王大仙 - Wong Tai Sin Temple

I asked to tag along with Zhenghan and Sarala and their new buddy, Kai Tak one Sunday in January so these photos were probably taken like, more than a month ago. Anyway, we visited 王大仙, the Wong Tai Sin Temple that is pretty well-known for answering devotees' prayers or requests.

It's not difficult to get here, there's actually a MTR station named after the temple, and that is where you'll need to get off if you're visiting this temple. Exit signs will direct you to the direction of the temple; and you'll have to go up a rather large overhead bridge to get to the other side of the road.

#1 On the overhead bridge

#2 The temple from a distance

Since it was the pre Chinese New Year period, the temple was thronged with large crowds of visitors and red, garish festive decorations were put up all around.

#3

#4 An occasional rare quiet moment

#5 Shops selling CNY souvenirs and what-nots along the perimeter of the temple

#6 how the inside of one of these shops looks like

#7

#8 lazing floating turtle in one of the temple ponds

#9 what up

#10 no idea what the sign says, really

#11 I like this picture a lot! Even though the composition's really messy :x 

#12

#13 Blooming lotuses

#14 Wall of 9 dragons, 九龍墻

#15 Looks very misleading, but I really don't think they were getting it on, even though I don't know how turtles do it

#16 a fierce-looking deity.

#17 red adornment to add to the 'CNY feel'

#18

#19 Sandalwood incense

#20 Pick-up sticks (literally; pardon my lousy pun)

#21 Yue Lao 月老 a.k.a. the matchmaker deity; maybe the man was asking the deity when will his right match come along.

#22

#23 Peoplesss

#24 Another area of the temple; quite big, as you might be able to tell by now

#25 撞星! Man in the suit is a HK veteran actor, but I have no clue what's he called.

#26 Red was the perfectly normal colour to be put up.

Anyhow, next to the temple itself is another building with lots of fortune-telling/palm-reading stalls in it. With a question/prayer in your mind (repeat if you have many prayers/questions but don't be greedy lah), kneel before the statues, shake the cylinder case containing the 100 divination lots to 求籤, write down the number of the lot that dropped out from your cylinder case on a little slip of paper, and exchange it for a slip of paper at one of the stalls that depicts the good/bad aspects of the lot that you've chosen - not too sure about the exact price, but it definitely costs less than HK$20. The person manning the stall will probably get you to have your fortune told or palm read as well, but you can always reject them politely.

#27 A row of fortune-telling stalls; ALL OF THEM. Some of stalls have pictures of the stall-owners with famous people like celebrities; and that's probably how they manage to attract people to come to their stalls.

#28

KH told me that people like to 求姻緣 at Wong Tai Sin because it's 特別靈. I asked about how things will be in general (health, family, school, etc) for the coming new year, and the lady whom I got my divination lot (no. 94!) explanation from said something like, "oh, it'll be an average year for you... probably will meet with some difficulties along the way, but stay true to yourself to avoid trouble, blah". Not such a good lot, but ahhhhh, I'll just have to make the best out of what I have!

That's it for my little trip to Wong Tai Sin temple!

#29 lots of love from me!