Even Bigger Buddha

I have to say, today really has made me question my abilities as a traveler. To give you an idea of how wrong things went, allow me to share with you the plan I had devised for my first day in Hong Kong:
I was going to start the day by taking the tram up Victoria Peak to take in a little bit of nature and get a view of the city. When I came back down, I was going to grab lunch at Luk U Teahouse (one of the oldest and most famous Cantonese Tea Houses still in operation from early in the British occupation.) At that point, I would catch the subway over to Man Mo Temple for a free tour before taking the famous Star Ferry across the harbor to the Aberdeen district. The history museum was free so I thought I’d learn a little bit about Hong Kong, before hitting the markets of Tsim Sha Tsui followed by the night market at Temple Street.

Here’s what actually happened:
When I woke up this morning, it was raining (because apparently rain follows me everywhere. It was about 9:00, but the rain threw enough of a wrench in my plans, I decided to take my time packing up. When I did, I went back to the front desk to moved to my new room (which was actually a bit nicer, even though it wasn’t private.)

There was no locker so I locked my back to the railing of my bed using a bike lock—haven’t had to do that since Amsterdam—and headed outside. The rain had pretty much stopped, so I turned to head…I had no idea. I walked to one end of the street and saw nothing but more streets. Then I turned and walked to the other end of the street. I had a map, and I knew where I was on it, but I had no idea how to get anywhere. There were no subway stations on the map (and I didn’t know which stations any of the above items were at anyway.)

I came too far to wander around aimlessly for hours, I thought. So I went back into the hostel to ask for directions.

The man at the front desk spoke English, but his dialect was very hard to understand. He was impressed by the bit of Mandarin I knew (even though Cantonese was his native language) but I still haven’t figured out how to work the word for poached fish into a conversation.

He showed me on the map where Victoria Peak was. He said the best time to go there was in the evening around 5:30. His recommendation was that I go to the Stanley district and walk along the beach. He also suggested a café just up the street for brunch, and told me I could by a tourist day pass for the metro for $55HKD (which was basically the cost of 2 one way tickets.)

Finding the café he suggested didn’t happen. All I found were a bunch of crowded and chatoric streets that bore a striking resemblance to New York City’s Time Square. I did find a metro station, and figured out how to buy a Tourist pass. With that, I jumped on the train headed for the city center (beach didn’t really sound like my kind of day…and after seeing some of the stuff China dumps, I’m not in a big hurry to get in the ocean anywhere near Asia.)

In the city center, I was totally lost—which is funny because there certainly is a lot of English everywhere. Even spoken, I hear people switching in and out of it within a conversation.

Food became my priority as I was sure having something in my stomach would help me focus better. I saw a McDonalds, but I was not yet that desperate. Just off to my left I saw a sign for a restaurant called “Coral Café.” The ads in the window looks like some of the dishes I’d tried with Vivi—meat, rice, sea weed, fungus, etc.—so I went inside to order. I got a dish that had pork and chicken in it with rice. Taking my receipt back to the kitchen, I handed it to the chef who made it up for me. The restaurant was crowded and there were no free tables, so I asked an elderly looking man if I could sit with him. I doubt he understood me, but he nodded so I sat down.

The chicken had a lot of bones in it—which I admit, did give it a lot of flavor and it was very tender, but it is still a lot of work—but the pork did not. Both tasted good, and the sauce was pretty sweet. I also got a milk tea. This one had the black jelly in it that Chinese people like. Americans normally don’t like it but I don’t really find that it has any flavor to it.

When I finished, I decided I needed a new plan. Walking over to McDonalds, I found a seat in a booth in the basement. I pulled my travel guide, my notebook, and my tourist pass out of my bag. Going through my travel book, I made not of which metro stop each destination was closest to. My tourist ticket had come with a subway map and a coupon for the gondola up to see the Tian Tan Monastery and Buddha statue. Since there was a near by metro stop to get there from here, I decided that was my new plan.

It turned out to be a great idea. The cable car went first over the ocean, with an awesome view of all the islands. The sun had come out and the tropical trees, turquois water, and fluffy clouds looked like something out of a post card. It was exactly like you imagine an island paradise might look. Next, it went over the airport, which was really cool to see planes take off over the ocean. It finally crossed one more little bay before heading up the hill to the monastery.

