Lantau Island

On Wednesday, Alley and I took the ferry from Central to Lantau Island, which is about forty minutes away. We arrived at Mui Wo and took a really bumpy bus ride an hour or so to Ngong Ping, where the Po Lin Monastery is (also the big bronze Buddha). Ngong Ping is really beautiful and, despite the tourists who want to take a peek at the Buddha, really peaceful. The grounds of the monastery were filled with flowers, oranges, incense, a pond, and temples. The air smelled so good (such a big difference from HK island) and we wandered about the almost empty grounds. We stumbled upon a greenhouse (where I heard a voice chanting somewhere), and walked toward the hostel and even came across a buffalo hanging out in the grass. It was really quiet and the perfect place to write. I'm thinking of staying at the hostel for a week or so and just work there. We then met up with Sam and had an all-vegetarian lunch at the monastery, which was delicious and simple. We also had our fortunes told. You take a tin filled with sticks, ask a question, and shake the tin until a stick falls out. The stick has a number and you go to the fortune booth and look up the number and read your fortune. Mine went something like: "Everything is laid out for you, and you may choose as you please." Hmm....





Back in Central, I went to Li Yuen Street to buy these little lanterns for my room, which were less than $2 US dollars for twelve. I then walked about LKF, browsed around at bookstores, and stopped in at the Fringe gallery. Before I knew it, it was dinner time and I met up with some HKU creative writing graduate students (and writers who just graduated from the program) and the Australian poet Dennis Haskell. Great food, great conversation, and great new people! This Saturday, there is another IWW seminar at HKBU, "The City Under the Sea" and I'm looking forward to attending that.