Day 4

Another busy day! It is of course new years day so sun nin fa lok! And kung hei fat choi! Or happy new year, and may you have a prosperous new year. Today we went to Sha Tin, and made our way up 400 steps to the famous 10'000 Buddhas Monastary.

I think we chose one of the busiest days to go. There were people everywhere with incense and we came back down stinking of the stuff. They had lion dancers up there too, walking around. The temple itself is pretty cool- I think there's over 12'000 little buddha statues lining the wall. There was some sort of big gold god statue in the middle, and people were shaking their fortune sticks and praying in front of it.

I thought we could visit the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, also in Sha Tin, whilst we were there but after the taxi had dropped us off we realised it was closed for the new year. Oh well. Next time hehe.

In the evening we went to watch the New Year's parade. It wasn't as packed as I thought it was going to be, but we didn't really get a good view either. Still we managed to see the floats and odd glimpses between people's heads. There was a nice atmosphere too. Everything was very well organised, so much better than if this was happening in the UK. I liked the marching bands best, and also the Disney float. I'll add some pictures later when Blogger lets me. There were various floats, and inbetween different groups of people. Like the army in their uniform, twirling their guns, people dressed as peacocks, a karate group, dragons, I think the people representing Hong Kong in the olympics, people "riding" pretend Emu's, marching bands. Loads of people! The photos are all up on flickr now too!