Hong Kong Adventures: Hong Kong Day 35 -- Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery

We slept in a bit and relaxed for a while after the long day we had yesterday. I also finished up my post from yesterday, since we got back so late, I only did a little bit last night. We wanted to go to the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery and to the Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden. We got on the MTR and headed to Admiralty to get on the red line and then then to Mong Kock to take the green line to Kowloon Tong. We were planning to take the MTR to Sha Tin to go to the temple, but after we got on that train there was an announcement that there was going to be a slight delay. They kept announcing that the train was going to be delayed for a couple of minutes and apologizing for the inconvenience. After a little while they asked everyone to get off the train because there was a person on the tracks and that it was going to be more delayed. They finally announced that it was going to be delayed by 15 minutes, so we decided to get back on the green line and go to Diamond Hill where the nunnery and garden are located.

We got off the MTR in Diamond Hill and walked to the Nan Lian Garden. The nunnery is kind of part of the garden, you can access it from inside the garden or from outside and across the street. They are both free to enter. The garden is really neat, it is more of a Japanese style garden, they have a lot of trees and other bushes, and also a pagoda. There are also a few buildings with displays. I was able to get a lot of really neat pictures in the garden. All of the plants, rocks, ponds, structures, and trees make it beautiful. There are people all over the garden working on trimming the trees, pulling weeds, and keeping the whole place up.

The path through the garden is a loop, and it goes past another path that leads up to a lotus garden and then to the nunnery. The lotus garden was pretty, it was surrounded by the classic buildings, and had 6 pools with little fountains on the walls and a lot of lotus plants in them. A lot of the lotus plants were blooming, the flowers were really pretty. The nunnery was really neat, they had many different areas with various buddhas and other symbolic figures. There were many people who stopped and prayed at the Buddha displays around the courtyard. They did not allow photos to be taken, so I don’t have too many pictures inside the nunnery itself, I only have a few from one side to the other or of the building itself.

After the garden and nunnery, we headed back to Hong Kong IslandWe were planning on going to the 10,000 Buddha Temple after the Nunnery, but we have wanting to do High Tea, so we decided to try to go to The Pawn for tea today, and because of this, we had to be in Wan Chai at 4. We took the MTR all the way to Wan Chai and walked over to the Pawn. Once everyone was there, we found out that you need a reservation in order to go for tea, so we made a reservation for tomorrow.

We walked back to the MTR to go back to Causeway Bay and went to eat a late lunch/early dinner at a cafe in Hysan Place. This is the same mall as the food court we have eaten at quite a few times, but this was on a different floor. I got fish and chips, it was perfectly cooked, and the crust was really nice and light and flaky. The portion was huge, it was nice and filling for the whole night. After eating I headed back to the apartment to get pictures up from yesterday and to just relax for a bit. Then I headed down to see Victoria Park. Ciara had been shopping and then she went over, and I had been wanting to see it, so we went and walked around for a bit. The park was completely packed, they have some soccer courts (not fields because they are concrete/asphalt like a basketball court), tennis courts, a jogging track, basketball courts, a grass field, and a swimming pool. There was a square that was packed with people selling things and just sitting in groups. The grass area also had a lot of people having picnics. After walking around for a while, we went back to our apartments. It was nice to have an earlier and more relaxing night. I have only a little over a week left here in Hong Kong. We are going to go to the 10,000 Buddha temple tomorrow before tea.

Walking back to the apartment we saw a guy performing on the street, it was really cool, I took a short video, and it is posted at the end of the pictures.