So the other day, I was wandering around the Wong Tai Sin area just to explore the neighbourhood a little. I have a special connection to the place because my dad grew up there and I was greatly delighted after getting lost and finding Fung Tak Park. The park was something of a homage to the famous tale of "Journey to the West," a fictionalized account of Xuanzhang's journey to India with an interesting array of characters - mischievous Monkey, lustful Pigsy and misanthropic Friar Sand. In book form, "Journey to the West" is about a couple volumes long and hundreds and hundreds of pages but most Chinese children are familiar with some of the episodes and tales from the story just as kids in North America or Europe would be familiar with fairy tales by Charles Perrault or Hans Christian Anderson.
When you enter the park, you are greeted by these giant rocks with an artificial waterfall.
There's this interesting trail with a long dragon mosaic that leads you to the Palace of the Dragon King.
There's a set of stairs by the "palace" that goes up to the top of the artificial waterfall. When you look down, you'll see a pipe. Just randomly sitting there. You could assume that it's just part waterworks involved with the artificial falls but it's also a reference to Monkey's weapon, a staff that he stole from the Sea King's Palace. The staff shrinks so that Monkey can tuck it behind his ear when he's not using it and it can grow as big as he wants it to be!
Another section of the park contains five little monuments that
stick out like fingers and are meant to be the "Buddha's Hand Mountain," where Monkey was trapped for 500 years as punishment for trying to steal peaches from the immortals in the heavens. I didn't take a picture of the little monument, so this picture was taken from this flickr page.
The park may not be extravagant or big but isn't it cool to see a childhood fairy tale come alive like this?
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