here today, gone tomorrow

When I wrote A Grand Day Out last month, I included three photos of a spectacular and unexpected new shrine in the Kwu Tung area. Consequently, I came back four days later (13th March) to show Paula—and to take a few photos, which I present here.

This is a view of the roof of the shrine:

You can’t see them in this view, but directly below the dragons at the top is a row of five people, each riding a different animal, some of which are mythical (lungma, unicorn). I can’t explain any of the details, but this is certainly impressive.

And this is the commemorative plaque alongside the shrine:

It lists all the financial donors to the project, with the most generous on the right.

At the time these photos were taken, the shrine was still curtained off:

The two previous photos provide a hint of the elaborate designs on the sidewall of the shrine.

The bas-relief panel along the bottom in the next photo shows two lions facing off against two elephants:

…while the corresponding panel on the left-hand side shows four lions:

Directly underneath the apices of the gable ends of the shrine are two quite splendid demons, first on the right:

…and then on the left:

The demons are all but identical, but the adjoining decorations are different.

There is an interesting panel under the dragons on the rear elevation of the shrine, and unlike the panel on the front elevation, I managed to take a photo by climbing up some stairs that lead to a shipping container cum office:

Some at least of the riders appear to be female:

This is another shot taken from the stairs:

The footbridge that we use to cross the expressway can be seen in the background.

On 25th March, we were passing this way and couldn’t help but notice four large red banners, which usually indicate that some kind of festival or other celebration is taking place:

This is a closer look at the foot of the right-hand supporting pillar in the previous photo:

I’ve been trying to work out what kind of creature this is: horse’s legs; dragon’s body; unicorn’s head. If it hadn’t been for the horn, I would have confidently labelled it a lungma.

The shrine was located just right of the previous photo. And this is what it looked like uncurtained:

In my earlier post, I wondered how long the colours would continue to be so vibrant, given that I assumed that these structures would be permanent. I was wrong! I used the past tense in describing the previous photo for a good reason. When we came this way on 12th April, we were in for quite a shock. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, because at the point where the shrine came into view, I’m in the process of executing a tight U-turn onto the ramp leading up to the footbridge, but the mechanical digger gave the game away:

All that expense! For what? A few weeks of festivities. Well, at least I have the photos, which I can examine for details that I haven’t yet noticed.