Hong Kong - Heritage and History (Part 3): The Mainstream Essentials

 - March 17-18, 2014, Monday to Tuesday.

- I bought a discounted ticket in Chungking Mansions to the Ngong Ping 360, a cable car service that brings people to Lantau Island to see the Big Buddha, Po Lin Monastery, and the Ngong Ping Village. However, the store where I bought my ticket received word from one customer that the cable car service will be temporarily shut down for a scheduled maintenance. However, the website didn't show this, and so they sold me the ticket with a promise of refunding my ticket if ever the cable car was really closed for maintenance. I checked that night, and the website now showed a notification of a 4-day maintenance of the cable cars. Thankfully, I was able to catch the store open on Monday morning as I was about to go to Ngong Ping, and had my ticket refunded.

- Since I couldn't go via cable car, I had the option of going there by shuttle bus from the bus station located right beside the cable car station in Tung Chung, near the Citygate Outlet mall, and the Tung Chung MTR. The scenic bus ride was around 50 minutes, around 25 more minutes than the usual cable car ride. At least I was able to catch some sleep during the bus ride.

- I arrived at the Big Buddha at almost 10am, and waited for the gates to open at 10. There was not much people around, so I thought I could take some nice photos with more ease. I had changed into my photoshoot clothes by then too. When the gates opened, I was sold a ticket to go inside the Big Buddha museum (no charge for those who didn't want to go inside the museum, but only wanted to visit the Big Buddha;) the Buddha was literally sitting on the museum.

A Buddhist monk.

- Apart from a closer view of the Big Buddha. Some life-size apsara (heavenly nymphs) statues were there, giving offerings to the Big Buddha.

Apsaras.

Photoshoot.

- After going down the long flights of stairs (but nothing beats the long flight of stairs in Man Fat Tze) I went to the Po Lin Monastery to look at the temples, and have lunch at the vegetarian eatery. The vegetarian eatery was a typical queue-up-point-and-pay eatery ("turo-turo" in Filipino.) The bigger restaurant would usually require bigger groups of people (their multi-course set meals are good for at least five people, no less.)

Going down the stairs.

Po Lin Monastery.

Taming the wind in front of the Buddha.

- I visited the Ngong Ping Village after going around the temple. The village is just a themed village with some souvenir shops and restaurants; the other end of the cable car station is also located here. It also has its famous "Walk with Buddha" attraction, where people could watch a cinematic and animated version of Buddha's life, and walking through some halls with a glass/crystal Buddha, and halls where people could learn about the basics of Buddha's teachings. The attraction ends in a souvenir shop. (Come to think of it, shopping for "souvenirs" is sort of against Buddhist teachings -- shopping for souvenirs is a form of satisfaction for a shopaholic desire; Buddhism detests desire. But let's leave that debate for the more knowledgeable ones.)

Some cows grazing.

BIG KITTY.

- I took the bus to Tung Chung again, and arrived early at the hostel. I rested a while, and went around Tsim Sha Tsui. I decided to go to Wanchai via ferry to take a photo of the Golden Bauhinia, and go back to Tsim Sha Tsui to watch "A Symphony of Lights" near the dock.

Mosque in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Why hello old friend.

While waiting for my ferry.

Golden Bauhinia.

Clock Tower.

I saw this photo at the subway/underpass. I almost cried in front of the poster.

Yang Liping is my favorite Chinese dancer, and probably due to her age, she decided to retire

- I went to Temple Street to have dinner at Bombay Indian Restaurant, where I met this cute and can't-be-pacified Indian toddler, and of course, to shop, for the last time. The owner of the restaurant thought I was from Kolkata, because she knew I was Chinese, but I spoke Hindi, and Kolkata has one of the two Chinatowns in India (the other being in Mumbai.) This was the first time I was mistaken for a Chinese-Indian.

My little Indian playmate from the restuarant.

This was supposed to be good for one. Well, I'm one person with a big appetite. HAHA.

It was too much for me though, but because I was hungry I finished everything.

- My last day was my "wildcard day." I had finished all the important things in my itinerary, aside from the Man Mo Temple, and so I decided to visit some places near me after going to the Man Mo Temple. The Man Mo Temple is located near the Sheung Wan MTR, and was built in the mid 1800s in honor of the God of Literature (Man) and the God of War (Mo.) The temple is the largest Man Mo Temple in Hong Kong, and is iconic because of its hanging incense spirals.

Man Mo Temple.

Man and Mo.

Lanterns.

- I went somewhere closer to home, to a larger Tin Hau Temple, located near Temple Street. It also had the hanging incense spirals, but the ones in Man Mo looked better.

The (bigger) Tin Hau Temple.

That roof detaillll!!!!

Tin Hau.

- Within the Kowloon Park (not to be confused with the Kowloon Walled City Park near Lok Fu MTR,) is the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Center, which also acts as a tourist information center, with maps for the different heritage trails and other places. The heritage center used to be the Whitfield Barracks, but is now home to interesting exhibits on the history of Hong Kong since the ancient times.

Yes, I agree.

Standing on top of a glass panel with broken Ming ceramics inside.

A hat used for celebrations.

- I checked out at the hostel but left my things there, and went ahead to visit the Avenue of Stars, a long pedestrian street by the seaside that had hand prints and statues of popular Hong Kong performers and cartoons. This was where the mainland Chinese tourists pissed me off the most (very rowdy, won't give other tourists a chance to take photos, and many deliberately standing in front of your camera when you're taking a photo, etc etc etc etc;) apparently even other tourists were too pissed with them, so much so that one non-mainlander Chinese even mumbled some swear words. (I don't mean to be prejudiced, but this has happened to me in all the countries that I've been to, and some feature articles and tv shows have also tackled this thing with the mainlanders, which makes me conclude that a majority of them act like that, with many other tourists and locals pissed off.) Anyway, I took some photos of Bruce Lee, and McDull, a cartoon pig made in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong Cultural Center from the other side of the water.

These pig photos were the hardest to take because of rowdy mainland Chinese tourists.

Tsim Sha Tsui Clock Tower.

- After a quick lunch at McDonald's, I visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art. Since I am still a student, I was entitled to half-price discounts in museums. Too bad the Space Museum and the Museum of History were closed (they are always closed on Tuesdays,) otherwise I would've visited them too.

Self explanatory.

Wooden Guanyin.

- The Museum of Science, located right beside the Museum of History, was a bit hard to find at first, since it was far from the harbor. I found it thanks to some street signs. Also, the museum had a special exhibit on dinosaurs, which once again, tickled the little child in me. True enough, I was sharing the special exhibit halls with a lot of noisy but adorable children almost half my height (they were on their field trip.)

BIG DINOSAUR. :>:>:>:>

This was a bit hard to take. The brontosaurus was really really huge and long.

- Besides the special exhibit, I also got to see the permanent exhibits. Even better, photography was allowed inside; it was a kids' museum after all. Most of the exhibit pieces were also interactive.

One of my history idols.

Bubble selfie.

Another self-explanatory photo.

- I went back to my hostel after that, got my bag, and went to the airport. I was, and still am happy that I got to visit Hong Kong a second time, especially since it was my because of an academic conference, and that I was able to explore Hong Kong beyond what is known by most people -- even more than what some of the locals know of. (The Pingshan and Fanling trails were so far from the main parts of Hong Kong that they aren't included in the tourist maps, so I had to rely on the internet for maps and other pieces of information.) I was also ecstatic to have met some old friends, as well as new ones from different parts of the world. Probably the most meaningful thing that has happened, was that I got to travel alone, and with me trying to step out of my limits (both physical, cultural, and mental) in discovering myself and the world further.