Temple & muscle men – Hong Kong

Joyce Belfort

8 years ago

As usual, I did not plan this at all. It was the earliest available ferry.

Outlying island of Hong Kong, it had the old school charm of a fishing port. Smells a little bit fishy, but hey, chilled and lovely. Nice change from the main island.

Upon arrival, this is what I saw on my left. Chilled for HK, right?

Wandering aimlessly does have its merit. I came across this old temple. This Taoist temple was called Pak Tai 北帝廟 or Yuk Hui 玉虛宮. I had no idea why it had 2 names. Identity crisis happened to temples too, I guess.

Pak Tai temple was originally built in 1783. It was believe that the deity, Pak Tai (Taoist sea god) helped to stop a plague outbreak. Hence the residents built this temple to worship the deity. There were other spun to the story as well. No matter what the true story was, I was quite glad that they built this. Pak Tai is currently listed as a grade 1 historic building in Hong Kong.

No photography inside the temple was allowed. This was a practising religious temple.

*Other temples on the island: Tin Hau 天后

They were preparing a festival of sort. The local young men are supposed to climb to and get to a bun (?!?). I was sure that it would be quite spectacular to watch. It was such a pity that I missed the actual event 🙁

Moving along the pathways, I got to a beach. There was almost no body. SUCH a lovely sight!! The sand wasn’t white or super fine, but for a deprived person working in Shanghai at the time, this was all that I needed. The life guards were real eye candies 😉 ♥

Continue walking along the beach will lead to a place called ‘Cheung Po Tsai’, allegedly a treasure hide out for a 19th century pirate. There were lots of excited kids, so I gave it a miss.

Walked around some more and found lots of souvenir stores. The star item must a bun (?!?). It comes in all sort of merchandises – magnet, pencil sharpener, pens, stuff toy, edible bun, key rings etc. Tons of seafood stalls as well of course.