sources: electric motors , internal combustion engines , steam engines , or gravity . Gravity
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#17327799820291210-640: The Shanghainese -language character U+20C8E 𠲎 CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-20C8E —a composition of 伐 with the ⼝ 'MOUTH' radical—used instead of the Standard Chinese 嗎 ; 吗 . Typefaces often use the initialism TC to signify the use of traditional Chinese characters, as well as SC for simplified Chinese characters . In addition, the Noto, Italy family of typefaces, for example, also provides separate fonts for
1265-671: The State of Mexico , Mexico ; Teleférico de Santo Domingo ; Yenimahalle-Şentepe teleferik in Ankara , Turkey ; Maçka and Eyüp Gondolas in Istanbul ; the London cable car in London , England; Nizhny Novgorod Cableway , Russia. The Metrocable systems in Medellin and Caracas are fully integrated with the public transit network which provides passengers the ability to seamlessly transfer to
1320-557: The Sulphur Mountain Gondola in Banff , Canada. This system has the advantage that the stationary cable's strength and properties can be tailored to each span, which reduces costs. They differ from aerial tramways , as these consist only of one or two usually larger cabins moving back and forth, rather than circulating. Bicable and tricable systems provide greater lateral stability compared with monocable systems, allowing
1375-802: The Mediterranean, the historical Jounieh Bay and the pine forest at the 80% slope which this gondola lift goes over. Such a system is called pulse cabin and usually several cabins are loaded simultaneously. Open-air gondolas, or cabriolets as commonly called, are fairly uncommon and are quite primitive because they are exposed to the elements. Their cabins are usually hollow cylinders, open from chest height up, with floors and roof covers. They are usually used as village gondolas and for short distances. Examples are at Mont Tremblant Resort in Quebec , Canada, and at Blue Mountain Ski Resort (summer only, in
1430-771: The Ngong Ping Village, which contains an assortment of shopping and dining experiences, on top of a number of key attractions including Walking with Buddha, the Monkey's Tale Theatre and the Ngong Ping Tea House. Chinese New Year, Christmas and the three days of Buddha's birthday are among the most crowded days. Ngong Ping Village's international cable car gallery has cable car replicas from various countries including China, Switzerland, Italy, Brazil, Austria, France, Italy, Germany etc. Traditional Chinese characters Traditional Chinese characters are
1485-555: The People's Republic of China, traditional Chinese characters are standardised according to the Table of Comparison between Standard, Traditional and Variant Chinese Characters . Dictionaries published in mainland China generally show both simplified and their traditional counterparts. There are differences between the accepted traditional forms in mainland China and elsewhere, for example the accepted traditional form of 产 in mainland China
1540-587: The United States during the second half of the 19th century, Chinese Americans have long used traditional characters. When not providing both, US public notices and signs in Chinese are generally written in traditional characters, more often than in simplified characters. In the past, traditional Chinese was most often encoded on computers using the Big5 standard, which favored traditional characters. However,
1595-528: The cabins are often called monocable gondola lifts. Gondola lifts which feature one stationary cable (known as the 'support' rope), and one haul rope are known as bicable gondola lifts, while lifts that feature two support ropes and one haul rope are known as tricable gondola lifts. Famous examples of bicable gondola lifts include the Ngong Ping 360 in Hong Kong , the Singapore Cable Car , and
1650-454: The cable car system used in Hong Kong is much heavier and bigger than that used in Austria. He said the steel columns used to support the system have to be stronger, and thus more expensive. The cable car line offers two levels of service based on different cabin designs, branded Standard Cabins and Crystal Cabins. The Crystal Cabins are distinguished by their glass bottoms, and are charged at
1705-516: The cables, a cabin arriving at Ngong Ping station had a slight collision with a late departing cabin. The entire system was automatically halted by the safety system, leaving 500 volunteers trapped for two hours. As a result, Skyrail-ITM postponed the opening day to fix the technical problems, tests and emergency staff drills. After two months of improvement works and repair for the damages made by Typhoon Prapiroon in August 2006, Ngong Ping 360 resumed
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1760-423: The commencement of service, system failures still occurred occasionally. Between its opening on 18 September and 27 October, eight service suspensions were recorded, prompting a legislative panel to challenge the operator's continued operation. A serious incident occurred on 11 June 2007, during a brake test which was part of the annual examination of the cable, when an empty cabin fell off the cable and crashed into
1815-494: The company introduced its premium rate Crystal Cabin service, using glass-bottom cabins. On 25 January 2012, Ngong Ping 360 was hit by a technical fault which was caused by a pulley which wasn't running smoothly, causing the automated system to grind to a halt. Passengers who had been stranded were later evacuated by resuming the operation with reduced speed. Ngong Ping Cable Car is a 5.7-kilometre (3.5 mi) long bi-cable gondola lift system (referred to by its operators as
