On a warm Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I paid a visit to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery (萬佛寺) in Shatin, Hong Kong. As you might have imagined there are a lot of Buddhas but the name is somewhat misleading since it’s actually managed by laypeople and there are no resident monks.
Concluding my four-part photographic walk around the historic center of Macau (see Parts 1, 2, & 3) today we take a jaunt around some of the old shops which line the labyrinth of streets surrounding Rua dos Mercadores in the south to Rua Nossa Senhora do Amparo in the north.
Once you get away from the touristy side of Macau (see Parts 1 & 2) there are some great back streets full of thriving traditional communities which look like they date back some considerable time. With camera in hand I ventured inside the labyrinth of narrow alleyways to explore how some of the locals live.
Over the past few weeks since I brought my new Panasonic Lumix GF2 Micro Four Thirds camera I’ve been testing it out around Hong Kong, mostly in the evenings and weekends. One of the key features I’ve been playing with is the video mode which shoots full 1080i HD at 25 fps.
Continuing my walk around the historic centre Macau (see Part 1) I headed south from Senado Square and quite by accident stumbled across the Sir Robert Ho Tung Library (何東圖書館) housed in the mansion which belonged to the influential Eurasian businessman who it’s named after.
Despite having lived in the south of China for the best part of the last three years there is was one striking place I had never visited; Macau (澳門). As a former Portuguese colony Macau is classed as a special administrative region along with Hong Kong, and retains a large degree of autonomy.
Shenzhen is one of the most modern cities in China, having rapidly developed over the past 30 years since its inception as a special economic zone. Walking around its streets there is little to see in the way of history or culture but scratch beneath the surface and there are a few intriguing glimpses of the past to be found.
After walking along the Path of Philosophy in the morning I took a bus to what turned out to be my favourite part of Kyoto that I visited during my trip. Daitoku-ji (大徳寺) is a temple complex which contains more than twenty sub-temples and some of the finest examples of Zen architecture and design in Japan, including gardens and tea ceremony rooms.
Last weekend I took a trip to South Wales to get a bit of fresh air and to explore a part of the UK I’d never been to before. It takes about two hours to reach Cardiff, the capital of Wales, from London by train making it ideal for a short getaway. While travelling around this region by public transport can be a bit limiting I did manage to get out of the cities to somewhere a bit more remote and moreover stunningly beautiful…
In the morning of my final day in Kyoto I headed back to Northern Higashiyama to follow the