One of the fun things about all the English in Hong Kong is all the different accents. Since Hong Kong was a British colony up until the 1980’s, a lot of the Chinese people speak with heavy English accents. There is something really odd about seeing an Asian face, but hearing a British voice…especially since the accents have sort of a cockney sound to them. I bring this up because two girls in my cable car were terrified it was going to fall the entire 45 minute ride. Listening to them jabber out their last will and testaments was absolutely hilarious and took great effort not to laugh. They appeared to be under the impression no one else on the car spoke English and I didn’t want to give myself away.

When we got off the cable car, there was a small dance troupe putting on a show in the streets. They started out dancing to 1950’s swing music. After a quick wardrobe change inside a tent, they came back out and did a Karate demonstration. Then they did some sort of odd dancing with axes routine---which I didn’t really understand. The finale was a fire twirler, who spun burning ropes while two acrobats dressed as fire fighters did areal stunts above him.

After the fire act, they troupe bowed and went back into their tent. I started heading towards the Buddha, which at this point was very obvious.

At roughly 108 feet tall, the statue is the world’s biggest Buddha. The path to get to the statue is guarded by smaller statues of the twelve sacred generals, who look like something out of a Gaelic fairy tale. In place of deer, this monastery houses bulls as their sacred animal. Beyond the statues and bulls, and under some cool white arches, there is a long staircase that leads up the mountain to the big Buddha.

The view from the top is awesome. The Buddha is beautiful, with its hands making the gestures for peace and salvation. You can also look out over the ocean and see bright blue water for miles. I paid the $33HKD (about $6USD) to go inside the museum—which included a complimentary ice cream bar—to learn more.

At the monastery that takes care of the Buddha, they have a few bones from Siddhartha Gautama (the original Buddha.)   While it is not on display they did have several paintings that were painted with the blood of various monks as well as an intricately carved mural of various ancestors, spirits, dragons, and other beings coming to worship Buddha.

At the exit, I got my ice cream and water bottle. In all honesty, the water tasted better than the ice cream.

Hiking down the steps, I couldn’t help but laugh at some of the warning signs. I’ve noticed that safety warnings are everywhere in Hong Kong. In the metro, they are constantly making this announcement to “watch where you are going, don’t keep your eyes only on your mobile phone” (“mobile” being pronounced “mo-bile.”) There is another one that says “When riding escalators, hold the hand rail, stand firm, and don’t walk.” Now here on the stairs to the Buddha there was a warning that read “be careful, no playing.”

From the courtyard at the bottom of the steps, you could see the monastery. Part of it was under construction but red roof was still visible. I walked over through the bamboo garden where people were burning incense. There was a small temple with three Buddha statues in the entryway that lead to the main courtyard. The inner wall of the monastery courtyard was covered in brightly colored mosaic tiles. Climbing up the stairs, the main prayer room had another altar with three more Buddhas. This time, I kneeled and prayed once again for safety on the remainder of my trip.

In the room below, there was a prayer service going on. While photography was not allowed, tourists could stand in the back of that room and watch. There had to be at least a hundred monks (or maybe student monks) sitting around chanting. I’m not sure exactly how it was set up—they were praying in Sanskrit so the language was unintelligible to me—but it appeared there were six or seven different groups that were participating in some sort of call and response prayer. It was absolutely beautiful. Between the chanting, the drums, and the bells, you could feel something very spiritual in that room.

The walls of the room were again mosaicked in little tiles depicting mountains, rivers, and forests. Various Buddhas sat in different landscapes, each with a different face and hand gesture. The ceiling was gilded in gold and absolutely stunning. This was definitely one of my favorite temples I’ve visited.

I walked through the courtyard a little more, looking at the trees, bamboo groves and wild flowers. Black monarch butterflies were all over the place, and the smell of fried food wafted from a kitchen. Suddenly, I heard strange music playing from around a corner. I had to go to check it out, but was disappointed to find it that speaker system from the gift shop.

If I’ve learned anything in traveling, it’s that religion is definitely an industry.

I decided it was time to head back so I made my way to the cable car. The line to go down was quite a bit longer than the line to come up but I got on within about 20 minutes. The views on the way down were just as awesome. Its really cool to see all of the pastel colored buildings with shiny glass windows freckling the exotic tree hillside and tropical beaches.