Guest Blog: Day 2 in Hong Kong

October 22, 2010

Despite level 3 typhoon warnings, Zoe and I planned a trip to Lantau Island and the Po Lin Monastery via subway and, we were hoping, the tram. Upon arrival, however, the tram was closed because of strong winds…the typhoon was reportedly headed toward Hong Kong. That, however did not stop us and we opted to take the bus over the two-lane, twisty turny highway and it was well worth it!

The monastery was founded in 1906 by three monks visiting from Jiangsu and was initially known as "The Big Hut." It was renamed to its present name in 1924. The main temple houses 3 bronze statues of the Buddha representing his past, present and future lives as well as many Buddhist scriptures.

Tian Tan Buddha, a Giant Buddha statue completed in 1993, is an extension of the monastery and soars nearly 85 feet tall. We will come back to the Giant Buddha.

We initially wanted to get away from the crowds and wandered past the Giant Buddha toward the “Fun” Path. This place was amazing…peaceful and surreal. We ended at what appeared to be a prayer place for the Monks and probably people who were lucky to find their way to this area. But the best was yet to come! We backtracked from the “Fun” Path and followed the path toward the Wisdom Path and the “Heart Sutra” pillars.

The Wisdom Path is a wooden version of the famous 260-word prayer, “Heart Sutra.” It is made up of 38 wooden rectangular beams or obelisks varying in height from 26 to 33 feet in the shape of a figure eight to represent infinity. It is impossible to describe this place, but the photo to the right gives a sense of the enormity of each of the pillars. Each obelisk bears a portion of the prayer, which is written in the traditional Chinese characters.

This unique attraction is based on calligraphy by the renowned Chinese scholar, Professor Jao Tsung-I who first saw the Heart Sutra at Mount Taishan in Shandong in 1980. This inspired him to do a calligraphy of the prayer. Once this masterpiece was completed, Professor Jao presented it to the people of Hong Kong in 2002.

The Hong Kong government decided to reproduce this artwork in the form of a large-scale outdoor wooden display at the foot of the Lantau Peak near Ngong Ping on Lantau Island, the home of the Giant Buddha at the Po Lin Monastery.

But WAIT, there is more…always more with Zoe and me. We couldn’t resist at least walking toward the steep path that worked its way up towards Lantau Peak. Despite the clouds and a threat of rain (and maybe even the typhoon!), up we went, and up and up and up! It felt like we climbed to the top of the world but nothing like the Fourteeners! Lantau Peak is the second highest mountain in Hong Kong at a mere 3,064 feet above sea level! From our vantage point you could see the Giant Buddha off in the distance (see below). No one else was there…again the tranquility of this place was awesome. We could see the storm clouds and felt the mist and sensed the shear magnificence of this place.

We climbed up for about two hours and came to a bench…we thought we had reached the top, and with the impending storm (and what we thought could have been typhoon sirens), we decided to make the climb down to the bottom. We will never forget this part of our trip, and knew we had experienced something most people don’t even know about…how lucky are we!!

Lunch was an experience, and while we were turned away from the vegetarian meal because of my gluten restrictions, the deli ladies were more than happy to read (in Chinese) what I couldn’t eat and hand picked a variety of interesting dishes including a warm tofu with honey syrup (yum), a couple of bean cakes and nicely spiced rice noodles. This was more than enough to refuel, and off we went to complete our day of exploring.

Even though we had climbed about a million steps up Lantau Peak, we still decided to climb the walk to the top to experience the sheer size of Tian Tan Buddha. I was humbled by the elderly who made the trek up the 260 steps to the top.

The bus ride back to the main station on Lantau lulled us both into a serene state. It was, indeed an exhilarating and fulfilling day!

--Jan Mueller