hongkong, day 07
went to McDonald's to have my breakfast on day day 07. inside
the restaurant sat an very old woman who soon started to talk to
me (in perfect british english, though she was asian). we were
talking a while, then she started palm-reading of my hand (of
course not for free, but less than a "professional" one would
charge). actually what she told me was all kind of stuff she
could have guessed by just observing me and talking to me for a
few minutes (which she actually did). but a little pushing for
the ego is never a bad idea. so i enjoyed listening to all the
stuff like i'm intelligent, wise (she might be assuming this by
our previous conversation we had), i'm artistically gifted
(though i wonder how she found out this one. maybe because of my
huge camera bag?), and i will marry at an old age (well i am
travelling alone and i'm not 20 anymore), i have a well going
career in my job (yes, at least i can afford a stay in hong kong
for a longer time), and i'm rather observative and introverted
than extroverted (well, yop, she was talking most of the time),
i'm friendly and open minded (yop, again, that's why i want to
visit "exotic" countries and have dread locks). and so on...
but all in all this was a very nice chat with the old lady, who
unfortunately refused my plea to take a picure of her.
when i left McDonald's it had suprisiginly stopped raining. so i
changed my plans, and instead of walking through malls or muse-
ums, i went to see the "po fuk shan" cemetary and the "man fat
sze" temple (aka "the temple of ten thousand buddhas"). to get
there i took the MTR and got of at "sha tin". right above the
station is a huge mall[013-018]. outside the mall there's a
small "snoopy's world"[001-012] park for kids. due to the rain
it was actually empty and most of the fair-things were closed
anyway. cute to see all the peanuts in 3D and this size.
 
then i headed on to the "po fuk shan" cemetary[019-063]. the
cemetary is huge and has several levels[056,060] that spread all
over the hill. at the main hall there was some ceremony[045]
going on, but i have no idea what it was for. then i found the
usual stuff like golden statues[046,051-052,058-059,061-062] in
temples or outside. all those buildings (that could be closed
like garages or shops) contained loads of marble plates[055],
and there were thousand of them. each of them for one or more
relatives.
 
going back downhill all the cemetary to the main entrance again
to get to the next sight, namely "the temple of the ten thousand
buddhas", or "man fat sze"[067-175]. although a steep climb up
to the monastery it was totally worth it. what you get is really
several thousand buddhas. be it life-sized ones on the trail up/
down to/from the monastery[067-092,134-142,173], or miniatures
[121-131] inside the main temple. this was my first real WTF?
experience in hong kong. the temple is really awesome. three
walls all filled up with tiny buddha-statues. then there's a
smaller glass case[130] again with several hundred buddhas
inside. and then there are those three cones[129] with small
buddhas inside too. so adding up all those buddhas that might
really make it to ten thousand. totally impressive and fasci-
nating. please note that all the life sized buddhas were unique.
also most of the ones placed in the walls and in the cone were
unique. i wish someone would have made such a temple with cats.
wooooo, ten thousand cats - i would die in awness instantly.
 
 
the trail is not finished yet at the main temple. instead again
a steep walk up to another temple (or whatever it is/was) again
with life sized and coloured statues to each side of the path
[135-142].
 
at the end i found some abandoned buildings[145-153] again
(yuhu!) and it seems i found the place where they repair the
broken statues. at least some of the ones standing up there were
(partially) damaged or disassembled. i'm still not sure if this
was really ment for the public or if i took a wrong turn some-
where. the place was a mess, but i totally liked it.
but, you might have guessed it, this was still not the end of
the path. again up the hill i ended at a statue garden[161] and
a huge white statue[162-163] with a lovely dragon[164] in front
of a waterfall. totally impressive and nice. but this time, this
was really the highest point one could go.
 
since i left the main temple i was totally alone (and on the way
up to the courtyard i saw only about five people all in all).
i explored the abandoned houses again on my way down, when i no-
ticed it was only 15 minutes left until the temple closes. i
saw gates along the way up. so i hurried to not end up locked in
this place. but... ahm... too late. all gates were already
closed. the only being here besides me was a barking dog. but it
ran some other way (actually i was quite glad about that). so i
was locked in, totally alone, and it got darker every minute.
great. since i've seen a way i have not walked yet when i was
wandering the courtyard i decided to exit there so that at least
i would not miss something important just because i was locked
in. it turned out to be a good choice because the barbwire at
exactly this exit was pretty lose, so i could partially remove
it, and then hop over the fence to land safely about two meters
lower. puh, lucky me. down the way were another few hundred
buddhas[173]. once more totally nice. oh, and i saw another cat
[176].
 
i wanted to go home since i really was tired now from all the
climbing. but the day was not over yet. i got on a MTR train and
thought "oh, this train cabin looks so different. so few people
and... hm... what does this sign say? first class'? aha, inter-
esting.". so i thouht i'm wrong here, and wanted to get off
again when suddenly three MTR-employees were going to each
passenger asking them to put their octopus-card on some card
reader. so did i. then the guy told me i did not pay for first
class. ahm... yop, i never intended to go on first class. well,
we got off the next station and he explained to me that i have
to enable my octopus card for a first class ride before i get on
the train. fines may be up to 500HKD (~50EUR) if you don't do
so. damn. then he asked for an ID. but i had none, since my
wallet got wet the day before so i left it at home so it could
get dry. also this was illegal. fines here could rise even
higher he told me. well... guess i looked so totally exhausted
and tired that this really nice and kind MTR guy said i get a
warning and do not have to pay. guess my apologies and suprised
looks were convincing him that i really did not know better. so
he showed me where to charge my card so i could go on first
class. pretty expensive actually, but i was very willing to pay
only the extra charge instead of the fines. as a sign of good
will on my side (though no one noticed that since the MTR guys
already left the station for some other trains) i travelled the
rest of my way home in second class trains (though it was
charged for first one for this trip).
quite exciting day... if only the fortune teller lady would have
told me that in the morning...
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