{Discovering Hong Kong} Wong Tai Sin Temple 黃大仙祠, Nan Lian Garden 南蓮園池, Budaoweng 不倒翁, & Avenue of Stars

So productive! We literally hit up all those spots and more in one day. Definitely doable but prepare for lots of walking (but that goes for going anywhere in Hong Kong). 

Wong Tai Sin Temple has been on my list to visit for the longest time. It is easily accessible as it is literally right next to the MTR. I was so excited! Amar and I spontaneously started the day by picking an attraction randomly. We ended up having one of the most productive day. I really like this temple! It was so beautiful and after going through one semester of Religion and Spirituality in Asia, visiting the Big Buddha and the Temple makes so much sense and it definitely gave me a background on how the religion began and flourished. 

This is a temple that houses three religions, Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. The temple commemorates famous monk named Wong Tai Sin who became a deity. It is believed that if you make a prayer and offer the Gods your truest sincerity and incense, what you request is what you get (有求必應). A lot of the traffic the temple receives are from those visitors whose prayers were answered returning to thank the Gods. Visitors also come in search for a spiritual answer. They light incense sticks, kneel before the main altar, make a wish, and shake a bamboo cylinder with fortune sticks. When one falls out, you exchange it for a piece of paper and there will be a person to interpret the fortune on the paper. It's a lot like looking into what your future holds. 

The famous yin yang symbol represents universal oneness with the two colors rotating in a circle. It symbolizes duality like life and death or summer and winter.

It's interesting to see an old temple in the middle of all the high rise apartment buildings. 

They provide free incense for visitors to present to the Gods (you're limited to 9 per person) but a lot of the people, to show their sincerity, brought their own HUGE incense sticks.

Also located in the same area next to the temple is the Good Wish Garden, which is beautifully put together. It reminded me a lot of the dramas that were dated back in the old times. 

After exploring Wong Tai Sin, we decided to head to Diamond Hill to visit the Nan Lian Garden. In between high-rise buildings and Hollywood Plaza Shopping Mall, is the tranquil Nan Lian Garden, a public park built in the style of the Tang dynasty. It was such a peaceful setting and everything was so beautiful. 

I always happen to take pictures of cute little kids in my pictures, like that time at Niagara Falls.

It was so nice. I can't wait to go back! It's also very nice that it's free admissions but the only downside is that it's out of the way from where I am. Anyways after walking around the Garden, I promised Amar that we would watch The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug since he has been waiting to watch it with me. I decided that we would head to the famous Tsim Sha Tsui (TST)'s iSquare mall to check movie times. The theater was so fancy and the shopping area was HUGE! We purchased our tickets and had time to grab something to eat before the movies and I decided to splurge for Budaoweng Hot Pot Cuisine. Mmmmm. It was probably the best dinner after a long day of exploring. It was pricey, but so worth it!

Not to mention, the view was beautiful.

I love how they have these condiments for you to make your own dipping sauce. My favorite part. 

My favoriteeeee. 

The movie was also very good! It didn't even feel like the movie was close to three hours long. Our last destination for the night was the Avenue of Stars, which is like the LA Walk of Fame but Hong Kong version. It pays tribute to the famous actors and actresses while giving visitors a panoramic view of the city's glorious skyline. Loooove Victoria Harbour. 

We ended the night by taking the "Star" Ferry back to Central and then home. ｡◕ ‿ ◕｡

xoxoxoxo

{Discovering Hong Kong} Ngong Ping 360, Tian Tan Buddha, & Tai O

Amar was not the only one visiting these sights for the first time. It was my first time as well! Like I mentioned in my previous post, I only had a week to settle in before starting my full-time position in Hong Kong which leaves me with little to no time to explore what this small metropolitan city has to offer. 

It was so exciting to be able to explore Hong Kong and share this experience with someone special. A lot of the days we spent relaxing and for him, absorbing into the culture. He can finally see for himself the major difference between China and Hong Kong.  

The first few spots we visited was the Big Buddha, also known as the Tian Tan Buddha in Lantau Island, which is easily accessible via the trusty MTR to Tung Chung.  

I think the tourism board in Hong Kong did a fantastic job in terms of directing tourists to the different attractions as it was really easy to follow the signs to where we need to go. Ngong Ping 360 is basically the gondola lift that connects Tung Chung (the area of the MTR station) to Lantau Island, home to the Big Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery. I don't remember what day of the week we went on but boy, was it busy! It was also a very nice day so everybody and their mommas were out. The lines extended all the way to the bottom of the escalators.

We were finally able to purchase our tickets after nearly an hour wait. There are other ways of getting to Lantau Island via bus or.. hiking through the mountains (you'll see the trail soon enough). But the idea of riding in a cable car was far better than a bus at the time and by the time we realized the line was super long, we were already half way to the ticket booth. I believe it was HKD$150 for a round trip ticket and 10 or 15% off for HK residents. There's the option to ride in a crystal floor cable car or a standard one and being the cheapos that I am, of course we went with standard. But I wouldn't feel safe riding in a crystal floor cable car anyways since I'm terrified of heights. 

Very polluted but still a good view of Hong Kong! The ride was super long actually- around 25 minutes and we were able to spot the Hong Kong Airport. 

The trail below like I mentioned earlier. You can walk....

We made it! Once we arrived, there is a modern village area with different franchises like Honeymoon Dessert and when we walk further, there were little mom and pop booths selling souvenirs and post cards.

Big Buddha spotted!

Tian Tan Buddha/Big Buddha is a large statue of Buddha Amoghasiddhi and it symbolizes the relationship between man and nature, people and religion. It's named Tian Tan Buddha because it's based on a statue at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. It is also one of the five largest Buddha statues in China. (Information brought to you by Wikipedia.) Tourists have to climb 268 steps in order to reach the Buddha and we saw a cute old lady literally kneeling and praying at every step. 

The Buddha is surrounded by six smaller (but still big) bronze statues called "The Offerings of Six Devas" offering flowers, incense, lamp, ointment, fruit, and music to the Buddha and they symbolize charity, morality, patience, zeal, meditation, and wisdom. The essentials to reaching nirvana.

Although it was pretty humid the day we visited, we stayed for half an hour just admiring the sight and just looking at the Big Buddha is very calming. We headed back down the steps and to the bus terminal to continue our day in Tai O, a fishing village. The bus ride was really bumpy and crowded but we were able to find seats!

It was maybe a 15 minute ride to Tai O. It's quite interesting to see the fishing lifestyle as it's very different from the hustle and bustle of city life even though the fishing lifestyle is dying out. The village has a lot of huts and very old stilt houses. 

The first street food stand when entering Tai O, with a gigantic squid and super huge fish balls!

A peak inside someone's home..

Dried shark?

As we were walking towards the end of the shops of the village, we noticed a line and to our surprise, the line was for eggettes! Of course, we followed the crowd and waited in line for it. It's different than the eggettes in SF or anywhere in the US for all I know.. because they actually use real fire and charcoal to cook the eggettes giving it that extra crispy crunch. Mmmmm.

When we were walking back to take the bus back to the Big Buddha, we noticed all the dried salty fish-- out for drying! With all the flies... So this is why my grandma washes them before cooking.

We could have taken the bus straight back to Tung Chung for the MTR, but since we purchased the round trip ticket, we thought we couldn't waste the return trip. So therefore, we took the bus back to the Big Buddha and then ran to the cable car entrance (lots of people because it was close to sun down, everybody wanted to leave) to wait in line to head home.

Super pretty sight, even though you can barely see anything in the middle of all that pollution. The end to a very productive day Ü

xoxoxoxo