Hong Kong and the Big Buddha
What more appropriate thing to do on Christmas than…visit a gigantic Buddha?
LOL
We pulled into Hong Kong just before Christmas and left the day after. I went out with some of my friends from work and from another department.
The buildings were decorated with gigantic, extravagant light displays. One of my favorites was a car flying over a bridge, but I don’t have that one here (better to let you imagine it, anyway). This was taken from the ferry that took us from our ship that was anchored a mile off land:
The rest of the night was spent wandering the streets - we took mass transit, ran into beggars on every corner as well as a giant anime figure (it wouldn’t be Asia without anime, now would it?):
The next morning, we set out early for some Christmas-day sightseeing to the giant buddha at the Po Lin monastery. The monastery itself was jaw-dropping beautiful, but it was requested not to take any pictures in the monastary so I didn’t. However, I took lots of pictures at the Tian Tan buddha statue.
Me, in front of the enormous hill of steps - I had horrible calf cramps the next day!
The statue is surrounded by Bodhisatvas offering gifts to the Buddha:
All around was beautiful scenery:
And finally, on our way back through the grounds, we stopped for a traditional dinner (delicious!! I even ate mushrooms and they were gooood!) Just before we got to the eating area, my friend that I went with pointed out this beautiful wall that was in such a serene spot:
K
