Just one subway stop away from Wong Tai Sin is the Chi Lin Buddhist Nunnery, founded in the 1930s to provide religious, cultural, educational, and elderly care services to the Hong Kong community. Reconstructed in the 1990s in the style of Tang dynasty monastic architecture (A.D. 618-907), the nunnery is a successful union of ancient building techniques and modern technology.
Imported yellow cedar from Canada was carved in China by skilled artisans and craftsmen and then reconstructed here like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle; no nails were used, but rather a system of wooden doweling and brackets. The main hall was modeled after the Foguang Monastery in Shanxi Province, while the double-eaved Hall of Celestial Kings is designed after the 11th-century Phoenix Hall outside Kyoto, Japan.
On nunnery grounds are a lotus pond, sculpted bushes and bonsai, and statues of the Goddess of Mercy, God of Medicine, and others. A better garden, however, awaits across the street, connected to the nunnery by a bridge and styled in imitation of famous gardens in Suzhou with ponds, a waterfall, a hexagonal-shaped pavilion, and a variety of trees and shrubbery. Otherwise, there isn’t much to see; this stopover will appeal mostly to architects, East Asian scholars, and gardeners.