Hong Kong 3: 10k Buddhas, 2 temples, a garden, and the Kowloon Walled City Park

I originally planned to take us to the giant Buddha in Ngong Ping, but the only way to get there is by a 40 minute subway followed by either a 25 minute skyride or a bus that was over an hour.  Neither seemed like a fun experience, so I decided to stay nearer to the city.

We first went to the 10k Buddhas Monastery.  At first, I took us the wrong route, as another entranceway looked like it would be the right place.  We took escalators up onto a mountainside and it turned out to be the Po Fook Hill Cemetery.  We went back down, and took a left and took a narrow path to the correct place.  There were many life sized Buddhas on the way up and many were very creative for such an endeavor.  This is why I am showing so many pictures.



Near the top there was a temple and open area with a pagoda.  The inside of the temple was incredibly beautiful, and it seemed to be where the rest of the ten thousand Buddhas were.



We climbed a bit farther up, where we found some smaller temples and then construction blocking our way.  We came down the way we came up and saw a sign warning of fake monks asking for alms. Then we took the train to our next stop, the Chi Lin Nunnery.  This was a nice set of entryways, followed by an absolutely beautiful inner temple.  Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed.



Across the street was the Nan Lien Garden.  This was a very nice place, but I was hoping for flowers or insects, of which they had none.  I wondered if they were using insecticide, which would explain why insect populations have been decimated worldwide.



We took the subway just one stop in order to see the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple.  This temple had heavy construction going on, and so was divided into two parts.  At first we went to the garden portion.  We had to return to the entrance and going alongside a mall of fortune tellers before finding the side entrance to the main temple.  It was quite beautiful and there were many people praying out front.



Our final stop for the day was a twenty minute walk away, the Kowloon Walled City Park.  This park was built on the remains of the old walled city, which was apparently known as being a haven for criminals.  The place was absolutely beautiful, and I loved the historic twist to it.  We found an area that had historic pictures of the area with description and the park actually had flowers in it!  I really enjoyed the layout.  I almost skipped it because the reviews online were not as good as the other places we went to, which would have been a shame because it was my favorite of the day.



Right outside the park was a bus stop.  Miles decided that we should just wait for the bus instead of walking ten minutes to the train station.  Within seconds of reaching the bus stop overhang, it started raining.  The bus drive was slow, due to Hong Kong traffic, but we never had to walk in the pouring rain.  It also made me realize that there were no bridges between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island.  I should have realized this before when we went to the night show, but I didn't notice.  Our bus had to go in a tunnel to bring us home.  We again went to the Japanese Ramen restaurant.