After the excitement of the market the previous evening, we woke to the dawn chorus of chainsaws, banging and shouting coming through the air vents into our tiny tiled box - wonderful! So we quickly headed off to the local bakery to get our breakfast fix for the day. The bakeries are amazing here, seriously I have never seen anything like it! You can get any sort of bread, rolls, cakes filled with weird and wonderful concoctions for a matter of pence. The croissants here are also amazing and I've definitely had my fair share of those since we've been here. The bakery has been Tom's best friend during our stay here and he has spent AGES deciding what to have each day (and he tells me that I'm indecisive!!)
We jumped on the MTR and headed for a place called Sha Tin, where we could visit the 10,000 Buddha Monastery. Sitting on the train minding our own business, a group of business students from one of the local graduate schools became very interested in us! It turns out they were taking part in a team building day challenge and had to reach an isolated rural area near Sha Tin using as little money as possible. Two of the students had lived in England, one had even studied at Southampton Business School and wanted to return there for a holiday! Anyway, they tried to sell us most of there posessions to raise some money for their team. We had 10 dollars in change so gave them that and allowed them to keep the multitude of umbrellas that they were trying to give us in return - crazy! We all got off the train at Sha Tin station, having posed for a picture and taken part in their team chanting session we left them planning their next move.
Following my hastily written directions, we made our way to the well hidden entrance of the Monastery. Out of nowhere appeared a steep and winding path flanked on either side by amazing (and sometimes a bit weird looking) gold statues. They followed the path the entire way up to the top and we made the most of taking some pictures for the blog. When we reached the top, the Monastery itself was beautiful and well worth the climb up. Inside is a room filled, on every inch of wall space, with Buddhas (hence the name!) You weren't allowed to take pictures but I honestly don't think it would've done it justice. Outside, there was a typical Chinese pagoda and many more brightly coloured figures and statues, which was a stark contrast to the grey drizzly day. We spent ages snapping away with our cameras (camera wars has officially begun!) and taking in the view before making our way back down the many steps to the bottom. We passed many elderly ladies making the climb up (they must have been about 80) without breaking a sweat. Not bad going!
After an uneventful MTR journey back to Kowloon, we wandered around the University area in search of a cheap place to eat lunch. We came across a noodles and dumplings cafe and were greeted by the loudest Chinese woman ever, who shouted at us to come in and try the best dumplings around. We didn't want to argue! We followed her in and the shouting continued whilst she pointed to different items on the menu. To be fair, it did all look really good but all the shouting, seriously! Evenutally,we ordered pork and vegetable dumplings (chefs specialty!) and vegetable noodles and it was delicious. All the shouting had been worth it after all! With full bellies, we strolled around the harbour area and along the Avenue of Stars, which was full of mental Chinese tourists taking as many pictures as they possibly could of anything and everything along the walkway! Why?! Saying that, we have taken our fair share of photographs so perhaps I'm being slightly mean. After a Skype session home to my Dad and sister, we had our first 'night in' since we've been away. We watched a film a caught up with uploading photos and blogging. All accompianied by some very tasty Chinese style pot noodles and 60p a can Carlsbergs - cheap and a well deserved rest!
For our last full day in Hong Kong, we headed for the 'Giant Buddha' on Lantau Island, one of the last attractions yet to see on Hong Kong's Top 10 list. It was another grey day (so not scorching like when you went Claire!) but luckily the cable car was still running to take you up to the Po Lin Monastery and the Buddha. We queued for a good hour or so before reaching the cable cars and it was one of those really annoying queues that snakes around so when you think you're almost there you turn around and walk in the opposite direction (never again will we come to China during their National holiday - too many queues!) We were eventually crammed into a cable car and posed for the obligitory Kodak photo before starting the 25 minute journey to the top. The cable car runs for 5km and takes you high up into the mountains on Lantau Island - it was well worth the queue for the views here alone, let alone what waited for us at the top!
Once past the gift shops, we climbed with many other tourists and Chinese alike to the base of the Buddha. It was huge and amazingly impressive to look at, despite the sea of multicoloured brollies in the way of our pictures - damn the rain! Then we headed down towards the Monastery, being drawn in by the sound of monks chanting. We made our way through waves of incense and found ourselves surrounded by huge golden shrines to Buddha. I got snap happy and Tom sat himself down and lost himself in the chanting and incense! Then we joined the masses and bought some incense sticks to light and add to the hot pots. We split the pack and set about lighting them. When mine were lit I looked up to see Tom holding a mass of burning sticks asking if they were supposed to look like that. The answer was very much no - he had lit the wrong end and was just burning wood not incense! Thankfully we were able to blow them out and light the correct side before adding them to the huge piles of smoking sticks.
For our last evening in Hong Kong, we headed back to Temple Street Market to properly sample the food and atmosphere. We picked the busiest looking place and sat ourselves down on one of the many tables on the street. It took forever to be served but we were rewarded with huge bottles of Yanjing beer and the spiciest singapore noodles and beef dish ever. My mouth was officially on fire by the time we finished! We've officially mastered the use of chopsticks and their tiny bowls though which I'm pretty impressed by!
All in all, we've had a fantastic time in Hong Kong and I'm actually sad to leave, even our tiny box room. We've the pleasure of crossing the Hong Kong - China border tomorrow and then we will be officially surrounded by people that speak no English at all. Scary but exciting, let's see what happens!
Lots of love, Shell xxx
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