We finally put to use the "Do Not Disturb" sign and slept in till 12PM. It was Tomb-Sweeping Day today in China, where most would go to their ancestors' graves and upkeep it. However, much like Anzac Day, people went out shopping instead. Thousands and thousands of Chinese people had appeared to have travelled in to Hong Kong to enjoy the day off from work. It was so busy in the shopping centres we could barely move: we were in a concrete wall of people. The women's toilets had a line going from the bathroom hall all the way to the shops next door.
Today was the day I also discovered a shopping fiend bigger than me — my boyfriend.
We sat down at a ramen place, and my accomplishment of the day was to receive almost triple the amount of pork belly a ramen joint usually gives. Straight after, we went back to the hotel to recover from the zombie apocalypse. Then, we moved on to Sha Tin's Ten Thousand Buddha's Monastery.
The golden statues at the monastery swirled up and above like a much fancier Jacob's Ladder. It had that faint bush smell of leaves and dirt, and the sound of bugs chirped all around. Later, we discovered some of that chirping was actually belonging to the local monkeys — all of which walked like fat cats touring the place. These monkeys had no care for the people taking photos of them. They were much busier munching on some bamboo shoots outside the fence. One monkey even hopped through the fence and walked casually up the stairs like it were one of the tourists on the monastery walk.
At the end of the trailing staircase, there were several ancient red and gold buildings all featuring a golden buddha. In a monastery building (with no cameras allowed), a woman prayed amongst what must've been well over a thousand tiny buddhas. Make sure you're not desperate for the toilet because, in this space, you'll be newly introduced to "squat toilets". Along the way back down the stair hill, we were warned to be aware of fake monks trolling the area asking for money.
For the sake of an Instagram photo, we all then travelled down to the Rainbow District to where a rainbow set of apartments towered just above this carpark basketball court... we were not alone in our idea. Hundreds of other tourists stood upon the court, hoping for a shot. I wondered if the locals picking down their washing on the court had anything to say about the tourists clogging up the neighbourhood.
Later, since we were to travel to Macau the next day, we settled for an early night in with Maccas. Apparently there's no such thing as a large cheeseburger deal in Hong Kong, so double cheeseburger deals became the craze for the coming weeks.
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