Mountains

萬佛寺 Pose, Pose, Karma, Baby

Here begins my adventure around Hong Kong. I still have one more post on Korea but as that is more general I will do that after I have finished the rest of my trip. In Hong Kong we did a few truly touristy things, so I will start with those – we took things more slowly as we had 10 days to explore rather than just four. I had a great time so I hope you enjoy reading about my experiences there!

If you like Buddhas, go no further, this is the peak, the pinnacle of Buddhaness. They’ve got big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head, and ones much bigger than that. This is the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, which has even more than 10,000 Buddhas, clocking in at an amazing 12,800 statues of Buddha. This monastery is not an ancient site but one worth visiting despite its youth, as the visual aspect is fantastic though lacking a colourful history.

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The Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, 萬佛寺, was constructed in 1951 by Yuet Kai, a Buddhist monk. Yuet Kai studied philosophy at university before deciding, at age 19, that he would dedicate his life to Buddhism. To prove his commitment to the faith he cut off his left ring finger and little finger and used that burning flesh to light 48 oil lamps in front of a Buddha statue. He was pretty keen on the Buddha.

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Yuet Kai came to Hong Kong in 1933 and quickly gathered a following. A wealthy follower, impressed by his teachings, donated his estate and Yuet Kai decided to use the gifted land to build the monastery. He, along with his disciples, personally carried the building materials of the monastery up the mountain. It took 8 years to complete the buildings and a further 10 years to finish the 12,800 statues. Yuet Kai’s body is mummified, lacquered in gold, and sits in a case in the main hall.

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I have attempted to determine why Yuet Kai felt the need to construct over 10,000 Buddha statues when most monks are happy with one, or at least one really big one, but alas the internet has failed me. I can only assume that he had far too much money and couldn’t spend it on anything that wasn’t Buddha related.

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The monastery itself is located on the mountain so the walk up is pretty long. Luckily we visited in relatively cool weather but I can imagine that in the summer it becomes very uncomfortable and exhausting. The path up the mountain to the monastery is flanked by golden statues of Buddha, of all varieties, like a Buddhist version of Fushimi Inari, the thousand gate shrine in Kyoto. Some seemed suitably pious whereas some were relaxing, playing or posing. There is probably some deep Buddhist lesson here about many paths to enlightenment but I, along with most visitors, just found the more quirky ones amusing. I’d like to think the disciples had to pose for the statues and became increasingly more creative in their interpretation of Buddha.

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The monastery has several levels. The first level contains the pagoda, several statues and the hall that houses Yuet Kai’s blinged-out body. Here we wandered around and I was approached by a few women, not sure what nationality, who asked for pictures with me as though I too was an attraction. They seemed pretty excited so I said yes but it was a strange experience – I’ve got used to being pointedly ignored in Japan by everyone except small children.

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Walking higher up to the second level of the monastery we found several more small shrines and halls dedicated to various Buddhist deities and a lovely view, albeit a hazy one. We also found some turtles hanging out in one of the ponds below a beautiful white statue of Kwun Yam, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Inside the halls dedicated to Buddha were, what a surprise, walls and walls of tiny Buddha in cases. It never ends.

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The Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery is definitely worth a visit for a full-on Buddhatastic experience and a great walk up the mountain. The monastery itself is free – there are ‘monks’ begging on the way up but the monastery is currently run only by laypersons, these monks are scam artists.

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Our main method of navigating our way back to our hotel was the conveniently placed N Seoul Tower, just above where we were staying; we simply had to walk towards the tower from the station until we found our road. As such it only made sense for us to pay our guiding beacon a visit during our stay.

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N seoul Tower, or the YTN Seoul Tower, constructed in 1971, is a communications and observation Tower and is the highest point in Seoul, at 479.7m above sea level. The tower itself is 236 meters and visitors can go up for a fee. We got the cable car up to the base of the tower but elected not to pay to go up to the tower as it was fairly expensive and you can see a lot of the view from the base as it is already on a mountain. The N stands for ‘namsan’ (as in Namsan Mountain, where the tower is built), ‘new’ and ‘nature’ (not really sure why it stands for nature but it is in a park).

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The tower is lit up at night until 11pm on nights that the air quality index reads 45 or less. The South Korean Index denotes that a reading under 50 will not affect anyone including sensitive patients whereas over 50 carries some risks; as such the tower also functions as an air quality indicator.

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Upon arriving at the base of the tower it becomes apparent that this is a very popular date spot. Every railing is covered in brightly coloured padlocks with names written on them, some have even opted for bike locks (even better?), or have locked phone cases onto the railings in order to write out more feelings. These locks are a sign of eternal love and are probably a pretty cheap date idea. If one can safeguard a relationship with a quick trip to a romantic spot and a £1 padlock then love can’t be all that difficult.

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Curious, I did some research (wikipedia) on the origins of this tradition. The supposed original ‘love bridge’ is in Serbia, where a school teacher, Nada, once met with her lover, a Serbian officer. They committed to each other and the officer went off to war. However, while fighting abroad he fell in love with another woman and left Nada, who subsequently died of heartbreak. Young women from her home town, wishing to avoid a similar fate, wrote their and their lovers’ names on padlocks and attached them to the railings of the bridge the two lovers used to meet.

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In many European cities these locks are cut off, however Seoul tower seems to actively encourage it; their website homepage reads: “where your love comes true, now have a happy date at N Seoul Tower“. We were there a few days before Valentine’s day, I can’t imagine how busy it was on V-day.

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We ate dinner up on the mountain with a lovely view of the city. I tried Korean beer which was weak and inferior to Japanese beer, and ate bibimbap, a dish where you mix rice, vegetables and spicy sauce together. This was much better than the beer.

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I would recommend a visit to Seoul tower, even if it’s just to do the same as me and just go for the view from the bottom. It was Seoul’s number one tourist attraction in 2012 and attracts over 8 million visitors per year.  I have heard there is a lot of stuff to do within the tower so if you have time you can spend half a day or so there. You could even get the full experience and declare your undying love with a padlock (or even a bike lock), just don’t throw your key off the platform or you’ll get into trouble.