Every year in late April or early May, Hong Kong celebrates the birthday of Tin Hau (媽祖), also known as the Queen of Heaven and Goddess of the Sea. Legend has it that over 100 years ago Tin Hau stood on the shore guiding fishing boats home, unperturbed by typhoons and storms.
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.
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.
In the morning of my final day in Kyoto I headed back to Northern Higashiyama to follow the
After visiting Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari Taisha earlier in the day my next stop in Kyoto was Northern Higashiyama (東山区) for an afternoon stroll through some of the idyllic gardens and temples there. Without wanting to repeat myself too much I’ll leave you to marvel at some of the well-preserved heritage and natural beauty on show here…
As you might have already guessed from my previous posts Kyoto has a huge number of temples and shrines. In fact there are over 2000, both large and small, which makes choosing which to visit a bit tricky – it’s well worth picking up the Kyoto (Lonely Planet City Guide) to work out where you want to go. If temples aren’t your thing then you might want to skip todays post or Kyoto altogether…
On my second day in Kyoto thick clouds hung in the air as I made my way to the north-west outskirts of the city to explore the districts of Arashiyama (嵐山) and Sagano. After a fifteen minute journey on the Sagano Line from Nijō Station (near the hostel I was staying at) I arrived and made my way through the quiet streets to my first destination…