10,000 Buddhas.

I've found that when I arrive in Hong Kong, I always peak really early. So, I think that the jet-lag hasn't got me and the first day-and-a-half will be all good, until I'm wide awake at 3am for no reason.

After some fancy dim sum in Kowloon Tong, we popped back over to Sha Tin, where we were staying, and ended up walking up the side of a huge hill to visit the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery.



Hong Kong is pretty small, so it's easy to get from one side to another in just over an hour, still I thought it was a good idea to take a look at what we could do nearby. Not least because I didn't want us to stress ourselves out too much on our first day.

So, it was the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery that took my eye, it sounded insane and having seen photographs of it before and then reading more into it, I couldn't wait. My poor sister wasn't quite prepared for the 45 minute hike up a fairly steep hill to get to the top and neither was I, but we got there.


Lined with 500 golden buddhas, each one different, the walk ended up being pretty fun, even in the Hong Kong humidity, we made it right to the very top beyond the monastery buildings. It's not technically a monastery as no monks reside here and the buildings and statues are maintained by laypeople but I'd certainly recommend it to anyone visiting Hong Kong, it was one of the most different things I've done.

The statues are completely wild and, I don't know whether it's because of the day we visited but it was much quieter than many of the other attractions that we visited during our trip.








This is the kind of place that makes facial recognition slightly creepy...





This long-armed one was my favourite.









We were lucky to see wild monkeys, they seemed to know that the rain was on its way and were a bit more shy than I'd read they would be.


Explainations on a postcard.


Route to the top.

So HK — Photo Diary.

Last night I actually sat down and blogged, for the first time in coming up to three months. I lit some candles, made myself a cup of tea and I planned out what was going to go down for the next couple of weeks. It sounds a little too structured but I've got to ease myself back in a bit and I feel like I can genuinely say that there's more to come - I'm more hopeful about that at least.

So, here's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Hong Kong holiday spam, I can't believe it's coming up to 2 months since we got home! We had a great time, Moon had the chance to meet so much of my family that he wouldn't otherwise get to and it was so nice to hear him say that it's made him want to travel more.

Unfortunately the weather was not on our side which meant I still didn't really get the trips to the seaside that I've been dreaming of - in all my years of visiting Hong Kong I've never really been the the beach and after reading our guidebook thoroughly I knew it was something I wanted to do. Dang typhoons! Oh well, if all your complaining about is the weather, you're probably alright (or English).



View from our hotel window, there's a little more to Hong Kong than a concrete jungle.


I am so far from well-travelled, with my main holidays growing up being Brittany or Ireland and the occasional trip to Florida or Hong Kong, it was really nice to see some of the places I've visited through Moon's fresh eyes though. I think Hong Kong will always be somewhere I'll come back to every few years, my sister studying there certainly provided me with an excuse to visit when we did but this won't be my last trip.


Can't wait to tell you more about the 10,000 Buddha Monastery, I think it was one of my favourite places that we visited during the entire trip!