JDPFu.com 2025

Today we had a leisurely morning.

Items:

• Breakfast at Maxine Express
• Train to the New Territories, Sha Tin.
• Visit the Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple
• Lunch in the local mall
• Visit the HK Heritage Center
• Train back to the nice hotel, crazy taxi to the newer "eh" hotel, The Eaton
• The room is tiny compared to any other hotel room that I’ve been in anywhere. The room wasn’t ready by 5pm, free drinks given. When we were told to come back, the room still wasn’t ready – no comp.
• Put feet up for 30 minutes
• Dinner was at a German Bier Garten – Zer Gute!

The Maxine Express breakfast in the train station was a half English, half Chinese breakfast. The pork/pasta/soup was fantastic. The egg, good. The bun and tiny hot dog – should have been given to the local dogs. Soup for breakfast? Yep. Huge, tasty, and filling. Just what I needed for a long day of walking up and down steps.

We left the Hung Hom MTR station on the Lok Ma Chau train for Sha Tin – we decided to see if 1st Class was worth the extra cost on a short CKR trip before the Shenzhen trip on Tues. It is. A few picts of outside the station and we’re on the right track to our first stop of the day.

Getting off the train, it takes a little bit to figure out where we were and where to head. A compass would have been handy – I have one now.

10,000 Buddha temple – Unbelievable. You have to see the picts. They begin with the first golden Buddha’s, each numbered up the steps to the monastery. Each Buddha is unique – none are the same. Climbing the steps was real work, but the sense of accomplishment and view over Sha Tin make it worth the effort. There appears to be a back road to the top so you don’t have to walk it, if you know that road exists.

The Chinese use different brooms than we do, but they work wonderfully, somehow. The broom I saw appeared to be improperly made to a westerner, but seemed to work perfectly.

As I look back over these pictures, I smell the incense, hear the sounds of people talking in a multitude of languages (Indonesian, Mandarin, Cantonese, English, German, Spanish, Japanese, etc…) The temple is very busy due to the Chinese New Years holiday. There are a number of family crypts here where loved ones can be visited and remembered. Entering the temple and seeing all the Buddha figures all around is impressive. Imagine having to dust them all. We head even higher to additional buildings that contain more family remembrances. Heading back to the main temple area, we’re called by the beating drums and a dragon dance team. At one point, the dragon is extended 2 full humans in height.

I have to nurse my camera battery so it doesn’t run out here.

We head back to the train station – that has a huge mall attached. Either a big sandwich or pizza -- Oliver’s Super Sandwich house wins. I had the seafood linguine, Jim had a sandwich. Tasty.

Next we head off to find the HK Heritage Museum. After a few wrong turns (walking about a mile extra so it is painful) where we can see the destination, but there isn’t any way to get there due to construction, we find the museum and get personalized guidance from a concierge. Not enough heritage, too much pop and current "art" for our tastes. Each exhibit room has different rules for pictures. The signs outside – are too many and after seeing 10 signs saying what you can’t do, you forget whether non-flash photographs are ok or not. Jim gets hassled for taking picts in a non-photograph exhibit, so no more occur. My battery is dead, so I don’t have any of this museum.

We take the train back to Kowloon – first class (standing room only) and transfer from exceptional hotel to "eh" hotel, the Eaton, via taxi. The room isn’t ready, so they give us a few free drinks. I have my standard free drink, a Long Island Iced Tea. Jim has a Duvel. The room isn’t ready again and again. Pooh.

Dinner is at the Beir Garten. Der Schnitzel ist Zer Gute! Grosse weise beir ist gute, alzo.
Jim has the wurst – expected from the Sausage King_.!>http://www.jdpfu.com/photodata/2008/Hong_Kong/Day9-Sun-10000Buddhas/thumbnails/P1020566.jpg! Political discussions occur, then home.