Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

[Nylah]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong



just joined back in again! If you dont mind a grown daughter who is nearly the same age you are, I wouldnt mind being adopted so I can travel like likkle mo

The shots of the jelli fish are pretty cool

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

The more the merrier Mary Sunshine!! I think Magic asked to be adopted as well as a few others - we could have a great old adventure next time couldn't we?? It's such a BIG world out there - so many places to see!!
I'll get the papers in order, and you are in for the next journey (although Mama needs to get an extra job or two to save up some more bucks first!! )

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

The following are statues on the "Boulevard of Stars" which runs along the waterfront of Victoria Harbour - Kowloon side - I didn't recognize most of them, but like everyone else, I found myself snapping pictures of the infamous Jackie Chan!!

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

Well, this is it... the final outing of our amazing time away!
We got on the subway to head north to the Sha Tin district. There are 8 million people in Hong Kong, plus the visitors... more than half of which use the subway at least once a day to get around.... BUSY!




But I would still say that it was the cleanest subway system I have ever seen. PLasma TV's in each car, air-conditioning, good maps, clean stations (including the bathrooms - I know, I would NEVER imagine letting Likkle Mo use a washroom in a subway station in NYC, Toronto, etc. but in Hong Kong, she actually used one, and it was clean!! )

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

We got off at our stop, and as soon as we got up to street level we were greeted with the largest IKEA I have ever seen, and seemed to be in a big commercial district... I thought perhaps I made my first miscalculation of Hong Kong because I didn't see any signage for this monastery, nor did I think it could be amidst this booming shopping area!!


But sure enough, I asked someone on the street, and pointed to the place in my guidebook, and they told us to walk about 10 minutes down the street we were on, hang a right, and we would see a sign. We followed these direction and saw the tiniest handwritten sign with an arrow.

It was about another 10 minute walk down what seemed like a dodgy side street which we contemplated NOT going down for fear of it being a "robbing" trap! But as I was making that decision, I saw a couple of monks walking towards me and Likkle Mo, and pointed to my guidebook knowing they would not speak, and they pointed us on with a smile.

So we forged on....

Apparently there could be peace and nature amidst the concrete jungle called Hong Kong!

We started seeing little signs warning about not going too close to or feeding the wild monkeys that we could
hear, but never ended up seeing...

Then, all of a sudden, we saw the path, and the stairs - sheesh, by this point, we had climbed soooo manystairs and so many mountains - we had said we would climb no more - but we saw the eccentric golden buddhas lining the paths, and we were hooked... so we started our climb past the 500 Buddhas (all different) up the winding stairs up to the Monestary...

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo & Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong







<span style="font-weight: bold">shrines along the way up</span>





They claim to have 500 buddhas lining the stairs, must be true because we lost count...

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

s too nice a day to be inside any longer - I'll finish off later today!!

[sammy]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

Truly AMAZING! Wow.... I am LOVING your report and photos what an incredible trip to share with your daughter........Thank you for sharing!

More please!

[Nylah]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: mo_fire</div><div class="ubbcode-body">The more the merrier Mary Sunshine!! I think Magic asked to be adopted as well as a few others - we could have a great old adventure next time couldn't we?? It's such a BIG world out there - so many places to see!!
I'll get the papers in order, and you are in for the next journey (although Mama needs to get an extra job or two to save up some more bucks first!! ) </div></div>




we can keep Magic cause then we can have someone to fly us around

seriously though, very cool report!

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

Thanks Sammy ... Thanks Mary Sunshine!
Here comes the rest of the Ten Thousand Monestery....I seem to have found a few minutes to post!!

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

I kid you not... this Monestery was the oddest one on all of our journey. We stopped counting Buddhas at 200 on the walk up... and then at the top, there were even more!! I wish the pictures would do it justice, but I was not allowed to shoot photos in the temple using flash, and thus most of the pictures came out blurry!

But no word of a lie... the walls were made up of thousands of tiny, gold buddhas with cutouts for bigger, gilded buddhas... then there was the offering alter adorned with MORE buddhas, and the courtyard outside the temple lined with MORE Buddhas and pagodas holding MORE Buddhas... there was easily 10,000 Buddhas - and did I mention??? No two were the same??

Here is the inside of the temple:

<span style="font-weight: bold">Likkle Mo standing in front of buddhas and the offering alter</span>




<span style="font-weight: bold">offering alter</span>



<span style="font-weight: bold">walls of the temple</span>

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

What I was trying to show in the last couple of blurry pictures, was that EACH one of the tiny 10,000 buddhas that lined the walls from floor to ceiling even had a little light (fake candle) in front of it.... I pity the monk that is in charge of changing those tiny bulbs as they burn out!!

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

The next pictures are of the different burning urns, offering places, pagodas and statues in the courtyard or on the monestery grounds...

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong

[mo_fire]

Re: Mo &amp; Lil Mo - Final Part - Guilin (China) - Hong Kong