Yesterday was the big exchange student trip to see some of the cultural sights of Hong Kong and get a taste of Chinese culture and history.
The first stop was the Man Mo Temple. It is a Taoist temple dedicated to two gods: the god of war and the god of literature. It over 100 years old which is really impressive for Hong Kong--everything in that city is pretty new. Chinese mothers come to the temple everyday to make wishes and get their fortunes told. To appease the gods, these women bring food and other things.
The offerings for the gods. There are fruit and some meat.
Outside of the Man Mo Temple was a wet market, where Hong Kong natives come to buy their food every day.
Next, we went to the wishing trees. Here, people write their wishes on scrolls of paper and hook it to an orange with string and then throw it over the wishing tree. If the wish stays in the tree, your wish is granted. But so many people were throwing wishes at the tree, the tree began to die, so they are trying to restore it right now. To keep the superstitious natives happy, they built a plastic wishing tree so they could receive their plastic wishes. ;)
The plastic wishing tree
The real wishing tree
Then we went to the Avenue of Stars, the Hong Kong version of the street in Hollywood with all the celebrity names in the cement.
This picture is my favorite. A fellow exchange student, Devin, wanted to get his picture with the Jackie Chan star. But as he got down to take the picture, several Asian kids joined in to get their picture taken too. It was pretty hilarious.
More about the rest of my tour will be up soon.
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