You mentioned a cable car tour that you had taken at the beginning of your trip in HK. Was that through a tour company? If so, do you remember the details? It looks like something we may want to explore.
The cable car was the Ngong Ping cable car
http://www.np360.com.hk/html/eng/np360_exp/cablecar_index.html which takes you up to near the top of Lantau Island (which is where Disneyland and the airport are).
You get the cable car from the town of Tung Chung, on Lantau Island. If I recall correctly, if you're heading there from central Hong Kong, it's one stop further than Sunny Bay (which is where you change for the very quick train ride to Disneyland). I was there around opening time and there was a sizeable queue, so it might be worth getting there early. The cable car ride takes you (again, if I recall correctly) over the water to the man-made island that the airport is on, where you turn a corner and begin the ascent up into the mountains. You cover quite a distance (I think it took 20-25 minutes) and the scenery is spectacular.
When you get to the top, it lets you out into a "cultural village" which is a built-for-tourists village consisting of shops and restaurants (and a Starbucks!). There are also a few mini-attractions. I did one of them, which was a kind of a walk-through thing about buddhism, with a headset narration. To be honest I can't remember much about it (which says a lot!).
If you walk through the village, you get to the Po Lin monastery (which you can look around, and even have lunch there if you want) and a spectacular Buddah which you can walk up to (and which is one of the largest seated Buddhas in the world).
There are also some walking paths heading off from the Buddah. Some of them are quite serious hikes, but I did a short and pleasant one (the Wisdom Path) which took me to an area with a group of carved timbers (see picture below). The scenery here was amazing.
I did this by myself. I'm fairly sure that there are organised tours that do Ngong Ping (it's one of the main tourist attractions in Hong Kong) but in my view it is not necessary to do it as part of a tour - if you can handle the metro (which is easy) then you can handle Ngong Ping. Plus it means you can spend as long as you like. Because of its proximity to Disneyland it would be ideal to combine the two, if you were only going to spend half a day at Disneyland. You can also get to the top by bus, so if you do an organised tour, make sure it does actually include the cable car ride.
All in all - if you have time, I would highly recommend the cable car ride, along with the Buddha and some of the walking paths at the top.
Unfortunately one of my memory cards went kaputt so I lost a lot of my pictures
and I don't have any photos of the cable car journey itself... but I do have a few from the top of the island. However if you look on youtube there are plenty of videos (e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoueOuAj5_I