Hi Everyone,
I want to tell you about the time we went to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery with the children when we were in Hong Kong. We had a family day in Sha Tin which is a neighbourhood along Shing Mun River in the eastern New Territories. Its current name was named after the nearby village of Sha Tin Wai which the literal English translation is 'Sand Fields'.
The Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery is a mid-20th century Buddhist temple located in Sha Tin, Hong Kong, at 220 Pai Tau Village. There are no monks that reside in this monastry and is managed solely by laypersons. Both the main temple building and the pagoda are listed as Grade III historic buildings by the Government of Hong Kong.
The construction of this temple began in 1951 and it took six years to finish the complex. The journey up to the monastry is an attraction in itself as it is lined with gold Buddhas along the path, each one has a different unique pose. Even though it's called the 10,000 Buddha monastry there are at least 13,000 Buddhas, if not more.
If you didn't have your phone or Google maps you would struggle to find the entrance to this monastry but my tip would be to first find IKEA from the MTR station and head behind it. As you can see the entrance is not visible from the main road and even when you're walking along the path you have to turn the corner before you can see a glimpse of the Buddhas.
You're probably thinking 'you did not take the kids up there with the pushchair...' but yes we did. We didn't think it was as steep when we were looking it up to visit. It's safe to say, and @sterlingux will agree with me on this, it isn't pushchair or wheelchair friendly but it can be done. Also, the view from the top was definitely worth it.
When I looked at the map I said 'oh we are nearly there, it's just round the corner' to find out I was not correct. There are benches along the way up, there's also a place to stop for refreshments and food half way up. We stopped to rest on one of the benches as we were both tired already, @sterlingux more tired than I was due to him pushing the pushchair with the kids inside.
Our son decided he wanted to walk the rest of the way the up after we had a rest and he enjoyed seeing all the different expressions of thte Buddhas along the way up. He did get a little scared with how steep it was but he bravely walked the rest of the way up while holding my hand.
Pictures don't do this monastry justice, it really is beautiful up there and it's ever so peaceful. We enjoyed a while deserve rest when we reached the top and enjoyed the beautiful view as well as the monastry. There was another section which allowed you to go further up the mountain but we saw how steep the slope was and decided against it as we were so tired. Inside the monastry there is a whole wall full of mini Buddhas, from floor to ceiling, no photos are allowed to be taken inside due to it being a place of worship.
The views on our descent down the mountain was so picturesque, when you're climbing up all you can see are the Buddhas and the mountain but on the way down you can see the city in the background. We went during the week which meant that there wasn't many people or tourists visiting this monastry which meant it was easy for us to utilise the pit stops along the path.
As you can see, the way down with the pushchair was harder than our way up, but it definitely didn't take us as long to get down the mountain. We did get several stares at us and a few comments saying that we were crazy for taking the pushchair up but we don't regret it. The kids enjoyed seeing all the Buddhas as well as enjoying the scenery from the top.
This was one of the most unique places we visited when we were in Hong Kong and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wanted to hike and enjoy the views of Sha Tin. There's plenty of shops at the New Town Plaza which is where the MTR station is and it's where we had our lunch before doing some shopping in the area.
Until next time, stay tuned.
Hi @kathrynkw,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
Congratulations, your post has been added to Pinmapple! 🎉🥳🍍
Did you know you have your own profile map?
And every post has their own map too!
Want to have your post on the map too?
Absolutely mesmerizing! The intricate details and vibrant colors of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery are truly captivating. A spiritual oasis indeed.
It was amazing, the photos really don't do the place justice. It was so peaceful and we're so glad we went.
Sounds like I need to visit someday :)
Despite living in Hong Kong for many years and heard of this, I've never been here before, and I used to live quite near as well!!!
Well done on KM walking up, I didn't think he'd be afraid of anything!!
I'm surprised you have never been. I didn't know about it until I googled it. You love hiking too so think you would of liked this.
Well he isn't normally but I don't think he's ever walked on a path that steep with very little railings.
Congratulations @kathrynkw! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 40 posts.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
I went here alone. It was a great hike for me. I went here without any wifi on my phone, glad I didn't get lost.
When I was walking past IKEA, I got so confused and felt like I was walking the wrong way so I'm very glad I had google otherwise I probably would of given up.
Oh yeah, sometimes it wasn't very clear to get around HK. I did my research and took some screenshots of the blog I was reading on how to get there to the monastery.
This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @steemflow by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited.
I've been to this place 3x hehe.. shing mun river is also an amazing place..
We didn't get to go to Shing Mun River, we didn't have time as we promised the kids we would go to the dinosaur park and snoopy land 😂
Wow so beautiful
It really is! 100% recommend a visit.
The place was so peaceful that you can get peace if you stay. @kathrynkw
I agree with this. It was very zen.
Thank you. 😊
Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made it into our Honorable Mentions in Travel Digest #2199.
Your post has been manually curated by the @pinmapple team. If you like what we're doing, please drop by to check out all the rest of today's great posts and consider supporting other authors like yourself and us so we can keep the project going!
Become part of our travel community:
Thank you so much!
Very cool peaceful beautiful scenery. Wow that had to be a work out pushing the push chair up and than back down. I'm exhausted thinking about it, hehe.
I am very glad I didn't do much pushing 😂 I did have to carry our daughter down the hill though while our son was chilling in the pushchair.
Thats good you didn't do much pushing. Your hubby in that one photo is really exerting some force going up the hill. It probably felt like leg day at the gym after all that, haha. Shows your both physically fit 😊 Asides from pushing still quite the climb walking normally.
What a peaceful and soulful place! Absolutely stunning!
Hello kathrynkw!
It's nice to let you know that your article won 🥈 place.
Your post is among the best articles voted 7 days ago by the @hive-lu | King Lucoin Curator by peter.goki
You and your curator receive 0.1054 Lu (Lucoin) investment token and a 3.88% share of the reward from Daily Report 287. Additionally, you can also receive a unique LUSILVER token for taking 2nd place. All you need to do is reblog this report of the day with your winnings.
Buy Lu on the Hive-Engine exchange | World of Lu created by @szejq
STOPor to resume write a wordSTART