Adventures in the New Territories

Greetings all!

As I have previously mentioned in my posts, Hong Kong consists of three main areas:  Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories.  We have explored so much on HK Island and Kowloon that we decided it was time to go deep into the country to explore the New Territories.  This area which accounts for over 80% of the land in Hong Kong is home to more than 3.5 million people.  Much of the land out here is reserved as parkland which is a nice change from the urban jungle we are living in every day. 

Our destination was a town called Sha Tin.  Sha Tin is located in a valley, on both sides of the Shing Mun River.   The first place we visited was the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery.  The monastery actually has close to 13,000 Buddhas in all shapes and sizes.  It is located at the top of a steep hill with about a 500 step climb.  

 Lucky for us, it was a beautiful, sunny day as we set out to tackle these stairs.

 

Are we there yet???

After about ten minutes of walking, you come to the entrance and the walkway is then lined with Buddhas all the way up to the top.  Here is the view looking down the hill.

Time to stop for a rest

We had heard that out in the mountains you might see Macaques.  We had barely started climbing, when we saw one in the trees!  Zack was able to get a quick picture of him after which time, we quickly moved along.  We didn't want to make the monkey angry!  We later saw signs warning us not to upset the monkeys.

Here is a random selection of the Buddhas we saw on our climb up.

After about 20 minutes of stair climbing, we reached the top! In addition to all the Buddhas, there is a 9-story pagoda and many places to worship.

 

Some of the Budhhas had what looked like a swastika painted on them.  We've seen this at other temples as well.  Because of the symbols most recent history, it is somewhat disconcerting to see this.  What I didn't know - prior to my time in Asia - was that this symbol was used in ancient civilizations around the world. It remains widely used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, primarily as a symbol of auspiciousness.  In countries such as Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and China itself, the symbol is most commonly associated with Buddhism. They could be commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artifacts, texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups.  

There were some great views from the top.  It was definitely worth the climb!

A common occurrence in our neighborhood is seeing fake monks begging money from tourists - primarily they approach Caucasian people.  We have been approached many time while we've been here.  Apparently, they have that problem out here as well as they have signs warning you about them.

Here is a selection of Buddhas from our walk down the hill on a different path.

This one had similar facial hair to Zack

Our next stop was Sha Tin Park.  This was a pretty park along the riverfront area.  There was a walking and a biking path along the river that was very popular.  

 They had some really cute trash cans.

The park also had some decorations for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations.  This is going to be the Year of the Snake.  Some of the decorations seemed to have a bit of a Christmas vibe to them though...  

Year of the Snake or something else?

We also randomly see across Hong Kong, displays from the Beijing Olympics in 2008. 

Our last stop was the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.  The best part of this museum was a display of works done by a Chinese artist, Gao Qifeng and others who painted in a similar style.  The paintings were beautiful.  Here are some examples of the work.

Once we finished the museum we were quite tired and decided it was time to head home.  Until next time!
Carla

Kowloon Parks Extravaganza!!

Happy new year everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  We had a great visit back home and enjoyed our time with family and friends.  The jet lag was pretty rough and we had some strange sleep patterns most of the time we were home.  Totally worth it though!!  Coming back to HK was hard but we are now in the home stretch and will be home for good before you know it.

On the plane ride back here, Zack and I made a list of things we want to do and restaurants we want to try before we go home.   Now we are working through that list...  

Our first stop is Nan Lian Garden and Chi Lin Nunnery in Kowloon.  This was about a 20 minute ride on the MTR and then easily found following the signs.  Hong Kong does a really good job with providing signs so you don't get lost.  Nan Lian Garden is a beautiful park that was built in the classical style of the Tang Dynasty.  It includes hills, ornamental rocks, water features, and sculptured bushes and trees.  There was an extensive list of rules you had to be advised of before you entered:

!

Now that we know how to behave, let's explore the park!

 

This is a photo of the Chinese Timber Architecture Gallery.  Inside were reproductions of pagodas and temples made using ancient construction techniques.  Photos were not allowed to be taken inside so alas, I cannot share what was in there.  You will just have to go there yourself if you want to see them!

The garden also included a building called the Rockery that had a topiary garden in the entrance. 

We saw an exhibition on Chinese embroidery in this building.  

 

You couldn't take pictures of the embroidery either (darn rules!) but here is an example I lifted from google images.  The work was amazing and it's hard to believe it's embroidery when you see it up close. It looks like a painting until you get up close and see the intricate needlework.

Here are a few more random shots before we move on to the Nunnery.  

Across the road from the Garden is the Chi Lin Buddhist Nunnery.  The Nunnery was founded in 1931 to provide religious, cultural, educational and elderly care services to the Hong Kong Kong Community.  The buildings were re-designed in the 1990's in the style of Tang Dynasty Monastic architecture.  Amazingly, no nails were used in the structures. They used a system of wooden dowlings and brackets.  The Nunnery was a beautiful, peaceful place.  There is a large courtyard filled with lotus ponds. 

The building surrounding the courtyard had several places for worship each representing a different Buddhas.  These were amazing to see but alas, photos were not allowed here either.  These pictures are stolen from google images.  I don't know if you can really get the scale here but they were enormous.

Our next stop was Kowloon Walled City Park.  Since this park was not close to an MTR stop, we decided to take our chances, test our Kowloon navigation skills and walk there. It was quite a hike but we were incentivized by the fact that there is a Thai enclave near the park and many highly recommended Thai restaurants.  We only made one wrong turn at which point, a tired, hungry, verging on "hangry" Carla came close to shutting down but Zack righted our course, I got it together and we made it there successfully. 

This park has a really interesting history.  It was originally a Chinese military fort.  Following the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, Kowloon Walled City was extremely important to China's maritime defense.  British troops took over the Walled City in 1899 and expelled the soldiers.  Ever since, the Walled City was without laws or administration and it turned into a semi-lawless squatter slum.  Things got even worse after the Japanese occupation between 1941 and 1945.  The population swelled, buildings were built without government supervision and the Walled City sunk into a hotbed of vice activities.  The city was controlled by Triads and had high rates of prostitution, gambling and drug use. 


This is what Kowloon Walled City looked like before they demolished it.  Approximately 30,000 people were living in here.  All of the exhibits are short on information regarding what happened to all those people.  I have asked people in my office what happened and they just say they were "relocated" mainly to public housing. Some people had to be forcibly removed. 


This is a picture of a typical alley.


As there wasn't much open space, the rooftops became the place where people spent time.  At the exhibit, they showed children playing on the rooftops by day, and residents doing drugs up there at night.  There were also many unlicensed dentists in the city.  This picture below is an example of that. 

What a story, right?  I've been fascinated with this history since I read about it in the tourist guides.  Well, they tore it all down and built this lovely park.  Since I've already packed this blog with pictures I will try to stick to the highlights.

This is a sculpture of the former Walled City

The picture below is of the former Old South Gate which was declared a monument.

They have a Garden of Chinese Zodiac where there are sculptures of each of the signs.  I am the rabbit and Zack is the pig.
 

This was a long day of sightseeing but well worth the effort.  It's amazing to see these places.  We were ultimately rewarded with an excellent Thai meal.  Our favorite thing was the dessert - Mango with sticky rice and coconut milk.  I want to go back for more!

Yum!!

I will leave you with one final picture.  As we wandered around the Thai neighborhood after dinner, we heard some dogs yapping like mad.  There was a cat sitting outside the door of a pet grooming place.  The little dogs inside were going crazy wanting to get at the cat.  The cat just sat there and barely acknowledged the dogs were there.  

Now we go back to the list and figure out where to go next.  Stay tuned...

Carla