On the first Saturday of spring break, Mike needed to go to Ikea to get some picture frames that he needed for a Mother's Day craft he's planning to do with this class. Since moving to Tsing Yi we are no longer close to any of the three Ikea's in Hong Kong, so instead we came up with a "two birds with one stone" idea. One of the Ikeas is next to the Ten Thousand Buddhas and that was one thing we wanted to do before we leave Hong Kong. Leila and I had been before when Rita was visiting, and we really wanted to go with Mom, but the weather was totally uncooperative when she was here, so we opted to use our one sunny Saturday to hit the beach instead.
Basically it's just a really big Buddha-lined staircase leading you to some temples at the top of a mountain. We think every hiking path should be lined with Buddhas. It's a great way to keep kids entertained because each one was different, and some of them looked pretty interesting.
Funny thing is that Mike was harassed by monks wanting money as we entered. They must have been fake monks, not real monks.
Even though you walk past many, many Buddhas, you don't really believe that there are actually ten thousand of them until you enter the temple at the top. Then it really kicks it up a notch!
Mike says it's the most impressive temple Hong Kong has to offer. Take it from him!
This is where Rita and I saw monkeys digging orange peels out of a garbage can. This time we weren't so lucky.
A sight for sore eyes?
Then you walk up some more steps to the next level.
Which had some more temples, and this really dilapidated building, with one of the scariest sights we've ever seen peeking out of the window. I'm sure the five people who read this blog have already seen this picture on Instagram. So creepy!
We don't understand why the Big Buddha is so popular (well, probably because it's so big and because of the cable cars, which are admittedly very fun), and this place barely ever gets a mention. On this sunny Saturday, it was pretty much just us and locals who were heading to the top because they are Buddhist, so it's what they do. Here, Mike is trying to see what it is they are doing. Burning paper money along with some clothes and some cake, from what he could tell.
A lovely view of Sha Tin from the top.
And the last of the ten thousand Buddhas.
And a turtle pond. How lovely. I mean, disgusting. It looked dirty and gross.
AND... this lovely lady is your reward for reaching the top. aaaaahhhh!
And then we went home and Joshua came over to help us dye some Easter eggs while Caleb was at the doctor. Only the girls are wearing different clothes, so maybe this wasn't the same day. But the dye we had worked great, and they turned out nice and bright, and a fun time was had by all!
