yuen tsuen ancient trail

We had a public holiday today for May/Labor Day, and I had the opportunity of hiking a trail I'd never been on before.The Yuen Tsuen trail is the original path that people would traverse to go between Yuen Long and Tsuen Wan.

I went with my friend and former colleague, Cherry (she was one of three Cherrys on staff while I was at the school). Here she is at the start of our ascent (on the Tsuen Wan side).
After enduring about half an hour of stairs, we came to some village homes. I was surprised, albeit pleasantly, that people still live in such hard-to-access places.

It was quite a smoggy day, but you could still make out the high-rises below us. We were pretty high up!

You can't get away from corporations, even when hiking in the middle of nowhere. But I'm glad Samsung is doing its part to afforest (="turn [land] into forest").

I found this symbol on a similar afforestation plaque. And no, it's not a swastika. From a little research, I now know that swastikas go clockwise, while this Buddhist symbol goes anti-clockwise. Seeing this reminded me of something from my childhood: my school bus would pass a Buddhist school every morning, and for a few days I lived in horror, consumed by the thought that Naziism was alive and well in Hong Kong... and then I guess I asked my parents or finally noticed the name of the school...

A nice stream that we passed.


Pretty!
These are some ponds in Tsing Fai Tong village.


Not much of the village remains... just a building identified as "Parents Farm" (see the sign below).
This sign is pretty interesting (i.e. worth enlarging).
After hiking for about 3 1/2 hours, we finally got to our destination -- Sham Tseng -- where we enjoyed some good eating (read below).