Picture of the Day: Lo Pan Temple

The Lo Pan Temple contrasts with highrises

 

Today from Kennedy Town I walked along Victoria Road and the Mount Davis Road. There are many nice flats in the area and I saw some girls in uniform walking down. Turns out they study at St Clare's Girls' School which was founded by missionary sisters from Quebec. That explains the students wearing red scarves with a maple leaf embroidered at the bottom.

Large Chinese-style grave sites at Pok Fu Lam

Down below I could see Mt Davis Road was parallel to Victoria Road and I could have kept going, but then decided to go along a highway overpass that took me to Pok Fu Lam Road. Below the overpass was a hillside with very large Chinese graves. 

Pok Fu Lam Road is very busy and pedestrians only have a few opportunities to cross the road via an underpass. The first one I went into was a maze with no signs for directions and I just chose a path to go on and ended up on the other side of the street! Later one I took another underpass to go back to the other side. 

Then there was a sign for Lo Pan Temple and I decided to check it out. I went down some stairs and saw the temple's roof, an archaic building in modern Hong Kong. Then I went down to see it and it is built for Lo Pan, the patron saint of Chinese builders and contractors.

The temple's curious jagged roof from the back

It was first built in 1884 for Lo Pan, or Lu Ban in Mandarin. He was a Chinese carpenter, engineer, philosopher, inventor, military thinker, and statesman during the Spring and Autumn period in China.

I took a quick look inside, though an elderly man was staring at me and I wondered if I should step inside and thought better not! But inside is a two-hall structure, with an unusual jagged roof and many colourful ceramic figurines decorating the roof.  

A quick walk along the neighbourhood revealed if I walked straight down I would hit Sands Street in Kennedy Town. So instead I took the long way, walking back up the stairs and continued a bit further down to HKU MTR station and then walked down Hill Road to Shek Tong Tsui.

The front of Lo Pan Temple

It was an interesting meander in the neighbourhood.