On Thursday morning we had to wake up earlier than usually, we had a trip planned to the neighbouring island to go and visit the big Buddha statue and Po Lin Monastery. After half an hour ride with a boat we went on a bush which drove us for an hour on a narrow mountain road with steep ravines on the side of the road.

As we stepped off the bus we could see a big shadow emerging from the mist further up the hill. It felt almost like in movies in some monastery high up in the Himalayas. Even the vegetation was different. And because of the fog and wind it felt cool, nothing like tropical climate down below.

From the parking lot the path lead us through enormous arch and by about 10 statues of warriors. It looked quite majestic. Soon after we arrived to the bottom of enormous staircase that lead to the Buddha statue. After climbing 270 steps we were in front of the statue. Wow, it is enormous. You can actually go inside and there is small museum in it.

After we took some photos we went on a short walk on the numerous paths around and saw some weird cows. The area was really nice, clean and tidy with a lot of walk paths.

Lastly we took a look at the monastery. It looked surreal, old buildings with strong Asian style. Lots of dragons and decorations. We also saw a room filled with 1000 statues of Buddha. Can you count them all? 🙂

Again the monastery was full of people, some were tourists, and some came to pray with big smoke stick all over the place, it really felt like in a movie. In their culture you give-burn gifts for your ancestors so there were quite a lot of watches scattered around or some burned money on the altars.

Before we left the monastery I felt strange surge of courage and decided to try a random food from the stall nearby, for the first time on the whole trip. I tried some “fish balls” whatever that was xD, it didn’t taste as fish, though that may be because it was so spicy I couldn’t feel /taste anything else.

After the balls we went to a nearby restaurant, the area in front of the monastery is full of tourist shops and restaurants, where I could finally had another portion of ramen. I really like this dish 🙂