Hong Kong Adventures: Hong Kong Day 36 - Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

Today is a public holiday in Hong Kong. It is to celebrate the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China and also the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. There are protests and marches around Hong Kong, and there is normally a fireworks display. We saw a few areas set up for the demonstrations throughout the day and also saw a setup in one of the soccer field areas. I don’t think there was a fireworks display, we didn’t see anything about it, and one Crown employee said that the office building normally sets up a viewing option, but there wasn’t an announcement this year, so they didn’t think they were going to have a fireworks display.

We slept in again a bit today, I woke up at 8, so not quite as much as I thought I would. Ciara and I took the MTR down to Sha Tin and the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery. We went the same route as we did yesterday, and at Kowloon Tong we switched to the line to go to Sha Tin instead of staying on the line to go to Diamond Hill. Once in Sha Tin, we walked over to the entrance towards the monastery.

To get to the Monastery, you have to walk up hundreds of steps that are lined with a bunch of buddha statues. Both sides of the path have statues that are a few feet tall, sitting on little boxes and different things. There are steps and also a smooth path, but the path is really steep, so they were both tough. It switches back and forth a few times, and then gets to the top of the hill and the Monastery. The Monastery is huge, there is a big area with a vegetarian restaurant, a couple of halls and different statues/buddhas, and a big pagoda. The 10,000 Buddha Temple is up in the main area, and has the pagoda in front of it. The temple has nearly 13,000 gold buddhas all the way around the walls, rows and rows of them. There are also some larger buddhas in this hall. The pagoda here is really famous, and it is even on the $100HK note.

We took a bunch of pictures in this first area, and also ate lunch at the restaurant. I got fried noodles with stewed vegetables, it had mushrooms, corn, tofu, and some greens. It was really good, the sauce was tasty. While we were eating it started to rain really hard for a short time. The timing was perfect since we were inside and weren’t having to scramble for cover. After we ate we walked up to another area that had a few more temple-type buildings and more buddhas. There was a big buddha laying down above a series of ponds and also a white buddha, the Kwun Yam Statue. Near those, there were a lot of gold buddhas on the hill around. Between the path up and those statues, there were also some ancestral halls, temples and pavilions.

There are signs all around the monastery warning people to not feed monkeys and to be aware of monkey attacks. I thought these signs were pretty funny until people down a path were were standing near started screaming and running across the path. I looked down there and saw a pretty good sized monkey moving up the path. Later, right as we got to the second level of the monastery (where the sleeping buddha and white buddha are), there were people posing for a picture and then they all started to scream. We looked over where they were and there were two monkeys right near them, an adult and a younger monkey. The adult even reached out and grabbed one of the ladies. Both monkeys then hopped up on a fence and walked along it, and then the little one jumped onto a palm tree and climbed it into the trees above. The adult climbed up a couple of minutes later. There were a few in the tree (I think it was a lychee tree), they were jumping around in it and throwing down shells and fruit.

After the monastery we went back to our apartments to rest for a bit, and then go have afternoon tea. We went back to the Pawn where we tried to go but couldn’t because we didn’t have a reservation. Today we had a reservation for 3, and were there until a little after 4. There were hardly any other people in there the whole time, so we probably didn’t even need a reservation today. I think a lot of people were at the protests, demonstrations, and other activities. Tea was fun, we got to choose our type of tea, and then they also gave us pastries and other snacks. The tea is sold in sets for two people, but we have 5, so we just ordered two sets and then an extra tea. They had scones, sandwiches, quiche, tarts, muffins, cake, strawberries, and tarts. It was all pretty tasty, and it was also fairly filling. We were able to finish everything, but we were definitely starting to get full. The Pawn has a neat view, I went onto the balcony area and took a few pictures of Wan Chai.

Once we were done with tea, we took the MTR over to Kowloon and then to the Kowloon Walled City Park. It is a historical park, in the area that the Kowloon Walled City once was, and like other parks, it is in the middle of the city. It is also connected to another park, almost inside of the park. We took the MTR to the Lok Fu station, and then walked for around 20 minutes to get to the park. It was raining pretty hard when we got there, so the walk felt pretty long, and we got pretty wet. It stopped raining as we got there, otherwise it probably wouldn’t have been as enjoyable. There were a lot of neat buildings showing the history of the city and Hong Kong, and there is also a pagoda. They also had a couple of ponds and fountains, I was able to get some nice pictures in the park, and it was pretty after the rain.

We were hungry for a bit of food after we finished walking around, so we took the MTR back to Causeway Bay and Ciara, Kathy and I went to the sushi place we have gone to before. Today we decided to eat with the sushi boat, so we sat at the counter. They had a lot of pretty good looking things on the “boat.” It was nigiri sushi and sushi rolls to choose from, I got a shrimp nigiri, and then had a tempura shrimp nigiri. The sushi boat only had 4 or 5 choices, so after I ate the first two plates, I ordered a roasted fatty salmon nigiri and a roasted pork and with balsamic. After eating those I took one more plate of shrimp nigiri. Dinner tasted really good, it was nice to be able to customize the meal size after having the tea late this afternoon.

Only have 4 more days of work, including our presentations on Friday. It was nice to have a long weekend and be able to see a lot of things around, I have checked most of the things off my list that I wanted to see. I will be staying with Samantha Ma and her grandma over on Kowloon Saturday through Tuesday, so I will be able to go see some things with them and also do some exploring on my own on Monday. Will be leaving for home in just about 1 week, getting ready to be home and have home cooked food, my sports, own schedule, and own bed!!