1870-521: The future, TransLink in Metro Vancouver has proposed to build a gondola up Burnaby Mountain to Simon Fraser University in an announcement in September 2010. The project was sidelined in 2014, but was revived in 2017. In late 2012, a widespread aerial gondola system was proposed for Austin, Texas , in an effort to expand mass transit options in the rapidly growing city. The proposal
1925-493: The inverse is equally true as well. In digital media, many cultural phenomena imported from Hong Kong and Taiwan into mainland China, such as music videos, karaoke videos, subtitled movies, and subtitled dramas, use traditional Chinese characters. In Hong Kong and Macau , traditional characters were retained during the colonial period, while the mainland adopted simplified characters. Simplified characters are contemporaneously used to accommodate immigrants and tourists, often from
1980-546: The local metro lines, whereas the network in La Paz, the largest in the world, forms the backbone of the city's public transit system itself. Disney Skyliner is a gondola-lift service, which opened on September 29, 2019, at Walt Disney World in central Florida. The system uses multiple lines and has five stations, and it connects Epcot and Disney's Hollywood Studios with one another and with several Disney-owned and -operated resort hotels. In terms of urban gondola systems for
2035-725: The mainland. The increasing use of simplified characters has led to concern among residents regarding protecting what they see as their local heritage. Taiwan has never adopted simplified characters. The use of simplified characters in government documents and educational settings is discouraged by the government of Taiwan. Nevertheless, with sufficient context simplified characters are likely to be successfully read by those used to traditional characters, especially given some previous exposure. Many simplified characters were previously variants that had long been in some use, with systematic stroke simplifications used in folk handwriting since antiquity. Traditional characters were recognized as
2090-682: The majority of Chinese text in mainland China are simplified characters , there is no legislation prohibiting the use of traditional Chinese characters, and often traditional Chinese characters remain in use for stylistic and commercial purposes, such as in shopfront displays and advertising. Traditional Chinese characters remain ubiquitous on buildings that predate the promulgation of the current simplification scheme, such as former government buildings, religious buildings, educational institutions, and historical monuments. Traditional Chinese characters continue to be used for ceremonial, cultural, scholarly/academic research, and artistic/decorative purposes. In
2145-983: The merging of previously distinct character forms. Many Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between these character sets. Traditional characters are known by different names throughout the Chinese-speaking world. The government of Taiwan officially refers to traditional Chinese characters as 正體字 ; 正体字 ; zhèngtǐzì ; 'orthodox characters'. This term is also used outside Taiwan to distinguish standard characters, including both simplified, and traditional, from other variants and idiomatic characters . Users of traditional characters elsewhere, as well as those using simplified characters, call traditional characters 繁體字 ; 繁体字 ; fántǐzì ; 'complex characters', 老字 ; lǎozì ; 'old characters', or 全體字 ; 全体字 ; quántǐzì ; 'full characters' to distinguish them from simplified characters. Some argue that since traditional characters are often
2200-619: The needs of disabled passengers, including elderly and wheelchair users. The system has a capacity of 3,500 people per hour in each direction. The cableway and the cabins come from the Leitner Group. A continuous circulating bi-cable aerial ropeway system, where the track cable acts as a rail in the sky and the haul cable pulls the cabins, allows long spans between towers. It is the first of its type to be installed in Hong Kong. Martin Leitner, chief sales officer of Leitner, explained that
2255-677: The official script in Singapore until 1969, when the government officially adopted Simplified characters. Traditional characters still are widely used in contexts such as in baby and corporation names, advertisements, decorations, official documents and in newspapers. The Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative in Southeast Asia regarding simplification. Although major public universities teach in simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications such as
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2310-531: The only access was via a mountain road and bus service. Ngong Ping 360 is owned by the MTR Corporation , the operator of Hong Kong's rail system. It was built by Leitner Ropeways and was originally operated by Skyrail-ITM . Skyrail-ITM was removed from the project after an investigation following an incident in June 2007. It is now operated by a directly owned subsidiary of the MTR Corporation. Following
2365-700: The original standard forms, they should not be called 'complex'. Conversely, there is a common objection to the description of traditional characters as 'standard', due to them not being used by a large population of Chinese speakers. Additionally, as the process of Chinese character creation often made many characters more elaborate over time, there is sometimes a hesitation to characterize them as 'traditional'. Some people refer to traditional characters as 'proper characters' ( 正字 ; zhèngzì or 正寫 ; zhèngxiě ) and to simplified characters as 簡筆字 ; 简笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'simplified-stroke characters' or 減筆字 ; 减笔字 ; jiǎnbǐzì ; 'reduced-stroke characters', as
