Nan Lian Garden

We visited three, recently built, tranquil places today. The Nan Lian Garden is an ornate oasis, surrounded by elevated highways in Kowloon, with some gorgeous trees.

Linked to the park, by a motorway bridge, is the Chi Lin Nunnery, a Buddhist complex, built entirely with wood in 1998, without a single nail. I was about to take a forbidden photograph of one of the shrines but was deterred by the security guard's fierce reaction to such an infraction of the rules by a Nikon user. So I "made do" with some shots of the curving roofs, Tang Dynasty style.

Earlier, we visited the Kowloon Walled City Park, but not before an unnecessary mile-long walk, on a stuffy, sticky day, thanks to an error in the Rough Guide. An email pointing out that they should have printed "right" not "left" is on its way. Nevertheless, the stylish park was beautifully tended. This was the site of a notorious slum, in a walled area, excluded from the 1898 lease of the New Territories to Britain. It was not closed until 1991 but then was demolished and replaced by the park. A tasteful gallery illustrates the history with some old photographs.