Long weekend in Hong Kong

Random beautiful staircase we found while walking

A few weeks ago I headed to Hong Kong with a friend for a long weekend. We didn't have much of a plan, but just wanted to go somewhere where we could walk around, eat good food, and get around fairly easy. Hong Kong fits the bill for all of that. It does make me miss having good, quick, public transportation, especially with how much easier it makes exploring. I've been to Hong Kong before so I wasn't all that interested in doing most of the typical tourist things, although I will admit I was excited to get to ride the world's longest escalator this time around. Although that is a bit of a deceptive title. It is actually a series of travelators and escalators that work their way up the hill from the harbor. The idea was to make commuting a bit easier for that area of town.

Colorful Choi Hung Estates

What we did do was go out and find all sorts of interesting spots for photos. The process of which reminds me of just how much the internet has changed travel. Most of the places we went to, we would have never known about before the plethora of photos that are now posted online. Andrea, the friend I was travelling with, was great at mining Instagram for idea of spots that we wanted to see. Those included the colorful Choi Hung Estate, an apartment block that is a literal rainbow of colors as you look up, as well as the Yik Cheong Building which is that quintessential snap of densely packed humanity that you expect from a huge Asian city like Hong Kong.

Yik Cheong Apartments

Perhaps my two favorite spots though were visiting the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery, where the over ten thousand Buddhas was not actually the highlight (hey, one large number is as good as any other, right). No, for me the highlight was the over 500 golden statues that lined the path up. Upon returning I had to do a bit of research, as I was pretty sure that these statues weren't actually Buddhas. Seems I was correct, they are Arhan statues, images of individuals that are fairly advanced on the path to enlightenment but have not yet attained the level of being a Buddha. These showed a wide variety of features, and even situations. I saw one that stood out with its super long arm and others that were standing on animals (tiger, turtle, ox to name a few). It definitely kept the walk up the stairs interesting and entertaining. Although at one point I was wishing I had a statue by statue description so I knew more about each one. Of course then I might never have made it up the hill.

Arhan statues at Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery

Perhaps the most interesting and different stop was a quick walk through what is called goldfish street. A street that sells...goldfish. Something about seeing all those fish bagged and hanging from grates was just fascinating. Although I couldn't help but think about the guy in Turkey who used to sell goldfish from the top of his car close to my school there. So perhaps my fascination had something to do with memories. Or maybe it was just about how the bag changed the perspective on many fish. In any case it was a memorable street to explore. And seemed well tied to the goldfish that we saw being sold as part of the Mid-Autumn Festival decorations as well.

Goldfish street