2420-418: The passenger cabins, which can hold between two and fifteen people, are connected to the cable by means of spring–loaded grips. These grips allow the cabin to be detached from the moving cable and slowed in the terminals, to allow passengers to board and disembark. Doors are almost always automatic and controlled by a lever on the roof or on the undercarriage that is pushed up or down. Cabins are driven through
2475-833: The predominant forms. Simplified characters as codified by the People's Republic of China are predominantly used in mainland China , Malaysia, and Singapore. "Traditional" as such is a retronym applied to non-simplified character sets in the wake of widespread use of simplified characters. Traditional characters are commonly used in Taiwan , Hong Kong , and Macau , as well as in most overseas Chinese communities outside of Southeast Asia. As for non-Chinese languages written using Chinese characters, Japanese kanji include many simplified characters known as shinjitai standardized after World War II, sometimes distinct from their simplified Chinese counterparts . Korean hanja , still used to
2530-506: The south shore of Chek Lap Kok ; the other west of Nei Lak Shan within the Lantau North Country Park. Whilst the gondola cabins are temporarily detached from the cables at each angle station, there are no passenger loading or unloading facilities at these points. The cableway is supported by 8 towers. The cabin has a modern design with seating for 10 and standing room for another 7. It also incorporates features to meet
2585-585: The stations. Five of the towers are located within the country park. The cable car journey offers a 25-minute aerial alternative to the current one-hour journey by Tung Chung Road , allowing visitors to glide across Tung Chung Bay and up to Lantau Island towards Ngong Ping Plateau. The cableway starts at the Tung Chung Terminal, runs across Tung Chung Bay to Airport Island Angle Station on Chek Lap Kok , where it turns through about 60 degrees before returning across Tung Chung Bay. It then runs up
2640-416: The terminals either by rotating tires , or by a chain system. To be accelerated to and decelerated from line speed, cabins are driven along by progressively swifter (or slower) rotating tires until they reach line or terminal speed. On older installations, gondolas are accelerated manually by an operator. Gondola lifts can have intermediate stops that allow for uploading and downloading on the lift. Examples of
2695-636: The traditional character set used in Taiwan ( TC ) and the set used in Hong Kong ( HK ). Most Chinese-language webpages now use Unicode for their text. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommends the use of the language tag zh-Hant to specify webpage content written with traditional characters. In the Japanese writing system , kyujitai are traditional forms, which were simplified to create shinjitai for standardized Japanese use following World War II. Kyūjitai are mostly congruent with
2750-985: The traditional characters in Chinese, save for minor stylistic variation. Characters that are not included in the jōyō kanji list are generally recommended to be printed in their traditional forms, with a few exceptions. Additionally, there are kokuji , which are kanji wholly created in Japan, rather than originally being borrowed from China. In the Korean writing system , hanja —replaced almost entirely by hangul in South Korea and totally replaced in North Korea —are mostly identical with their traditional counterparts, save minor stylistic variations. As with Japanese, there are autochthonous hanja, known as gukja . Traditional Chinese characters are also used by non-Chinese ethnic groups. The Maniq people living in Thailand and Malaysia use Chinese characters to write
2805-648: The type of grip (detachable or fixed). Because of the proliferation of such systems in the Alps , the Italian : Cabinovia and French : Télécabine are also used in English-language texts. The systems may also be referred to as cable cars . The Kohlerer-Bahn opened on June 29, 1908, in Bolzano , South Tyrol , the first modern aerial enclosed cable car solely for passenger service. In some systems
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#17327799820292860-518: The ubiquitous Unicode standard gives equal weight to simplified and traditional Chinese characters, and has become by far the most popular encoding for Chinese-language text. There are various input method editors (IMEs) available for the input of Chinese characters . Many characters, often dialectical variants, are encoded in Unicode but cannot be inputted using certain IMEs, with one example being
2915-413: The winter it is converted to a six person high-speed chairlift.) in Ontario , Canada, The Canyons Resort in Park City, Utah, Mountain Creek , and the new Village Cabriolet at Winter Park Resort in Colorado. Open-air gondolas can also come in a style similar to that of pulse gondolas, like the Village Gondola at Panorama Ski Resort , British Columbia . The first gondola built in the United States for
2970-418: The words for simplified and reduced are homophonous in Standard Chinese , both pronounced as jiǎn . The modern shapes of traditional Chinese characters first appeared with the emergence of the clerical script during the Han dynasty c. 200 BCE , with the sets of forms and norms more or less stable since the Southern and Northern dynasties period c. the 5th century . Although
3025-491: Was rejected by the local transit agency in 2017. A proposed gondola system in Montreal was ultimately rejected by the Old Port of Montreal . A ropeway conveyor or material ropeway is essentially a subtype of gondola lift, from which containers for goods rather than passenger cars are suspended. Ropeway conveyors are typically found around large mining concerns, and can be of considerable length. The COMILOG Cableway , which ran from Moanda in Gabon to Mbinda in
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